Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key DX

Genre: JRPG

Players: 1

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in Atelier Ryza Secret Trilogy Deluxe Pack, along with Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & The Secret Hideout DX and Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy DX.)

If you’ve been paying attention for a while, you might recall that I previously reviewed Atelier Ryza 3 already some time ago. However, in 2025, the folks at Koei Tecmo have decided to double-dip and re-release the game again with a DX on the end, adding in content and features while removing the original version of the game from the eShop.

The good news? This newer release is discounted with a regular price of $40 instead of the original game’s $60, meaning that not only are those new to this game getting a better version with more stuff in it, they’re getting it at a better price. The bad news? There’s no upgrade path for those who previously bought the original version of the game, meaning that players who supported this game early on now have to contemplate spending full price and buying it again to get the definitive version of the game.

Well, you know what? If they can double-dip, so can I. So I’m copy-pasting the majority of this review from my original review of the game, and only changing it where it’s pertinent. I’ll go over the new additions to the game towards the bottom of this review, before the grade.

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DXeja Vu Review

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 often 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: Secret Series

Atelier Ryza 3, released on PC, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch in 2023, is the third and presumably final game in the Secret series, the eighth series of games in the Atelier franchise, which also includes Atelier Ryza and Atelier Ryza 2, released on those same platforms in 2019 and 2021, respectfully. Unlike many of the games in the Atelier franchise, these games contain no overarching time limits, and feature an “ATB” battle system that has players selecting commands from menus in real-time.

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Ryza-ing to New Heights?

Oh yeah, I was doing puns for my reviews of these Atelier games. Have I used that one before? I dunno… anyway….

The Ryza series is somewhat unique within the Atelier franchise as the entire trilogy follows the same main character, and overall has us returning to the stories of the same set of characters through the course of its arc. While there are other examples of Atelier games with direct sequels, such as 2022’s Atelier Sophie 2, Atelier Ryza’s decision to follow the same group of characters through its entire trilogy seems like a direct result of the series’ unexpected popularity.

However, while this game does include a plot refresher for the events of the first two games, I still highly recommend that you play this game only after playing through its two direct predecessors, not only so you get a full understanding of its plot, but because the gameplay mechanics here build on top of what was introduced before. However, even more than this, Ryza 3’s story feels something like a trip through memory lane for its characters, who reminisce on how far they’ve come since the series started, and I expect that much of the impact of this will be lost on those who start this series right at its third installment.

In short, I recommend you play the Ryza games in order. Don’t worry, the prior two games are both excellent and well worth playing through.

The plot this time around brings us back to Ryza, still working as the town alchemist on her home island, when she’s suddenly surprised by the appearance of new monsters, apparently stirred up by the arrival of a new manmade island appearing nearby, upsetting shipping routes and causing distress for the mechanisms within Ryza’s own island. In response to this, Ryza summons her friends to assist her in investigating this new island, mitigating its negative effects, and ideally trying to find a way to move it away from areas where it will still be a hazard and a nuisance.

However, the appearance of this new island is not the only strange occurrence Ryza must contend with. Around the time all of this is happening, Ryza begins to hear mysterious voices, and gets a vision for how to produce a mysterious new key, which enables her to create other magical keys that can augment her and her allies’ abilities in combat, allow her to access caches of supplies strewn around the world, and enhance her alchemy recipes. While helpful, the mysterious nature of this key and its origins are also somewhat alarming, as prior experiences with strange phenomena on Ryza’s adventures have resulted in some situations that were almost cataclysmic.

Overall, this game feels like a mix of the more local, small-scale story elements that were at the start of Ryza’s first game, as well as the world-expanding adventure elements of the second, with Ryza’s research and problem-solving pertaining to the mysterious events around her island will lead her and her friends on a massive exploration of four large areas. At least in terms of scope, Ryza 3 is definitely the largest game in the series by far, and while its areas are not so open to exploration that I would deign to call them “Open-World”, they are nevertheless quite sizable, and sure to delight explorers.

One element that doesn’t seem to have changed much is the game’s Japanese-language voice cast, who is still doing a fine job (as far as my English language-only ears can tell, anyway). Still excellent, though perhaps not as impressive as when we met these characters for the first time. And once again, we have another excellent soundtrack, and while I still think the game doesn’t match the great sounds of the original game, there are still some truly excellent instrumental and orchestral themes here, such as Summer View~From the Secret Hideout~, Fall Crocus, Where Dreams Gather, and probably my favorite new theme for this game, When We Laugh About Forgetting to Buy Something, this game’s new default shop theme.

