Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & The Secret Hideout 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 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy DX and Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key DX.)

If you’ve been paying attention for a while, you might recall that I previously reviewed Atelier Ryza 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 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, released on PC, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch in 2019, is the first game in the Secret series, the eighth series of games in the Atelier franchise, which also includes Atelier Ryza 2, released on PC, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch in 2021, and Atelier Ryza 3, released on PC, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch in 2023. Unlike many of the games in the Atelier franchise, these games contain no overarching time limits, and feature an “ATB” system that has players selecting commands from menus in real-time.

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The Ryza of a New Age

Thanks for sticking with me through all of these puns…

Atelier Ryza is a huge leap in the series, more than any other entry prior. So much was changed this time, addressing many of the complaints that have been made about the franchise over the years, and as a result, this is a game that has been celebrated even outside of this series’ usual fanbase, all while not only retaining the charm this series is known for, but bringing that charm into the modern generation of games on the level with other major franchises.

The calendar deadlines of past games in the franchise are gone. The segmented environments of prior games, while still present here, feels much more contiguous, with large areas that do a better job of flowing into one another – this game doesn’t feel quite as vast and open as Atelier Firis did, but it stretches in that direction, and with environments far more filled with their own unique personality.

The crafting system this time around uses a new “material loop” system that has a lot of depth and gives players plenty of options when crafting items. However, it is nowhere near as user-friendly and intuitive as the Mysterious Trilogy’s Tetris-like crafting system, and even after this game takes you through the process step by step, you still may want to consult a wiki to get the most out of it.

However, the biggest gameplay change in Atelier Ryza may be the combat system, which has been completely reworked while still remaining faithful to the core mechanics to combat in prior games. As mentioned above, combat now uses an “ATB”-style system that has players selecting their combat actions in real-time while allies and enemies don’t wait for the player to make their moves.

What’s more, this game makes use of multiple new mechanics that add an immense amount of depth and strategy to combat, with players having an ability point gauge that grows with each normal attack and can be expended on special attacks, saved up to upgrade your party’s attacking ability for the remaining duration of combat, or used to have a character jump in out of turn to quickly use an item or a special attack. In addition, players can now equip to each character a small assortment of items that can be infinitely re-used, but must be re-charged by a trip back home after a finite number of uses. This latter system works itself back into the game’s crafting, encouraging players to craft the most powerful items possible, and similarly encourages them to make liberal use of those items.

These new mechanics make Atelier Ryza’s combat not only the best this series has ever seen, but some of the best combat I’ve seen in a JRPG. And while it’s now all so fast-paced that it can be easy to get lost in the flurry of actions, the wealth of options available to players in combat is truly fantastic.

In addition to the confusion regarding the new crafting system, I do have one other complaint about the gameplay, and that is that it’s not clear how players are supposed to make money in Atelier Ryza. Money earned through combat is minimal, gathered and synthesized items sell for a pittance, and there doesn’t appear to be any sort of job board like previous games had. My attempts to find answers to this question led me to fans suggesting that players spend an hour grinding at a water source to then turn around and sell the infinitely-gathered resource and… no, I’m not going to do that. Grinding in a videogame is one thing, but just staying in one spot and endlessly tapping one button is not gameplay, it’s work.

While the gameplay has its ups and downs, the story in Atelier Ryza is leaps and bounds beyond prior games, with far more three-dimensional characters, and an overall more cinematic approach to storytelling than prior games. Ryza is a young island-dwelling girl who feels stifled by her hometown, and dreams of someday leaving the island and seeking adventure. One day, while sneaking off with her friends, they have a chance encounter with a group of real adventurers, which opens their eyes to new possibilities. Ryza’s muscular friend Lent is stunned at the fighting ability of the adventurers, and finds himself craving to learn how to improve as a combatant. Ryza’s scholarly friend Tao is overjoyed at the discovery that one of the adventurers speaks the language he’s spent his life hoping to translate. But Ryza herself immediately falls in love with the art of alchemy, which she sees as a way to open a door into the life she had always dreamed of having. Overall, the story here is relatively slow-paced and low-stakes, but it is so well-told and its characters are so instantly endearing (particularly Ryza herself) that it’s hard not to be instantly charmed by it.

Like other recent games in the series, Atelier Ryza is dubbed only in Japanese. However, even not speaking the language myself, the difference in the acting this time around is palpable. Again, Ryza herself is the real star here, with voice actress Yuri Noguchi doing so much great emotional work with the character that it reaches across language barriers. And all of this is backed by an absolutely beautiful instrumental soundtrack with a lot of good piano and brass parts, with wonderful songs like Solramimi, Before the Second Star Lights Up, Quiet Wind, Dreaming Ruins, and Count the Constellations, to name a few. In short, this game sounds gorgeous, and gives the game the feel of a Miyazaki film, which is perfectly-suited to this game’s story and the rest of its presentation.

