Game: Atelier Lydie & Suelle: the Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings
Genre: JRPG, Simulation, Crafting
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam & PS4 )
Developers | Publishers: Gust | Koei Tecmo
Age Rating: US Teen | EU 12+
Price: US $39.99 | UK £32.99 | EU € 39,99
As part of the Atelier Mysterious Trilogy Deluxe Pack (released on Switch and PS4):
US $89.99 | UK £73.99 | EU € 89,99
Release Date: April 22nd, 2021
In the past, most Atelier games by Gust were released on Playstation consoles. Lucky for us Switch owners, the older games have been brought to the Switch after the huge success of Atelier Ryza. Re-released in trios, starting with the Arland trilogy and after the Dusk trilogy, it’s now the turn of the Mysterious Trilogy.
This trilogy consists of Atelier Sophie: the Alchemist of the Mysterious Book, Atelier Firis: the Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey and Atelier Lydie & Suelle: the Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings. All games come in the DX version, which means new content is added to the games, there’s a special photo book and all DLC is included.
After we’ve published our reviews for Atelier Sophie and Atelier Firis, let’s look at the review for Atelier Lydie & Suelle: the Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings.
Rebellious Twins and an Inadequate Father
This third game in the Mysterious Trilogy tells the story of alchemist twins: the reserved but caring Lydie Malen, and the eccentric, carefree Suelle Malen. They both work alongside their father at the family atelier. Their mother has died some years ago, and it seems their father hasn’t gotten over losing her yet. He is an alchemist too, but doesn’t amount to much, neither as an alchemist nor as a father.
The twins are pretty much left to take care of themselves. This shows in the way the twins and their father interact. Dummy Daddy is a term that’s used often, and I must say father Roger seems to be a good-for-nothing kind of guy.
Due to their fathers disinterest in alchemy they rarely see any customers. Their daily life changes however when the duo uncovers a mysterious-looking painting in their own basement, leaving us to wonder just what the father is up to while painting. As they reach out to investigate, the girls are drawn inside a world bountiful with rare materials perfect for alchemy.
Synthesis and Battle to Reach the Highest Alchemy Rank
The progress of the story in Atelier Lydie & Suelle is tied to the ambition of the Twins to reach the highest status in the Alchemist Ranking system. Starting at the lowest level, the G-ranking exam, they work their way up by doing assignments. The twins first have to make sure their Ateliers notoriety goes up by doing various tasks in their Ambition Notebook. These range from fighting quests, helping out villagers, discovering new recipes and more.
As was introduced in this trilogy and used throughout, synthesizing isn’t just a matter of throwing ingredients in a pot. A puzzle like template is used to put the ingredients together, aided by a catalyst that can change up the puzzle. Much like in Atelier Firis, the catalyst can be just about anything, and each catalyst makes for a specific panel and gives specific bonuses. They range from adding value to the effects, making it possible to transfer extra traits or give more quality.
You make many, many different items in your cauldron, including various sorts of bombs and healing items. The trick is to make the best quality items to take with you in battle, which adds a nice goal in your synthesis.
The battle system is once again turn based, and is very enjoyable to me. Eventually you can add more people to your fighting team, and you can put them in the front row for attacks and the back row for support. If Lydie or Suelle are in the back row, they can even perform a limited kind of synthesis to help the battle and every support character can help out using their special skills.
This monster lives in a pot!
Easy Travel and Lots of Guidance
In Atelier Firis we got to explore at random, without having to go from A to B; the developers have abandoned this open world concept again in favor of living in a small town. Probably because I was one of the few people who actually enjoyed the open world concept in Atelier Firis a lot!
I guess it makes sense too, as it’s the mysterious paintings that give the sense of exiting horizons to explore. The paintings unlock slowly: first you have to do the tasks in the Ambition notebook, then the tasks acquired to gain another Alchemy Level and only then you get to see a new painting. It’s one of the things that makes the game interesting, wondering what kind of world you’ll see next. New enemies, new materials to gather. And enabling the girls to come up with new ideas too.
The travel system in the game is, once again, great. It’s quick and efficient, and the game guides you along by adding a star next to where you need to go to progress the story. And an ! for a destination that’s a sub-quest. With the usual dungeon areas, the town itself and the various painting, this could have gotten cluttered. But they solved that nicely by adding screens for the outskirts of town, and one for the paintings.
Extras in the DX Version
Aside from the photo mode and the digital art book that is included in this DX version of the game there is more extra content. This is the ultimate version of Atelier Lydie & Suelle: the Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings. Most importantly, there is an extra mysterious painting, showing the world of Nelke and the Legendary Alchemists with new scenarios and bosses. To unlock this extra painting you have to gather the Fragments of the Mysterious Paintings in the other painting worlds you explore.
There are also two more playable characters, Ilmeria and Lucia. You get 7 costumes, 5 BGM tracks, a new area called Atelier Firis – Claudel Prairie and 5 item sets. And if that wasn’t enough, you get two extra recipes, an extra Quest and an extra Battle Mix as well as some more additional features.
Any Complaints?
I think it’s a pity that for this third game Gust didn’t follow through on the Open World concept from Atelier Firis. Luckily the Mysterious Paintings makes the gaming content exiting and diverse.
The only other complaint I have is that this is the first Atelier game where there are no English voices, only Japanese. In Atelier Ryza this is no problem for me, but the chirpy and whining voices of Lydie, Sue and especially Lucia do get on my nerves.
Other then that, I’m quite happy with Atelier Lydie & Suelle. Synthesis and battle are good, it performs perfectly in handheld mode on the Switch.
Comparison to Other Atelier Games
When playing a game in the Atelier series you can’t help but compare. When you have played them in order, reaching for the newest game released during your video gaming days, you notice things have changed since the Dusk trilogy. And things have changed even more even from Atelier Sophie to Atelier Firis and now Atelier Lydie & Suelle. Fast forward to Atelier Ryza and you see that the series has taken a definite turn to being much more of a simulation game while keeping the wonderful elements that make up earlier games.
Looking at this third game in the Mysterious Trilogy I can say Atelier Lydie & Suelle: the Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings is a solid entry, but I wonder if it shows enough progress for the series as the 19th game. Comparing with Sophie and Firis I must say that I think Atelier Lydie & Suelle is my least favourite because of the protagonist and the lack of innovation. Still, the Mysterious Paintings make it a great game for me, and it’s fun the see characters from the first two games to make an appearance.
Conclusion
The original game was released in 2018 and it was the first ever Atelier game to make it to the Switch. Back then I felt that it was a pity that this would be the one to serve to Nintendo gamers as a first experience. Protagonists that are not the most lovable girls I’ve met in the Atelier series and no English voices. I must say though that some of the chats the girls have are quite funny.
But, replaying it now in the order of the Atelier Mysterious trilogy I feel more kindly inclined. I can see how Gust tried for an open world approach in Atelier Firis and though they abandoned that in this game, they made up for it using the Mysterious Paintings.
Even though I liked the two earlier games, Atelier Sophie and Atelier Firis, just a little bit more, Atelier Lydie & Suelle: the Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings is still a lovely game in an amazing series.
Final Verdict: I Like it a Lot
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