Atelier Lulua isn’t the most recent Atelier title, but it is perhaps the most beginner friendly, making it a strange one to review. Despite the number of main instalments [in the series] being well into the double digits, this feels different even though it’s mostly more of the same.
Sure, every game in the franchise has what amounts to an hour-long introduction acting as a tutorial section introducing you to the different mechanics and prodding you towards the main loop of gathering and synthesis. Then the game introduces new techniques and additional factors at a good pace throughout, but few make things quite as obvious as Lulua does.
The setting, as the title indicates, is on the continent near the capital city of Arland. Lulua is the adopted daughter of Rorona, the titular protagonist of the 11th Atelier game, and a lot of the characters you meet, including Piana, Meruru and Totori appeared in the other games within the Arland series. As such, gameplay in Lulua is heavily inspired by those older titles, but seems to tell a story which requires no prior knowledge.
We first meet Lulua, an aspiring alchemist under the tutelage of Piana, who dreams of one day being as talented as her mother, Rorona, a legendary alchemist. Rorona hasn’t given up much of her day job to be a mother, and she doesn’t look a day older than when she was roaming around on the PS3. This leaves Lulua looking much more like her sister than her daughter, something the game is quick to point out in dialogue.
However, it’s not long before your average alchemy request takes Lulua and her cliché best-friend, orphanage-worker and cannon-user Eva, out into the wild to gather materials. Upon their return, a magic book literally falls out of the sky and hits Lulua on the head. Dubbed the ‘Alchemyriddle” this mystical tome is blank to everyone who reads it but Lulua, and provides recipies and guidance as she sets off on a journey to become a better alchemist.
As far as Atelier premises go, this one feels a little less shoehorned than most of the others, even if its lack of originality is bordering on pathological at this point. It makes sense that Rorona’s daughter would want to live up to her mother’s legacy, and it also stands to reason that she would spend most of the game craving the approval of other legendary alchemists within the world. There’s something about Luala that is just believable. A lot of other Atelier protagonists are larger than life characters with traits that amount to gimmicks. As far as Luala is concerned, she doesn’t really have one.
Thus, her journey feels quite organic. You travel between the three main towns in the game, using a portable Wagon Atelier, which strikes the best balance between Firis’ tent system and Sophie and Lydie & Suelle’s fixed atelier. Collecting ingredients and materials is very much the same as it was in those games too, as are the graphics and animations. Which, for 2019, is to say… dated.
I’m aware that Gust and Koei Tecmo aren’t exactly rolling in Activision or EA’s microtransaction money, but character animations need an update. Like Rorona, they too feel like they’ve been around since the 11th game. The fun anime artstyle will still hold up in another 10 years, much like NIS’s sprites from their Disgaea series, but the awkward spindly running animation and the stiff walking of characters needs some looking into. There’s also a lot of stationary interactions where these models just awkwardly stand still. If you’re a fan of the iconic artstyle you won’t be disappointed, but don’t expect this to be any better than what we got five years ago.
It’s plain to see that the Atelier games thrive upon their gameplay, mechanics and min/maxing – so while graphics are relevant to the review, they aren’t going to count against the game as heavily as they would on some multi-million dollar Triple-A title, but this game came out in 2019 and there’s a reasonable expectation that a PS4 game looks a certain way.
The synthesis mechanic has had another overhaul here, and I keep finding myself impressed that each game has a slightly different version of Gust’s well-refined formula. This helps keep the games feeling fresh and new when a lot of the items and monsters remain the same. This game’s version, the awakening system, feels like one of the simpler ones. It relies on using the four elements to boost the effects of your synthesis and create better items, and gives you a plethora of ‘boost’ items, like catalysts in previous games, to help. These boosts can be used to great effect if you know what you’re doing, helping turn what would have been an average bomb into a one-shot kill machine. They can also help a novice player complete quests and hit the goals set by the “alchemyriddle” without needing to endlessly farm new materials in search of the best traits and quality.