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Ryza Against the Machine?

When it comes to the graphics, I have some nitpicking to do, but first I have a lot of praise. Save for the issues I’ll address in a moment, Atelier Ryza is quite simply a gorgeous game, leaps and bounds beyond prior entries in the series, though in 2026 these visuals have aged somewhat. Of course I have to mention the game’s great cel-shaded anime-style characters, but by now that’s nothing new for the series. However, compared to prior games, the environments are gorgeous, evoking a charm reminiscent of a Hayao Miyazaki film. The water and shadows look excellent, though perhaps not as much as they once did, and overall the game has an appealing, colorful look to it.

However, now’s where I talk about those issues I mentioned a moment ago. The Nintendo Switch version of Atelier Ryza has a number of graphical and performance issues that mar the otherwise spectacular presentation somewhat. Now, I should mention that many of these issues are also present in versions of the game on other platforms, but they’re still worth noting here. Atelier Ryza has a lot of nasty aliasing, and while the shadows do a lot to build the atmosphere of the game, the quality of those shadows in the Nintendo Switch version is greatly lacking, with low shadow resolution and a fair amount of shadow flickering.

However, these issues are once again overshadowed by a greater problem that has plagued the Atelier franchise for at least the last few installments – some really nasty, overbearing dithering. Thankfully, this issue is far less noticeable in handheld mode. And even with all of these issues, this game still looks pretty close to the PlayStation 4 version of the game, and it’s still an beautiful game, even if the technical issues make me hesitate to say it’s one of the best-looking games on Nintendo Switch.

At this point, I only mention the camera controls, touchscreen, and gyroscopic controls to keep these Atelier reviews consistent, but here goes anyway. The camera works fine here, no complaints. And there’s no touchscreen or gyroscopic motion controls.

There is one other thing I should note here, actually. I’ve reviewed numerous entries in the franchise thus far, and for a few of those games, I’ve pointed out that the game I was reviewing would make a good entry point for the series, and I stand by that. However, players looking for one definitive place to dive into the series, this is it. By this point, the series has shed many of the issues of its past, but even more than that, Ryza comes into its own as a truly spectacular JRPG, and not just a good Atelier game. I cannot stress enough how Atelier Ryza is leaps and bounds beyond prior entries in the franchise, in its gameplay, its story and characters, and in its graphics and presentation.

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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 post-game story content to bridge the gap between Atelier Ryza 1 & 2, and a custom combat mode that can be accessed at save points (after opening a specific treasure box at your hideout) 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, and either bought the DLC or have no interest in the DLC, then Atelier Ryza 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 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 is the first game in the eighth series of Atelier games (the Secret series), a franchise of JRPGs with a focus on crafting. Ryza is leaps and bounds beyond prior games in the series, both in terms of the quality of its gameplay, its wonderful characters and story, and in its absolutely gorgeous presentation. This is not just a great Atelier game, this is a great, must-play JRPG, full stop, and this DX release adds a lot of content and value beyond the original release. It is only some frustrating graphical issues and a few confusing gameplay elements that keep this from being a contender for the title of best JRPG on Nintendo Switch.

Grade: A-

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The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & The Secret Hideout DX (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 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy DX and Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key DX.)

The Nintendo Switch 2 version of Atelier Ryza 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, 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 to the Nintendo Switch 2 release of Atelier Ryza 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).

The first instantly-noticeable change here is that the Nintendo Switch version’s nasty dithering issue is gone. 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 don’t appear to have been changed at all, which is disappointing.

The other change I can point to here is to loading times. The original version of Atelier Ryza on Nintendo Switch took 24 seconds to load to the title screen, an additional 8 seconds to load a game save, and 8 seconds to transition from an indoor environment (Ryza’s house) to an outdoor environment. On Nintendo Switch 2, those times are cut down to 24 seconds, 5 seconds, and 5 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 is the first game in the eighth series of Atelier games (the Secret series), a franchise of JRPGs with a focus on crafting. Ryza is leaps and bounds beyond prior games in the series, both in terms of the quality of its gameplay, its wonderful characters and story, and in its absolutely gorgeous presentation. This is not just a great Atelier game, this is a great, must-play JRPG, full stop, and this DX release adds a lot of content and value beyond the original release, with some nice (but not drastic) graphical improvements over the original release. It is only a few confusing gameplay elements that keep this from being a contender for the title of best JRPG on Nintendo Switch 2.

Grade: A-

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