Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings DX

Genre: Turn-Based JRPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Note: This game is included in the Atelier Mysterious Trilogy Deluxe Pack bundle along with Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Book DX, and Atelier Firis: The Alchemist & The Mysterious Journey DX

For those unfamiliar with the Atelier franchise, an atelier (it’s a French word that’s normally pronounced “uh-tell-ee-yay”, but the characters in these games pronounce the word “at-lee-ur”) is a workshop or studio used by a craftsman or artisan… or in these games, by an alchemist. The Atelier games are a franchise of JRPGs that focuses on young, almost exclusively female adventurers who seek ingredients they can combine and use to enhance their items, with these crafting mechanics forming a central part of the game.

These games have each been released in a subset series that ties them together with a few of the other games in the franchise both in terms of mechanics, but also in terms of the storyline. I know that for many, the Atelier series can seem somewhat intimidating, but BarrelWisdom.com thankfully has a helpful guide to introduce players to the series. However, for the purposes of this review I’ll try to address where this game fits both into the Atelier franchise as a whole, as well as within its individual sub-series.

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Atelier Primer: Mysterious Series

Atelier Lydie & Suelle, originally released on PC, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch in 2018, and is the third game of the Mysterious series, the seventh series of games in the Atelier franchise, which also contains Atelier Sophie, released on PlayStation 3 in Japan only and later brought to the West on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in 2016, and Atelier Firis on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in 2017, with all of these games getting improved remakes on the PC, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch in 2021, with all additional content originally released as DLC, as well as new content, with all platforms getting a Mysterious Trilogy Deluxe Pack compilation containing all three games. It also bears mention that there is one more game in the Mysterious series due for release long after the other three – Atelier Sophie 2, due for release on PC, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch in 2022.

Atelier Lydie & Suelle is a double-dip of sorts, having been released on the eShop twice now. However, don’t think you’ll be able to buy the original game as a discount – the original release of this game was pulled from the eShop when the DX version was released, and you can now only get the DX version of the game. It’s just as well, though – this re-release is actually $20 cheaper than the original version anyway, so if you’re buying this game now, you’re getting the better end of the deal here.

The mysterious series is generally fairly light on the overarching time limits the Atelier games are known for, with both Atelier Sophie and Atelier Lydie & Suelle not having any overall limit, and Atelier Firis having a fairly relaxed overarching time limit. I can’t say yet how Sophie 2 compares to these games in this regard – as of this writing, it has not yet been released.

Having said that, there are a few other elements that tie together the Mysterious trilogy. Each of these games adds a Puzzle game-style element to the alchemy creation process, effectively having the player slot Tetris-like pieces into a grid, with each of the games doing this slightly differently. The Mysterious games also change the way you acquire new recipes – instead of getting them in recipe books, you get them when “inspired” through the completion of tasks.

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If You’re Going to Do a Task, Do It Suelle

And the puns continue…

After the promise shown in the somewhat uneven Atelier Firis, Atelier Lydie & Suelle is a game that feels like two steps forward, one step backwards. On the one hand, this entry in the Atelier franchise improves on numerous elements of the previous games, and fixes most of the biggest remaining flaws from prior entries in the franchise. On the other hand, the most promising and exciting element of Atelier Firis, the more open-ended world design, is completely gone this time around. As such, this feels like a highly-refined version of the less-ambitious games that came before Firis, more than a game that builds on the potential Firis represented.

Once again, players select a location from a world map, with those locations being relatively small in size and scope, consisting of multiple smaller inter-connected areas. This means the element of exploration and discovery from Atelier Firis is once again gone. However, in its place you have a game that is the best expression yet of the item-crafting focused elements of the series.

Gone again are the overarching time limits for the game’s story, with the only such limits now once again limited to smaller sub-quests, as they were in Atelier Sophie. With this being the case, players can focus their efforts where they like, opting to grind if they choose to, spend more time gathering components and crafting items, or progressing the story through location-based events marked on your map and easily jumped to via a map travel command.

