Embark on thrilling adventures in Atelier Yumia with a cast of characters as you navigate a vast open world teeming with monsters, resources, and puzzles.
Koei Tecmo doesn’t need any introduction, but perhaps not everyone is familiar with their Atelier series. Although it has not yet achieved global recognition, Atelier has amassed a considerable fan base because of its whimsical tales about magical girls called alchemists, even though Atelier Ryza was a great improvement over the last trilogy.
This action role-playing series by Koei Tecmo and Gust is famous for its collaborations with prominent brands, rich historical settings, and complex storylines. With a strong presence in the Japanese and global gaming marketplaces, the Atelier series continues to be a prominent franchise in the industry, offering a blend of classic gameplay and innovative features.
However, Koei Tecmo has set lofty aims with Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land, which has a large open world loaded with puzzles and a plethora of gameplay inspired by survival games. Fans of puzzle-solving in a vast open world reminiscent of Zelda: Breath of the Wild might find this game immediately appealing since many new ideas from Hyrule ended up in this.
Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land features an entirely new world and protagonist. You play as Yumia, a young magical alchemist who, like in the previous games, can use mana, the energy stored in people’s memories and souls, to fashion various items, including weapons, magical artifacts, and even chairs.
Yumia is a young girl who struggles with questions of whether or not she made the correct decision by continuing in her mother’s career. You know, alchemy was the root cause of two enormous explosions that killed a lot of people: one that brought down the Aldisian Empire centuries ago and another that happened not long ago. When word gets out that Yumia is an alchemist, everyone treats her with the same level of superstition and dread that they would any other magician.
In Atelier Yumia, you are sent on a journey through monster-filled wildernesses to learn the facts of alchemy after being hired by a study team to assist them in unearthing the mysteries of the destroyed Aldisian Empire. The protagonist, Victor, and his sister Isla are put in charge of Yumia’s safety, but they quickly find themselves entangled in a battle against villains and ne’er-do-wells, with three other interesting characters that join their team.
There are a small number of terrible, animalistic enemies, but the plot is just as flat as they are. A guy with a dragon hat appears early in the game, but you won’t see him again for at least twenty hours. In addition, the last boss is only introduced in passing by his subordinates outside of the introductory lesson.
A bit too much time is spent sending you on wild goose chases in Atelier Yumia before the plot advances, as is typical of JRPGs. After you’ve sat through a mountain of talk in this tower, head over to this one to unlock even more dialogue. Thankfully, the six protagonists and their backstories are at the core of Atelier Yumia’s narrative. Initially bothersome, but as you continue to explore their narratives, you’ll end up engrossed with how the game progresses.
Furthermore, due to the humorous tone of the Atelier series, it is expected that they continue to speak excessively and adhere rigidly to anime cliches. Atelier Yumia has a charmingly diverse cast within a sparse story, and that’s plenty for many JRPG fans like me. But the four female party members’ adoration is another matter entirely.
While I get that this style is present in more recent Atelier games, I felt like the character arcs were weakened by the abundance of scenes where Nina, the mercenary, flaunts her ridiculous bust or Yumia crawls through crumbling ruins, and the camera pans to give near-upskirt shots of both of them. Yumia’s magical girl dance will help clear the overflowing mana, unlocking hundreds of question marks on your map.
It was fun to switch to photo mode and capture the surroundings as a great civilization made its way back to nature, from the verdant cliffs of the Ligneous region to the pastel pinks and blues of the Sliva region and beyond. Take a look at this tiny reel.
Atelier Yumia’s abundance of resource icons might be distracting and make it hard to focus on the game. Because of this, I really need a dynamic HUD that allows me to conceal UI elements until I specifically want to see them. You might recognize some of the stuff found in these settings.
Popular survival games like PAL World and Rust come to mind when one thinks of gathering materials. Releasing the map by visiting specified areas is a worn standard from several open-world games, and the plethora of puzzles sprinkled throughout appear like they were lifted from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in its sequel.
Regrettably, everything comes out as uninspired and unfinished. Finding particular materials was never an issue because the Synthesize mechanic utilizes an abundance of resources (more on that later). Simultaneously, the problems that granted skill points were all monotonous and simplistic.
There are three sorts of puzzles in Atelier Yumia: basic circuit puzzles, a matching game with a circular layout, and a hide-and-seek game where you have to fire switches placed throughout chambers. There isn’t a single one of them that is creative enough to offer you a tiny boost of pleasure when you solve them.