The story is split into chapters, and each chapter is completed by unlocking pages within the “alchemyriddle.” These are usually ‘craft X’ or ‘kill Y’ or even ‘explore Z’ and fall into standard Atelier practices. Later on, some of the hints on what you need to complete become more like actual riddles when the game asks you to create ‘high quality recovery items.” The quality or specific item isn’t stated, and unless you know they’re asking for a Nectar at 100+ quality, you’re not likely to know without some trial and error. I was torn between whether or not the game would have been better if it had just told you what to make, as the challenge is getting the quality, effect or trait on a specific item – not usually figuring out what that item is.
A big positive with this mechanic is that all synthesises are tracked prior to pages being unlocked. If at any point in that game’s history you have made the item in question at the specified quality, the page will already be unlocked once that chapter arrives.
Because of this, you can begin some chapters with four or five of the prerequisites already completed, but it never lets you get too far ahead. As I mentioned, this game is beginner friendly, and in being so, caps the quality of the items you can make. Yes, you can’t just cycle water to make perfect 999 items right from the start of the game which means you have to play in a much more balanced and well-paced way. This makes Lulua a much better title for fresh faces, as chapter-for-chapter, they can’t really get left behind by someone who knows what they’re doing. There’s no getting ahead of yourself.
That said, that accessibility comes with a bit of a downside. Lulua’s post-game is one of the easiest Atelier ones I’ve ever played.
The combat mostly follows the Lydie & Suelle format, but with only two supporting characters allowed. The major addition is the ‘interrupt’ mechanic, which allows alchemists to use items outside of their turn. I suspect this was designed to allow for quick healing after a big hit, or an immediate rebuttal after an enemy goes after a weak party member. What you get in practice are up to three slots for free, recharging, AoE nuke items.
Particularly when you reach the aformentioned post-game, the interrupt mechanic can be exploited along with traits like Mortal Blow (One-Shot Kill) and Rapid Interrupt (Fills your interrupt gauge as soon as you enter combat) to allow for up to three, free bomb throws or buffs before anyone gets a ‘true’ turn.
If you combine these with some of the more powerful bombs, then you can wreck all encounters save for the game’s optional super boss who, on Very Hard or above, has enough health to endure three to four salvos of your best bombs, so you’ll need the better ranked armour and weapons to compliment your ‘nuke all’ strategy.
Conclusion
Compared to previous Atelier games, Luala might seem like a contradiction. It’s the most beginner friendly title in a while, and continues a trend I noticed in Lydie & Suelle which seems to indicate that Gust are really working hard to bring new fans into the fold.
However, the setting of Arland and the inclusion of characters that are anchored in previous arcs, seems counterproductive to this “welcoming new faces” facade. Why wasn’t this just the start of a new trilogy or arc within the franchise, leaving the older ‘alchemist’ characters aside and just bringing in Hagel or Pamela as usual?
There’s nothing strictly wrong with Atelier Luala, as all these returning characters are given enough time to develop on their own, and the new companions are all unique twists on formula we’ve seen before. I particularly enjoyed Niko’s heart-of-gold pirate and Ficus’ wandering street magician. However, this game felt a bit out of place, particularly knowing that Atelier Ryza, the start of a new arc, was going to be released later that same year. This game felt a bit unnecessary.
I can’t speak for the latter, yet, of course. However, I can see that Luala is a slightly above average game within the franchise that doesn’t affect how I feel about the series as a whole. To say this game is par for the course is fair. Of the games I’ve played it’s better than Firis and Nelke, about on a level with Sophie and not quite as good as Lydie & Suelle. Perhaps in time it will be the start of a new arc, with Luala’s game the one that wrapped up the unfinished stories of certain Arland alchemists, clearing the way for a new era. As things stand, this is just another Atelier game, and is perfectly fine because of it.
Fatelighter 
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