Atelier Lydie & Suelle also has what I feel is the best version of the Tetris-esque Puzzle game elements in its alchemy system, a signature of the Mysterious series. Unfortunately, combat is once again fairly bland and uninteresting, but I suppose it’s no worse than most other entries in the series up until this point.

The story this time around is good and fairly well-written, albeit fairly low-stakes compared to some other entries in the Atelier franchise. Lydie & Suelle are twin girls who aspire to become the best alchemists in the world, but are somewhat stifled by a lack of customers at their shop, a lack of proper funds, a deadbeat dad who’s always foisting his work onto them, and they also soon realize to their chagrin that their skill in alchemy could do with some work as well. However, fate smiles on them when a new initiative to certify alchemists brings other practitioners of the art to their town that the twins can learn from, and meanwhile they also discover that their father’s pet project, paintings he keeps locked in his basement that hold a mysterious power, may also hold a key to their success. Those who played the prior Mysterious series games will see characters from those titles pop up throughout the story here, but there’s no need to have played those earlier games to understand what’s going on here.

In the sound department, Atelier Lydie & Suelle unfortunately has no English dub, so players will have to play with the Japanese voicework, which seems decent enough. And when it comes to the soundtrack, this is generally pretty good, with some nice instrumental themes like Escaping the Crowds, Garden of Memories and Faded Dreams ~ Lydie, Sunflower, Part 1, and The Glittering Blue Depths ~ Lydie, to name a few. It’s far from the best soundtrack in the series, but it’s far from the worst, also.

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Don’t Like My Puns? Too Bad, Put a Lydie On It

The graphics, on the other hand, are a significant jump over prior entries in the series. Once again, the cel-shaded characters look magnificent, but this time around they’re joined by absolutely beautiful, detailed environments with wonderful textures (save for in a few spots), nice-looking water, and good lighting. This is a very nice-looking game, and for the first time this series looks like it actually belongs on a modern game platform.

However, I say all that with some major caveats. There is still some pop-in, though it’s not terrible, and not nearly as noticeable as it was in Atelier Firis. There’s also some ugly aliasing, and occasional framerate drops (particularly in cutscenes). However, even worse than this is the game’s excessive use of dithering, which is really distracting in docked mode, but doesn’t seem to be a problem in handheld mode. Anyway, this issue isn’t terrible enough to make the game look outright ugly, but it definitely mars the otherwise solid presentation of this game.

I suppose that since I’ve been commenting about the camera controls in this series, I should mention them again here, but at this point it seems like I can probably stop, as Atelier Lydie & Suelle once again seems to be fine in this area. And of course there is yet again the lack of Nintendo Switch features like gyroscopic motion controls or the touchscreen.

In the end, Atelier Lydie & Suelle is an excellent entry in the Atelier franchise that acts as a refinement of virtually everything that came before… but it’s also a fairly safe entry in the franchise, and isn’t anywhere near as ambitious as Atelier Firis was, even though it’s ultimately a better game than its predecessor. Players new to the Atelier franchise will find this to be an excellent entry point, although the game’s performance issues do mar it just a bit. Even so, this is a great Turn-Based JRPG, well worth playing.

tl;dr – Atelier Lydie & Suelle is the third game in the seventh series of Atelier games (the Mysterious series), a franchise of JRPGs with a focus on crafting. Lydie & Suelle is essentially a refinement of everything that came before it, with excellent crafting-focused gameplay, good graphics (albeit with a few performance issues), and a decent story. Having said that, this game is a fairly safe entry in the franchise, and nowhere near as ambitious as Atelier Firis was, even if it’s ultimately a better game. Players new to the Atelier franchise will find this a solid entry point for the series, but fans hoping for a true follow-up to Atelier Firis that builds on that game’s potential will be disappointed.

Grade: B+

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