Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea DX

Genre: Turn-Based JRPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Note: This game is included in the Atelier Dusk Trilogy Deluxe Pack bundle along with Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemists of Dusk DX and Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemist of the Dusk Sky 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: Dusk Series

Atelier Shallie, originally released on PlayStation 3 in 2015, is the first game of the Dusk series, the sixth series of games in the Atelier franchise, which also contains Atelier Ayesha, first released on PlayStation 3 in 2013, and Atelier Escha & Logy, first released on PlayStation 3 in 2015, with all of these games getting improved remakes on the PlayStation Vita in 2015, 2016, and 2017 respectively, with new difficulty modes, new party-switching options, new enemies and costumes, as well as all additional content originally released as DLC. These improved versions were all ported to the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC in 2018, with all platforms getting an Atelier Dusk Trilogy Deluxe Pack Compilation containing all three.

The Dusk series gradually gets away from the overarching time limits the Atelier games are known for, with each successive game in the series having a more casual overall time limit compared to earlier entries in the series, and Shallie removing this limit entirely. They’re also slightly darker in tone than the Arland series.

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She Sells Sea Shallie…

Hm… that pun may have been a stretch…

With Atelier Shallie breaking from the series’ tradition of tying quests to rigidly-enforced in-game deadlines, this game makes for a much more relaxed experience, although that’s not to say it’s an easy one – now that players have a bit more room to stretch and grind if they so choose, the game also seems devoted to making it a more important element of the game, at least early on, as players are limited in their alchemy abilities and even enemies in early areas can trounce players. However, even in adding a higher difficulty level to one part of the game, it’s still surprisingly gentle – getting trounced by monsters in this game just necessitates a trip back home, where you are now automatically healed.

Players are now pushed to balance out their efforts via a “Life Task System” that gently encourages players to remain on task completing goals by bringing up or down your stats depending on how swiftly you accomplish those goals. This seems like a good way to retain the spirit of the series without the threat of looming deadlines imposed by earlier games in the franchise.

And while Atelier Escha & Logy streamlined some of the elements of this franchise, Atelier Shallie makes them an absolute breeze, making it far easier to understand the game’s alchemy, making it easier to see what needs to be done, and still giving players plenty of options at any given time so they always have a sense that there’s lots to do. Where prior Atelier games felt like a race against the clock, in Atelier Shallie for the first time this series finds itself invested with the spirit of exploration now that you can take the game at whatever pace you feel comfortable with.

It’s not just the lack of time limits and more streamlined gameplay mechanics that make this a refreshing new entry in the Atelier franchise, the combat has received a bit more depth this time too, with new “burst” and “break” mechanics that focus on comboing enemies. It’s still not quite as deep as I’d like from a Turn-Based JRPG combat system, but it’s definitely a step above prior entries in the series.

The story this time is pretty good this time around too, at least as far as this series goes. Like Atelier Escha & Logy, Atelier Shallie focuses on two protagonists, two young alchemists both bearing the titular nickname Shallie. Shallistera, a chieftain’s daughter, comes to an oasis town to investigate the cause of a mysterious drought that is threatening the area. Meanwhile, Shallotte, a young local girl, yearns for the day when she’ll be able to stop scraping by on the meager earnings of the minor odd jobs she’s able to secure, and dreams of the day she can do something amazing with her life.

Unlike Escha & Logy, these two stories are allowed to evolve separately for a little while before the two characters ultimately join together, and as a result there’s even more reason to partake in this game’s New Game+ feature to see both stories. Personally, between the two, I find myself enjoying Shallotte’s more grounded story more, but both have their positive qualities. While mostly fairly light in tone, this story does have serious undertones, as the mysterious drought looms as a threat over the region, and both of the protagonists are trying to figure out their place in the world. And while this might not be quite as epic as the stories in some other JRPGs, the solid writing and strong characters nevertheless make it endearing. And speaking of characters, as this is the third game in the trilogy, we see the return of numerous characters from both Atelier Ayesha and Atelier Escha & Logy, although players don’t need to have played those earlier games to understand the plot of this one.

Also, while I wouldn’t say either the voice acting or the music ranks as the best in the series, both are fantastic here, with a few really standout songs like the beautiful opening theme, Rusty Sky, and other excellent songs like Alchemist on a Ship, Sea of Sand ~Shallotte~, Abundant City of Water, Humming in the Atelier.

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Shallie We Dance?

The graphics this time around are good but not great. As always, the cel-shaded character designs are phenomenal, but the environments could stand to have a bit more detail and variety. Thankfully, I didn’t notice any major performance issues like some other games in the series have had. Overall, it’s not bad, but far from impressive, even for a game originally released on PlayStation 3.

However, this game does finally do something I wanted this series to do for ages – for once, you actually get to control the camera this time! I mean, it doesn’t control well – it’s stiff and you can’t adjust it vertically at all… but baby steps, I suppose.

With all the improvements found in this game, then, would we finally see features making use of the Nintendo Switch hardware, like gyroscopic motion controls or the touchscreen? Wellllll… no. No, we would not. Sorry.

Overall, Atelier Shallie still has some areas it needs improvement – its heavily-segmented world still leaves much to be desired, the graphics are good but not great, the combat system could stand to be a bit deeper, the camera isn’t great, its characters are endearing but its story isn’t especially groundbreaking. However, while this game is far from perfect, it is a huge improvement over previous installments in the series, with virtually every area of the game working well and some parts of the game being leaps and bounds ahead of prior games in the series. And while, yes, the use of the Life Task System in place of the series’ usual deadlines is a large part of that, Atelier Shallie is just overall an excellent Turn-Based JRPG and a great entry in the Atelier franchise, one of the best places to start if you’re a newcomer to Atelier games (even more so than Escha & Logy).

tl;dr – Atelier Shallie is the third game in the sixth series of Atelier games (the Dusk series), a franchise of JRPGs with a focus on crafting. Shallie is a strong entry in this series that improves on numerous elements of the franchise without having any glaring weak points compared to prior entries. The replacement of the series’ looming deadlines with the “Life Task System” is key among those improvements, but overall this game manages to hit all the right notes. There’s still plenty of room for improvement, but if you’re looking for a great item-crafting Turn-Based JRPG, or searching for a good entry point to the Atelier series, Atelier Shallie is a fantastic choice.

Grade: B+

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