Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key Review (Glibberish)
Ryza 3 has improved on everything in Ryza 2, in my opinion, and the PC port actually runs very well. I do recommend the game to both new players and veteran Atelier fans if you like the gathering, crafting, exploring, semi-turn-based combat, and/or the anime-style. It isn't exactly groundbreaking or innovating, but it's a good and fun game nonetheless.
Graphics
Graphics are nice eye candy but nothing groundbreaking. Very vibrant world with decent art direction and texturing. I particularly like the character shading techniques, but none of it is quite on the level of certain other anime-styled games. At the time of writing, however, disable the depth of field to fix the weirdly bright and blurry environment. The rest of the graphics look great.
Controls
Keyboard + mouse controls feel a bit floaty and off here and there (it's roughly what you'd expect from a primarily-controller focused game ported to PC)), but overall they are actually decent, and you have the ability to rebind keys fairly well for different modes and menus. Could be better, but it's perfectly playable.
Gameplay
Gameplay is exactly what you'd expect of an Atelier series game—if you liked it before, you'll like it now, and if you didn't, you probably won't change your mind. However, it does improve a lot from Ryza 2. Combat feels a lot better as well as many other mechanics. You'll be gathering a lot of materials and crafting a lot of items, and if you like that sort of thing, the gameplay loop is very fun. Again, the devs played it a bit safe with mechanic additions, and that's probably a good thing.
Performance / Port Quality
It runs very well so far with a solid 120 FPS at max settings on a 3090. I haven't had any frame drops or other issues with it. The game does *not* support ultrawide displays at either 21:9 or 32:9. You can set a custom resolution in the settings.ini file, but the UI will be stretched, and using a hex value editor to fix it breaks the minimap. Game is also running well on Steam Deck; however, there is some freezing here and there.
Other Comments
Finally, to address some of the comments on sex appeal and censorship: yes, the game still has physics on all outfits that would show it (not plate armor or leather, for example), and while photo mode does disable Ryza's model when too close, you can also just move her around to zoom in closer—works fine for me. It's misinformation, and the Atelier series has never exactly been fanservice-y. You can enjoy Atelier Thighza 3 perfectly fine.Once again, I do recommend the game if it sounds interesting to you. It is a very good, fun, and enjoyable game for its genre and the audience it is made for. If you don't like the genre and theme and/or are positivity-challenged, obviously I don't recommend it—it isn't made for you.