[h1]Well, well, well... It's that time once again. It's time to review another Atelier game from the Mysterious series. This time, I will be going through Atelier Lydie & Suelle.[/h1]
[b]In short[/b], Atelier Lydie & Suelle was a lovely game experience. I had a lovely time playing this game and had a great experience while doing so as well. I actually enjoyed Atelier Lydie & Suelle more than the other Atelier games from the "Mysterious" series, which I wasn't anticipating. I wasn't going in this game with high expectations, because of the numerous rumors about Atelier Lydie & Suelle being an MP4 simulator with WAY TOO MANY cutscenes side missions. Surprisingly, it wasn't as I expected! The cutscenes and side missions were actually enjoyable to do, unlike Atelier Firis.
Not only that, but Atelier Lydie & Suelle personally made me very emotionally attached to the main characters, more than the other Atelier games from the "Mysterious" series. All the MP4 simulations came in hand. I learned a lot about the characters from all those 100+ MP4 cutscenes. Here are some examples.
[olist]
[*]Firis becomes less picky with her veggies in this game
[*]Platcha is actually hella dummy thicc as a human
[*]Ilmeria has become a bigger tsundere than she was Firis, which I wasn't anticipating!
[*]Alt has no skills when it comes to art
[*]Ilmeria never grew taller since last
[/olist]
I have way more examples, but those are like the top 5 ones, that I can think of. But in short, you get lots of random fun information from the cutscenes in Atelier Lydie & Suelle, which you didn't really get that many of from the other Atelier games in the "Mysterious" series.
[b]Not only that[/b], but I loved the characters a lot. In the other Atelier games from the mysterious series, I really only liked a few characters from the first two games. I personally only liked Sophie, Plachta, & Corneria from the first game and Firis, Ilmeria, & Kirsche, from the second game, but to my surprise, I liked most of the characters in Lydie & Suelle. The main characters Lydie & Suelle are adorable as ♥♥♥♥, Firis became 10 times cuter than in the second game, and the same goes for Ilmeria! Sophie & Plachta's relationship feels way [b]"naughtier"[/b] compared to in the other two games lmao, and Lucia is strait up an angel! The other characters are cool enough, but Mathias was quite annoying, to be honest. He was like the biggest simp of all time. The only character I can compare him to would be Brook from Pokemon... And that's bad...
[b]The alchemy[/b] and gathering mechanics are not that advanced at all. The stuff is very simple and very easy to understand. There's not much about it. Alchemy is still alchemy, weapon crafting has never been easier, gathering items is still the same, and you can still do the 999 quality *Random item* you want. Actually, getting 999 quality items is like in Firis. Good old [i]"Distilled Water"[/i] does the job.
[b]The combat[/b] in the game is like Atelier Sophie & Atelier Firis, except it isn't. In Lydie & Suelle, your main damage in this game comes from the assist system, which is very different from the other two games in this series.
[olist]
[*]In Sophie, you basically just use [i]"Breezy Aroma"[/i] with stat buffing traits and do basic attacks until the enemy dies, and if you die yourself, use another [i]"Breezy Aroma"[/i] that has [i]"Nectar of Dusk"[/i] so keep yourself alive until you defeat the boss.
[*]In Firis, you basically do item spamming to victory. There's not much to write about it.
[*]In Lydie & Suelle, you basically do the same, except it only lasts for one turn. The setup takes way lass time compared to the other two games, and the gains are higher as well.
[/olist]
Like you can reach 6 digit damage numbers with no issues, in just one combo. Quite bonkers, if I have to say so. Plus you actually use the painting mechanic in the endgame, like I was honestly not expecting that. I really thought I was going to go through the game without using it. Personally thought it was really useless until the star painting. Btw Resonance All: Creation, Truth, & Heaven trait combo is actual free real estate, if you got the three traits on all of your characters.
[b]The OST[/b] itself is quite lit. There's not much to say about it. I absolutely love the bangers in the game! The only OST I actually disliked was the one at the end of the game, where you can fight Sophie to grind certain endgame traits. Feels a bit off the game.
[b]In overall[/b], I really had a lovely experience playing Atelier Lydie & Suelle. I'd rate it a solid 97/100! The only complaint I have about the game is about the B rank ambitious journal, where you have to defeat 4 certain monsters on the mission board. It took me over 50 resets to get the "Dark Maiden" bounty...
In conclusion, I am going to miss playing this game. More than I would like to... I hope I can get into a car accident and get memory loss, so I can just replay this game one more time!
