The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book DX — Is it worth it?

Following sizzling on the heels of just about each outdated sport within the sequence, Atelier Sophie, plus its two siblings within the Mysterious trilogy, is getting a particular model with some adjustments and additional content material. Its not precisely essentially the most well-liked sport within the bunch, so I assumed I’d break down all the brand new additions, in addition to how the sport holds up over these previous few years. It’s price mentioning that Steam is delisting the earlier model of the sport and, for those who already personal it, you’ll nonetheless have to purchase Atelier Sophie DX.

Atelier Sophie DX begins out with the sport’s protagonist, Sophie, trying to make rudimentary medication through alchemy. After writing the recipe down in a e book, it begins speaking to her. The essential gist of the narrative is that Sophie has to finish duties to get the e book its reminiscences again, whereas she grows as an alchemist alongside the way in which. As it is a Japanese sport, the e book finally turns into a woman carrying lingerie. Makes excellent sense. It’s an Atelier sport, so there’s an entire lot of dialog between pretty uninteresting, cookie-cutter characters. Your mileage will differ.

Of the three video games within the Mysterious trilogy, I’d say that Atelier Sophie DX holds up the worst. It’s bought essentially the most rudimentary fight and alchemy mechanics of the three. Though, it isn’t all that far behind regardless. The primary distinctive characteristic concerning alchemy is that sure traits are added by inserting and arranging parts onto a grid. If the parts find yourself finishing a line, the ultimate product adjustments. The area is narrower right here and doesn’t clarify itself in addition to it does in later video games, nevertheless it’s high-quality. The fight, whereas fundamental, additionally works nicely sufficient. It’s conventional JRPG stuff.

Look away, I’m hideous!

Atelier Sophie DX could be very visually dated in comparison with its siblings. The geometry of the areas is horribly easy, textures are low-resolution and bland, and the areas themselves are sometimes tiny. It makes me suppose that it began growth as a PSP sport. It simply doesn’t look all that nice. The character fashions fare higher, although, as their colourful anime fashion nonetheless seems to be first rate. Nonetheless, for those who’re coming from one of many Ryza video games, going again to Sophie goes to be a little bit of a problem.

There’s a bit of latest stuff in Atelier Sophie DX, most of which most likely gained’t make it price a second purchase. Sophie can sprint now, which is a characteristic that was added with Firis. Sadly, you may’t zoom the digital camera out, which implies that it’s going to remain extraordinarily near Sophie always. Because it robotically turns as she strikes, the sport is sort of nauseating to play. This model additionally provides a photograph mode, plus the power to hurry up battle by as much as two occasions.

The most important new addition to the sport itself is a brand new substory specializing in Sophie discovering an outdated costume her grandmother used to put on. It largely appears to exist to place her in a skimpier outfit (not stunning). Sophie additionally has entry to completely different kinds of cauldrons that add numerous alchemy results. Lastly, many of the base sport’s DLC is included, akin to background music packs, costumes, a more durable issue, a brand new gathering space, and an epilogue. However huge followers seemingly have already got most of that stuff. As such, it’s a bit exhausting to advocate Atelier Sophie DX to homeowners of the unique or followers trying out older entries. It’s a stable sport, however the different two will seemingly be extra pleasant.