New Old Beginnings

Atelier Ryza is the latest trilogy of games to receive the DX (Deluxe) treatment, by this they have been released with new features aswell as all DLC included in its bundle and the best thing is you can purchase these separately or as a bundle, either way if you have yet to play the Ryza trilogy or have missed finishing it this may be just the best way to do it.

The original Atelier Ryza is 6 years old now and with Atelier Ryza 3 Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key releasing in 2023 it was only a matter of time until we got a full bundle of all 3 games, not only this but Atelier Ryza 1 and 2 saw a release on PS4 meaning now you can play the whole trilogy on PS5 with upscaled graphical enhancements.

Atelier Ryza follows the story of Ryza as she wishes to embark on a journey outside of her comfort zone or rather the shackles of a routine living with her parents who are eager for her to constantly do chores, it is a coming of age story where she and her friends discover alchemy a new world and ultimately find purpose, it is a bit more mature compared to previous Atelier stories, not Dark in anyway (we’ll leave that to Yumia) but Ryza is a Voluptuous character and the reason why the game has it’s general fan service rooted firmly in the ground.

The scale of these games is even bigger than anything we have seen before with much bigger open world maps, a somewhat more bigger emphasis on alchemy with it being a tiny bit more complex and the need to explore, and a lot more cutscenes.

Much like previous Atelier games, Ryza is a series of games that does not go into deep and complex narratives, the characters are pretty much finding their feet, they kind of remind me of the characters from the Neptunia series of games where everything is overexaggerated, such as characters being scared of a happy slime enemy early on as if they have never seen a monster before only to go and battle some evil dragon during a side quest later on, having small disagreements with other party members about how hungry they are.

Being JRPGs though the trilogy still has other aspects of the game such as combat and the alchemy side of things, once Ryza learns about Alchemy the premise of the game is to learn about new recipe’s that will help aid her in her journey, the recipes can vary from Bombs, healing items and making a new weapon or piece of armour, again if you’ve played an Atelier game before you pretty much know what to expect. Making these items is a big part of the game as they help massively during combat and of course being one step ahead of the enemy is always a good idea in any JRPG. To create these items though Ryza and her friends must scale the big wide world and use her tools in order to collect reagents in order to make the Items needed on the journey, these Items can start off by simply being picked up but Ryza’s tools will see improvement and allow her to gather by smacking huge rocks into smaller ones or cutting a huge bush down with a scythe to gather its contents. What is really great about this system that has carried over with these games and is even a part of Atelier Sophie 2 is the feature gives you reason to explore and even go back to areas to grab items which previously were not gatherable.

Combat wise the Atelier Ryza trilogy utilizes a turn based approach while incorporating some real time elements to it. Attacks will build Action Points which can be used to perform skills or special attacks, or to raise the party’s Tactics Level which gives access to more powerful abilities and can really turn the tide of battle.

There are some significant changes between the games of the trilogy which were part of the original games and still maintain those and these are of course due to the fact the games had evolved, I already had mentioned how big the maps were of Ryza as a whole but Atelier Ryza 2’s approach was to make the maps massive, it’s essentially a giant interconnected world while Ryza 3 does away with all of that and has four regions to explore which are are separate from each other, The scale of Atelier Ryza 3 is undoubtably huge as there are no loading screens unless you fast travel or go into buildings. In Atelia Ryza 2 Battles progress in real time, and the characters you are not controlling directly will act automatically. Again you can us Action Points to use special keys. Atelier Ryza 3’s battle system introduces keys into its battles which are a core part of the games story hence why it is in the title, these keys will provide buffs to the party during battle.

The new features included in the DX Trilogy are as follows:

  • Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness and the Secret Hideout DX comes with two new playable episodes, the first episode which features Kilo and Bos, and allows players to take control of Kilo for the first time, the second episode is a gap that bridges the first Ryza game and the start of Atelier Ryza 2 so you get to see what Ryza was up to between these two games.
  • Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy DX adds Empel and Lila as new playable characters aswell as a side story following them to the Underworld gates, a new map known as the Zelepsto Cave.
  • Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key DX adds three new playable characters (Clifford, Serri, Kilo) with their own voiced side stories on a new island known as Crest Island.

All 3 games come with quality of life features such as bigger storage, all swimsuit costumes for the characters and a custom combat mode.

If you are a seasoned Atelier Ryza Alchemist then you may want to give Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land and Atelier Resleriana The Red Alchemist & The White Guardian a try if you haven’t already, the new content alone here may not be worth the price investment, sadly there is no upgrade for any owners of any of the previous games so it becomes more of a hard sell for those that have already invested all their time and money into this series already.

Anyone wanting to give any of the Atelier Ryza DX games a go can expect a light hearted, cosy warm JRPG with plenty of story and crafting in the form of Alchemy, it is a great trilogy that were fantastic on release and remain just as good today if you want the full experience.

A PlayStation 5 Review Code was provided by Koei Tecmo. This article is featured on OpenCritic