The mechanics for constructing the base also have limitations. Atelier players with more patience and imagination than I can definitely construct expansive masterpieces for Yumia and her friends to enjoy. These bases aren’t very useful for much of anything other than crafting and storing stuff.
Also, fast travel makes creating more than one base redundant, so you won’t have to defend against advancing creatures or return to fill up supplies. There are various ways to replenish your energy, and some regions have concentrated mana that slowly drains it. Therefore, establishing a basis to explore deeper was never really a good idea.
In addition, you can repair yourself with bandages and access zip lines using gauntlets you manufacture, but with all the rapid travel stations, it didn’t make much sense to employ the building mechanism. Consequently, it seems like an afterthought, as if Gust was just trying to guarantee that Atelier Yumia would be included among the top-tire popular base-building games.
Even worse, a lot of the loot from exploration and side tasks is related to the base construction. After finishing the first region’s exploration checklist, I was disappointed to receive a recipe for a set of chairs. The open-world mechanics, riddles, resource collection, and base building all feel like a pilot for an upcoming sequel.
Thus, the Atelier series’ distinctive crafting mechanism, Synthesis, binds all these unfinished mechanics together. As you can see, Yumia can conjure up almost anything by simply performing her “magical girl dance” ritual at the altar of an alchemist. Armor, weapons, magical spells, furniture, quest items, and more fall under this category. There are just too many boring phases in the procedure that I was afraid it would put me to sleep after the first couple of hours.
Finding the recipe while exploring is the initial step in crafting various items, such as healing items for use in battle. The next step is to collect the necessary materials for crafting. If you wish to enhance the item first, you can do so by collecting particles from mana locations scattered across the open area.
Following that, you’ll visit an altar to choose a variety of benefits, and then you’ll fill three cores—each with at least three slots—with resources that enhance the item’s quality and apply various talents.
Finally, you can Synthesize, but in order to equip the item, you’ll need to go to a different menu. Curiously, auto-equip is absent from this. I was completely worn out just thinking about making armor, weapons, magical sub-weapons, and accessories for all six characters. With gem slots to keep track of, this advancement system became a pain to go through if combat got a bit too challenging.
Fortunately, you can delegate all of that thinking to the auto-synthesize option. Finding the best ingredients to make the most powerful items may definitely break the combat, even with the highest difficulties. However, I had no trouble defeating the final boss with the usual difficulty. Nonetheless, a more engaging progression mechanism would have been preferable to the one I chose to disregard.
A new spin on action-based fighting is one way Atelier Yumia stands out. Three of your six playable characters, which you can switch between whenever you choose and have decent AI, encircle the enemies you’re facing, strafing left and right and alternating between a front and back circle to evade area-of-effect assaults.
Yumia, when controlled in the front circle, may unleash a barrage of attacks with her pistol staff and rocket-powered high-heeled kicks. Her gun staff fires off rounds of ammunition from a secure location in the rear row. A team-up attack will be triggered if you, using any character, are able to stun an enemy and then switch to a magical attack to target their vulnerability.
On top of that, if your dodges in Atelier Yumia are flawless, you can switch characters for devastating follow-up attacks. Like a rhythm game, but without the music, the battle system unfolds. To the beat of your ears, you’ll switch between characters, attack their weaknesses, and steer away from area-of-effect assaults.
Despite a few balancing issues, the beginning region is way too easy, boss fights are even easier, and the difficulty of the boss fights spikes. I was entertained the whole 30 hours it took to finish the game by performing friend actions and using precision counters against grim beavers, as well as alchemy-warped enemies who were bent on restoring the glory of the Adalis Empire.
On the strength of its familiar cast and this dazzling, enjoyable combat, Atelier Yumiya—the alchemist of memories and the envisioned land—manages to stand on its two rocket-fueled heels.
Even if Atelier Yumiya doesn’t punish you too severely during battles, I still think the open-world puzzles, resource collection, and base building could use some polish and originality. This feels more like a proof of concept for potential sequels than the series needed, so it doesn’t bring it into the mainstream.
Atelier Yumia has some interesting concepts, but they are misplaced due to technical issues, too much emphasis on crafting, and an obvious absence of polish. You may, however, love it if you’re only interested in crafting and base-building and have a good idea of what you’re doing. Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land will please the series fans. However, newcomers to the game will have to spend a lot of time with it to like it due to the game’s vastness.
