izigame.me

Adorable game, but wait for a sale and keep a few things in in mind.

-The story was very sweet. I love all of the characters, as well as the subtle world-building introduced throughout the narrative. Not sure if it was intentional or not, but a lot of the characters' bad or silly decisions/solutions/reactions actually make a lot of sense considering the age-range of the main cast. Past the typical JRPG quirkiness, there's a lot of touching moments that show genuine character growth where they reflect on their actions. Many of the minor quests also tied in nicely with bigger plot happening in the background. I wish there were a few more side stories between the end of the main story and the grind to 100% Cyan's task list for the final side story. The task list is especially grindy with the "explore this area X amount times" type of quests. I bought a lot of materials through the store on my playthrough, so it took me a couple of extra hours to finish the area goals. It's a requirement to complete all of these tasks to unlock the New Game+ feature, which essentially carries over some data to make a second playthrough easier.
-As others have said, if you're a completionist, prepare to commit a lot of time to leveling up all adventurers' skills. I'd recommend starting a New Game+ after getting a good amount of medal bonuses and wish stones so you benefit from the XP boost.
-There are also many HIDDEN in-game medals that only appear after you complete their requirements. I found very limited information about how many exist. To my knowledge, there's not really any hint system in-game to figure out these hidden medals, and a lot of them aren't Steam achievements either (For example, you get a hidden medal for drinking water at the tavern 10 times, one unlocks for each character after adventuring 150 times with them, ect). There's no good way to verify if you have all of them, or even if we've discovered all of the information about the available hidden medals. For those interested, the best information I found about these hidden medals is available on the Japanese release's, "笑顔の錬金術師", game wiki and other .jp forums discussing the game. The English wiki is outdated bare bones in comparison.
-The Smile Alchemist feels like it was created in anticipation of content updates to keep its systems appealing and fresh throughout the end-game. Unfortunately, there has been very few updates as of June 2025, which means the end-game feels really hollow. Structurally, The Smile Alchemist is like a mobile-game, (which makes sense, considering it released on mobile in Japan before its international port to PC/Console), but it lacks the active support or backlog of content necessary to justify the $20 price-tag. If you want to buy this game, I'd recommend that you wait until it is on sale, which pains me to say because there is so much this game does right.
Overall, I definitely enjoyed my time with The Smile Alchemist, despite its issues with pacing and lack of end-game incentives to play. I will probably come back to this title at some point to get the last steam achievement. The story is where this game really shines, and I just wish there was more of it to enjoy. And to the devs/publisher: If a continuation/adaptation of the game's narrative were to ever release, I'd buy it in a heart-beat.