Atelier Shallie is one of the best games I've played in a long time, only beaten by 2 other Ateleir games I like a little more.
There is so much to praise about Atelier Shallie, the dual main characters are both fun, and since one campain of the game is half as long as Escha and Logy, playing the second campain is not much of an issue at all. The first quarter of the game is fully unique, and the rest has enough differing moments to make playing the other campain still fun.
There also really isn't a miss in the new cast members.
Miruca and Jurie are a fun duo, Homuna is great, and as I said the protagonists are also really good, better then Escha and Logy.
To add to that, just the right amount of old characters return, unlike Meruru where it felt like every Joe Schmuck could appear.
This includes the previous protagonists, which all retain their charm, Keithgriff who still is the stubborn dad as ever, Solle who still manages to be surprisingly good, and more great Wilbell moments then I can count.
(Seriously I have become obsessed with her. This is becoming unhealthy, she steals the show in every cutscene she's in. That one cutscene where Shallotte comforts her, perfect that's what's great about these games.)
Altough this almost became a small problem in my second campain. The devs knew how popular Wilbell is relative to the dusk series, and she's by a long shot my favorite character from the it, maybe even overall in the Atelier franchise, but it kinda feels like they overused her just a little.
Since Shalistera has her own supporting cast of new characters, it stands out that Shalotte mainly interacts with a fan favorite, and not her own new characters. It kinda just feels like fanservice of a popular character.
It doesn't annoy me to much, again I like her a lot, but I can't imagine people who dislike Wilbell having a good time when she continueisly pops up in Shalotte's story.
Their connection is nice, but as Odellia proved, to many sweets can give you cavities, and this comes really close to that.
Still love her though.
Continuing on with the positives, The synthisis in Atelier Sahllie is also one of the most introquite ones.
It took some time to get used to, but it was really fun when I got the hang of it.
The story is great, battle animations have pretty much reached modern comparibillity, there is just so much to praise.
This is also the first game since Iris 2 to not have any real kind of time limit, and I do have to say that you can kinda tell that a time limit was intended to be here at the start.
It wouldn't take much effort to implement it into the game, and since it soon will be gone entirely, I do kinda wish it was here to keep the Dusk series consistend.
Definitly play this game if you like the other Dusk games.
It sits neatly at third place now in my ranking, maybe second if you ask me on a different day, Ayeshea was just a tad better, and gets to keep first place.
9/10
