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I want to preface this review by saying I'm a big Atelier fan (at least, I still think I am). I may not play every single game in the series, but I have been following it for 9 years ever since Atelier Sophie was released in the west in 2016, and I tried my best to keep up with most of the new releases since then.
So when Atelier Yumia was first announced, I was excited for the game since it looked like a bold new direction with its serious tone for the story and the push for action RPG combat for the first time in the series. I share every update Gust has published about the game, and I just couldn't wait. Release day came around, I've completed the main story alongside most sidequests and all character events. If I have to be completely honest, nearly everything about Atelier Yumia was ultimately a disappointment since it had lukewarm results with its story, gameplay, and performance, and it just pains me so much to say that about a game I was truly hyped for.
Before I get into the meat of this review, I want to say I’m not usually a person who focuses heavily on graphics, but a lot of the textures in Atelier Yumia are just so low quality in resolution. I found a few spots that had textures that looked like it from a PS1 game. Not to mention, despite these low textures, it’s still a very demanding game (on PC at least) that I struggle to get running that could be better optimized. Plus, there is an influx of glitches and crashes, from falling out of the map to objects you could interact with but can’t. As someone who paid $70 for this game (which is a premium price for a game), I expected higher quality and performance as a product and Atelier Yumia is just less than desirable in that aspect and can be very detrimental when playing the game.
Shortly after the start of the game, you can tell Gust really wanted to change the formula of the Atelier series with its gameplay mechanics, and there are a lot of them. Without a doubt, the player will spend most of the time exploring. Taking influence from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Genshin Impact, there is plenty to wander around and discover in Atelier Yumia. From hidden caves to zip lines to repair and shrines to reactivate with simple yet very repetitive puzzles. There are also new platforming and shooting mechanics to gather ingredients and reach treasure chests.
Personally, I found the exploration rather frustrating at times. Due to the way Atelier Yumia has designed its convoluted open world, it can be very vague to figure out where to reach point A to point B. Some massive open-world games, such as Xenoblade Chronicles X and the Horizon series, have guidance options to help the player get to the next location they desire. That feature is something I really think Atelier Yumia needed desperately, because it been a handful of times when I was just absolutely lost on how to get to a certain place in the map that I had no idea how to reach it. I was so desperate that I had to Google around how do you reach a place. Exploration shouldn't be that much of a confusing headache.
New to the Atelier series are building mechanics when you lay out furniture, alchemy tools, and even housing at designated areas to complete quests. There are also quick syntheses of items you can create at any time, anywhere in the game, such as bullets, repair kits, bandages, and camping gear to assist exploration, heal the party, and unlock treasure chests. Speaking of camping gear, you can place those at anywhere with flat land. During camping, you can talk to your party members in optional conversations or cook meals to boost gameplay stats and add a temporary feature, such as repelling monsters away from the party or finding treasure chests in the minimap. All these additional features have little impact on the overall game, but they are nice add-ons to have while adventuring.
Combat was another drastic change Atelier Yumia made. Past games feature traditional turn-based combat, yet it was the Ryza trilogy that made turn-based combat more active with the inclusion of a modern and modified action time-based combat seen in older Final Fantasy games, as well as Chrono Trigger. However, Yumia makes a more aggressive push into active combat by leaping into full-on action-based RPG combat.
I thought the combat was fun, and I enjoyed it. Sure, it's simple with hardly any depth, and much of Yumia's combat felt very similar to the combat system in Tales of Berseria, considering how button mashy it is. However, I just don't have any complaints with it despite finding the leveling speed for the characters so absurd. Even after I was max level before the final boss, I still found it so entertaining to see Yumia performing backflips with her gun staff and tanking damage as Viktor.
Some Atelier fans do say levels hardly matter, and most of your party's power comes from equipment you synthesize (which I agree), which leads to the one thing that always made Atelier stand out from the other JRPG series: the alchemy! And, without a surprise, alchemy is also drastically different from the rest of the series. And I know each Atelier arc has different alchemy systems, but here in Yumia, you don't even use the series staple caladron at all (which made me sad). Alchemy in Atelier Yumia works more like how a mage uses magic.
Yumia's alchemy features two core components: resonance and mana. Generally speaking, the higher the resonance and mana with using higher quality ingredients, the better your synthesis will be. And you can insert ingredients into each "memory" to increase quality, the amount of traits you can equip (like Materia in Final Fantasy VII if I have to give an example), and additional effects for that item.
It sounds complicated on paper, but I believe it's the most simplified Atelier has been with its alchemy system in years. Essentially, as long you have high-quality ingredients, you can easily produce high results in the alchemy. In past Atelier games, you had to consider the level of quality or what traits the item had when you synthesized an item for a quest. That is no longer the case for Yumia since as long you simply create the required item, you can complete any quest requiring alchemy. I do not dislike the alchemy system in Yumia, I think it's serverable and it's fine. It's an interesting experiment in a series focused on crafting. However, I do notice the alchemy feel like it has taken a backseat to focus on the exportation.
With alchemy being a huge part of the gameplay, naturally, it’s also a huge focus in Yumia’s story, likewise to any Atelier game. This time, the way alchemy is painted is much more sinister and taboo, like a witch practicing a forbidden art of magic. The basis premise of Atelier Yumia is that the titular character, Yumia Liessfeldt, joins a research team to clear off the manabound areas of the Aladissian Empire while discovering the dark truths behind its past and encountering those that want to bring it to the present. It’s a very serious and plot-focused Atelier story that explores themes of remembrance, clinging on to the past, and the moral purpose of using alchemy.
While some of these story beats and themes are decent in narrative, I personally think the game beat the player’s head about these melancholic mood points too much, to the point Atelier Yumia creates a “woe is me” atmosphere. Combining that Atelier Yumia lacks a lot of the relaxing, slice-of-life feeling that can be cutesy, fun, and enjoyable. The game can be very taxing and mentally exhausting to play through its main story and character episodes. Atelier stories can be serious plot plot-focused adventures and even dark, as proven in the Dusk and Ryza trilogies. However, the lack of any light-hearted events that are replaced by repetitive dull speeches of character growth (that is already highlighted well enough in the main story) pushes Yumia too far into the “depression” end point that just take