Atelier Ryza 3’s gameplay once again sees the return of most of the elements of the prior game, such as the somewhat confusing “material loop” crafting system and the real-time combat, though now you have a few additional features added in, such as being able to hot-swap characters mid-combo during battle, and being able to create and use “keys” to enhance various gameplay elements, as noted above. There are other subtle additions here too, such as the ability to dive to find ingredients underwater.

Overall, Ryza 3 doesn’t feel like too great a departure from its predecessors except for its scope – as noted earlier, this game is quite large, and dwarfs the earlier games in the series.

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Have They Found the Secret Key to Graphical Excellence?

It’s strange to look back on the Ryza series, which started with truly gorgeous environments that highlighted the game’s simple beauty, and then look at Ryza 3, which is bigger, faster, and doesn’t have any desire to “stop and smell the roses”, so to speak. As such, it can be tempted to look at this game and see it lacking the awe and majesty that the first Ryza game began with. However, easing up on the “run” button, you can see that for the most part that beauty is still there, even as you constantly whiz past it as running is far too convenient in Ryza 3 not to do pretty much all the time. However, take a moment and slow down to look at your surroundings, and this game will awe you with its beauty… sometimes…

Okay, let me start by saying that the issues the earlier Ryza games had appear to be gone in Ryza 3. There is no dithering to speak of here, and the shadows all look pretty good (though surely not nearly as good as they do on other platforms). Indeed, the lighting and shadow in this game can make for some breathtaking sights, such as shafts of light filtering through the trees at sunset, or a starry night reflected in the puddles left by a prior rainstorm in the mud on a farm, or a world of brightly-colored coral hiding under the surface around a chain of sun-soaked islands. This, in addition to the Atelier series’ usual excellent lightly cel-shaded anime-style 3D characters make for a game that is truly awe-inspiring, though it is unfortunately not consistently so.

This is because Atelier Ryza 3 seems like the least-polished game, visually, in the Ryza series. Tons of pop-in, low-poly elements in the environments, some low-poly textures, aliasing, some ugly animations. While Atelier Ryza 3 is often a gorgeous game, it is also frequently a pretty ugly or mediocre-looking one. And while overall this may ultimately be an improvement, Ryza 3 definitely doesn’t have the same “wow factor” that the first Ryza game did, especially now in 2026.

And I suppose I should talk about the camera controls, touchscreen, and gyroscopic controls, since I’ve been making a point to do it for every Atelier game, though at this point the franchise seems to have settled into all of this being decent but nothing special – The camera once again works fine here, no complaints. And once again there’s no touchscreen or gyroscopic motion controls.

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The Major DXifferences

When it comes to changes made to the DX version of the game, first and foremost this version includes all of the DLC content made available for the original game. In addition to this content, there’s also quite a bit of new content added into this release: three new playable characters, additional side-story content, new “spirit beast” functions, a “wind beast” character acting as a helper as you explore, a custom combat mode that can be accessed at save points (after unlocking the feature) to set up a custom battle scenario with all of the details adjusted to your liking.

What’s more, this release makes multiple quality-of-life improvements to the game in various areas: your item inventory “basket” is expanded, improvements have been made to the interface, players have access to more graphics options, supposedly improving things like shadows and overall resolution, though I’ve heard others say that the improvements are minimal.

I’ll be perfectly honest here – I can’t directly compare the graphics of the original version on Nintendo Switch to the DX version on Nintendo Switch because if I was going to have to pay full price to buy the game a second time, you bet your cauldron I got the Nintendo Switch 2 version instead this time. Based on what I’m hearing though, don’t expect a dramatic difference.

So this gets us to the crux of it, because we’re talking about the Nintendo Switch version of the game, and if that’s your main platform of choice, you’re undoubtedly wondering if this game is worth picking up, and the answer to that question depends largely on whether you bought the original release of the game, and also whether you bought the DLC and how much you wanted that DLC.

If you bought the original version of Atelier Ryza 3, and either bought the DLC or have no interest in the DLC, then Atelier Ryza 3 DX is going to be a tough $40 pill to swallow – yes, it has a hefty amount of new content, and it is unquestionably the definitive release of the game on Nintendo Switch, but is that extra content going to be worth spending another $40 on a game you already purchased?

However, if you haven’t bought the game previously, the answer to the “should you buy it?” question becomes extremely easy to answer: “absolutely YES”. Atelier Ryza 3 is one of the best games in the Atelier franchise, and a true gem of a JRPG, and this release packs the original $60 game, plus $55 of DLC content, plus plenty of new content, plus a slew of new features, all into one tempting $40 package. If you don’t already own this game, the only reason I would say not to go for it is if you don’t like JRPGs, have a dislike for the Atelier franchise as a whole, want to get the Nintendo Switch 2 version instead (but more on this below), or want to get the Atelier Ryza Secret Trilogy Deluxe Pack and nab the entire trilogy all at once.

