Magical mercantile JRPG Atelier Lydie & Suelle out now

Fans of twee and exceedingly anime video games are effectively served right now. Recent years have seen Gust’s 20-year-running Atelier collection come to PC en masse, JRPGs that juggle conventional adventuring and dungeon crawling with puzzle-based crafting and store administration.

Today, Atelier Lydie & Suelle ~The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings~ (to provide it it’s full, headline-bloating title) is out on PC. The newest within the Atelier line and the final of the ‘Mysterious’ sub-trilogy which first made its PC debut early final yr.

Silly high-fantasy trend, pastel colors and the Power of Friendship are order of the day right here, all glued along with a comparatively conventional turn-based fight engine, and the Atelier collection’ much less strange mercantile and crafting mechanics. It’s two elements boilerplate, one half gaming consolation meals for the Magical Girl Adventure crowd.

The story this time revolves round a gallery of magical work, stumbled upon by younger alchemists Lydie and Suelle, sisters and co-owners of the native magical tools store. By travelling into the worlds inside these work, they’re in a position to collect uncommon and highly effective supplies to make use of of their crafting and potion-brewing, in addition to preventing monsters to beat further elements out of.

Monster-slaying and extradimensional journey being cornerstones of the sport, issues escalate shortly, and it appears to be like just like the protagonists of the earlier two video games be a part of the celebration early on. The finish result’s larger-scale fight involving a tag-team of three heroes out in entrance, and the opposite three supporting, plus the brand new characteristic of mid-battle crafting including much more choices.

While preliminary evaluations for Atelier Lydie & Suelle appear constructive sufficient, it’s arduous to shake the sensation that it is a poorly timed launch, coming in simply days after the discharge of Ni No Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom, which appears to be like nearly immeasurably higher-budget, with its personal artistic takes on each fight and administration. While neither appear to be earthshattering, JRPG-redefining experiences, one positively appears to have an edge right here.

Atelier Lydie & Suelle is priced at £44/54€/$54 on Steam, which is admittedly a bit steep for the UK and EU, though in step with Koei’s typical pricing. One extra be aware: Presumably to save cash on localization, the sport’s audio is Japanese-only, though the textual content is clearly translated.