Recent reviews by BlueFire

Amazing game, it has that "one more turn vibe", the last time I enjoyed one survival/building game this much was with Banished.

This looks like an amazing Atelier game.

- Turn battle system is back.
- Instanced maps instead of open world.
- Cauldron Alchemy System that looks way better than Yumia so far.

Also, Rias is a smug cat girl, she is great.

EDIT: Just finished the game with every achievement. Decent JRPG, but a really bad Atelier game. I'm not happy at all with this game. For this price tag theres a LOT of better JRPG and the Arland, Dusk, Mysteriour or Ryza trilogies are way better Atelier games than this.

Original review at around 20 hours:

I have played every game since Rorona and this is the biggest letdown so far. This is a really bad Atelier game blended with a decent JRPG.

My biggest issue is with the open world and the alchemy system. For the Open World part it was already kind of bad with Atelier Ryza 3 but this is just way worse. This series really needs instanced areas to shine and give a bigger focus to alchemy. I feel alchemy is just an after thought once this series went with real time combat, I really miss crafting items and using it on battle because It was completely mandatory to kill stuff and survive, but this game is now just kind of buttom smashing once you craft gear with good stats, you don't even need good traits anymore (And for this just tap one button and use automatic alchemy, you don't even need a brain to break the game like in the past).

I was a beta tester and got a free copy.

The core mechanics for this game feels really great, the performance is pretty good, they have promised more content in the the upcoming months that wans't ready for launch. Early and mid game is amazing, but late game can feel a bit boring until we get more stuff to do.

The game has a lot of potential for be one amazing school simulation game, is not yet there, but it can reach it in a few months with free updates and DLC.

Great game, was really fun, for some reason I feel the Ryza trilogy was just the prologue to a new trilogy in the same universe.

Got all the achievements, this game is WAY better than the first one, map design is top notch. I'm super excited to play Ryza 3, a lot of stuff can happen, this game is probably just a HUGE and AMAZING prologue.

Atelier Ryza is probably one of the best Atelier games to start on this amazing franchise. This game doesn't have a lot of content or ultra hard battles like the previous trilogies but has probably the best cast and a really good story.

The battle system is in real time but you can use a command to pause the time and use any item or skill that feels really good (and you will use a lot this mechanic for certain difficult fights).

The alchemy system is really fun, especially to find new recipes. I feel the alchemy system is easier than in past games, mostly because the items are infinite now and you have reason to use them a LOT even in normal fights.

Atelier Ryza has a more traditional story than other Atelier games and still finds time to develop the characters, there's no character endings but you can still find a really good conclusion to each one.

The music is OK, theres other Atelier games or JRPG with amazing OST out there, but is fine, theres a song with lyrics in the middle game that is actually pretty good, but I still find Atelier Firis having the best one.

I really hope this is an Atelier Ryza trilogy, I need more of this amazing girl.

Endless Legend is a great game, has a lot of things that doesn't have other traditional 4X games like the option to equip characters or to win a match with a rudimentary story quest. Is part of the Endless universe that is huge and has a lot of other games that are mostly excellent.

Also, don't mind the recent negative reviews, those are from a bunch of players that are trying to punish Amplitude because they removed a Mod that was promoting piracy.

Best Lan Party Game Ever. All my friends really love it, some parts were really chaotic and hard. Would cook again without a Sanitary Certificate.

EDIT: September 30, 2015: The online mode went public, matchmaking system is taking AGES to find someone, the game totally lost momentum on PC because a lot of time passed between releases and this patch, Tecmo didn’t compensate or anything, not going to buy any other game of this developer ever again.

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I’m not going to talk about the game itself because you can find reviews from the console versions so I’m going to limit myself to talk about how the PC version looks and feels.

I must start saying that I was one of the guys that wasn’t really going to get the game because of the fiasco of not having Soft Engine and SteamWorks, but I finally got it in GMG for 26 USD because I tough “what’s the reason to get the DLC costumes if we don’t have Soft Engine, they aren’t going to look that well” Oh boy, how wrong I was, this game is running really smooth and the graphics looks amazing because of the high resolution textures and 4x SSAA, you don’t really need a high-end computer to max everything, with a mid-range computer you can enjoy everything this game has to offer at 60fps.

Pros

-High resolution textures (4K)
-High Resolution Shadows (4K)
-4x SSAA
-Well optimized

Cons

-Lack of Soft Engine
-Lack of Multiplayer mode at launch
-You can only get the DLC Costumes if you buy the big expensive packs (At the time of writing this)
-Lack of SteamWorks (Achievements, Online mode, SteamCloud, Cards, etc, etc)
-Tecmo KOEI respect for the players.

In general the game looks and plays pretty well, the main issue is how Tecmo Koei delivered the product to the community because people was specting to get Soft Engine mostly...