So take that as a glowing recommendation… albeit with some caveats.

tl;dr – Atelier Ryza 3 is the third game in the eighth series of Atelier games (the Secret series), a franchise of JRPGs with a focus on crafting. The third and (apparently) final installment in the Ryza series is much bigger in scope and adds new gameplay elements on top of what was in the prior games, but at the same time it also seems somewhat less-polished, and doesn’t quite have the “wow factor” that the original Atelier Ryza did. This DX release adds plenty of new content and features, improving on an already-great game, though not enough to justify paying full-price a second time. Overall, this is still a solid addition to the series, and a must-play for those who enjoyed the prior two games.

Grade: A-

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2023 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Song (When We Laugh About Forgetting to Buy Something by Kazuki Yanagawa)

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The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key DX (Nintendo Switch 2)

Genre: JRPG

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in Atelier Ryza Secret Trilogy Deluxe Pack, along with Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & The Secret Hideout DX and Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy DX.)

The Nintendo Switch 2 version of Atelier Ryza 3 DX is a doubly-bittersweet pill to take, because not only does this release provide no upgrade path from the original release of Atelier Ryza 3, but there’s also no upgrade path from the Nintendo Switch version of the game to the Nintendo Switch 2 version. It is entirely possible that an Atelier series fan could feel roped into buying this game three times to play on Nintendo platforms – once for the original Nintendo Switch release, once more for the DX re-release on Nintendo Switch, and a third time to get the upgraded Nintendo Switch 2 release. But just how upgraded is this version of the game? Let’s take a look…

For the purposes of this review, I’m comparing the original Nintendo Switch release of Atelier Ryza 3 to the Nintendo Switch 2 release of Atelier Ryza 3 DX, because even though I decided to grudgingly buy this game twice, there’s no way I’m going to be the guy that buys it thrice just to compare the versions. If someone really wants that comparison, they can pay me extra for it (and if that describes you, here is a link to my Patreon, and thank you in advance for your donation).

Unlike the prior two Atelier Ryza games, Atelier Ryza 3 didn’t suffer from nasty dithering issues, though I did find it to be unpolished on Nintendo Switch. I do feel like this is improved here, and I note that there’s a bit more environmental detail (with more lush foliage) and less pop-in. In addition, the overall resolution is much-improved, with less aliasing (though there is still some). The shadow resolution is also much-improved. However, the framerates, while improved, still don’t appear to be pushed beyond 30FPS or so, except perhaps in the atelier synthesis menu for some reason? In any case, it’s disappointing

The other change I can point to here is to loading times. The original version of Atelier Ryza 3 on Nintendo Switch took 54 seconds to load to the title screen, an additional 7 seconds to load a game save, and 11 seconds to load a fast travel location. On Nintendo Switch 2, those times are cut down to 29 seconds, 5 seconds, and 7 seconds.

Overall, this is absolutely an improvement over the original game, and if you also include the new content and other changes it’s more impressive still… but it’s not so drastic a change that I would recommend someone to buy the game a second time if they already got the original release on Nintendo Switch.

If you bought the game on Nintendo Switch previously, I just cannot recommend spending $40 on this double-dip, even with these improvements. However, if you’ve never bought the game before, this is an absolutely ideal time to buy it, as this version is absolutely better than the original Nintendo Switch release, and the new $40 price tag absolutely blows away the original game’s $60 price, especially when you add in all the improvements and extras. So really, the question of value here completely depends on whether you’ve already bought this game once before. If not, then this is definitely worth getting, though you may also want to consider the Atelier Ryza Secret Trilogy Deluxe Pack to get the entire trilogy all at once. Either way, this is a superb version of an outstanding JRPG.

tl;dr – Atelier Ryza 3 is the third game in the eighth series of Atelier games (the Secret series), a franchise of JRPGs with a focus on crafting. The third and (apparently) final installment in the Ryza series is much bigger in scope and adds new gameplay elements on top of what was in the prior games, but at the same time it also seems somewhat less-polished, and doesn’t quite have the “wow factor” that the original Atelier Ryza did. This DX release adds plenty of new content and features, improving on an already-great game, though not enough to justify paying full-price a second time. Overall, this is still a solid addition to the series, and a must-play for those who enjoyed the prior two games.

Grade: A-

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