First Impressions: Atelier Merumu

Eh.

I have played it all the way up to the first save point and a little bit after, so I have not yet gotten a huge idea of this whole game. But.... the storyline sucks. Well, lets just say that the story line is highly cliche', the kind of thing you'd find in a children's storybook.

A young rebellious adventurous princess who wants to explore the world (No, not Nina) sneaks out of the castle to learn alchemy. The stonefaced castle secretary, and the emo muscular teenage palace guard are annoyed with you because of this. And all of the village NPC's know you by name and are very friendly. Along by your side is your lesbian highly loyal young maid servant who tries to keep you out of trouble.

The battle sequence isn't that bad, judging by the only battle I have been in. And the premise of using alchemy to help the kingdom grow isn't a bad one. But... still... Atelier Iris was much better in regards to having an epic and interesting storyline.

I am not too impressed so far, but I'll come back once I finished the game.

My Thoughts: Atelier Iris 2

I am replaying this game after beating it one time beforehand. I love the gameplay and have become deeply infatuated with the storyline. It is one of those "boy and girl are in love, but boy has to leave and save the world while leaving the girl behind, but they stay connected through the power of magic" kind of storylines. Which is actually part of a short story I wrote a little about, but failed to finish.

I initially got hooked on this game through the premise of alchemy, which is something I am interested in as part of my imaginative fantasy world, right next to magic and fighting monsters, which both occur in this game. I also enjoyed it due to the nature of the game. I have always been a very picky gamer, but the games I did enjoy, I loved immensely.

I seem to enjoy games with little to no timeline, and this game is one of those kinds of games. There does not seem to be a very strong connection between the three that I have played, despite similar characters. it's similar to Zelda, or Final Fantasy, similar characters, but little to no actual connection between the games. So you can play the second first and not be confused. Although I personally believe that the second one is a prequel to the first one, namely because in the first one iris is dead, and in the second one she is a little girl. But I am not too sure about that.

I also love how you can switch between the girl and the guy character as the game progresses, and both have a completely different storyline and mission. There really isn't much that I don't like about this game, if anything at all. So I guess that's all I have to say about it for now.