Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout is the newest in a long line of Atelier games. As you can read in our review (Our review is here) it’s a game with a new synthesis system and well as a new battle system. A good game when you’re a newcomer to step right in.
There’s also a guide to Ryza’s Battling system on the site. You can find that here
If you are playing the first Atelier Ryza game, then read right on. But if in fact you’re playing the second one then the new synthesis guide is right here: Atelier Ryza 2 Guide: Let’s synthesize! Important to know as the synthesis in the second game is a bit different.
Atelier games are, of course, famous for their synthesis. A very important part of the game, so one you will have to master. The game tries to explain it all, but I feel it doesn’t do a very good job at it. So, I decided to make a little Guide to Synthesis, detailing all you need to know. Here we go!
Synthesis is about getting the highest quality items possible. Even more so then in earlier games, as the newly added Core Crystal means you don’t use up the items you need for battle and healing. But putting the highest possible quality item in the Core Crystal is important! They will do higher damage or give you higher healing effects.
The info on the screen
As an example I’ve chosen the recipe for Polish Powder. Pressing — on the left joy con brings up the table of content for this item. Related items for Polish Powder are Ashen Sand, (Sand), (Ore), Pearl Crystal, Shell Pearl, Energy Pendant and Unknown Gemstone. You’ll notice some items are listed between brackets. This means that a group of possible ingredients is named, for instance, for (Ore) you can use Crimson Ore, Amatite Ore and Purumuru.
On the right you see ” To Make“, which is of course the items needed to make Polish Powder. You need Ashen Sand, one of the group Sand and one of the group Ore.
Clicking on the first item needed, Ashen Sand, gives the specifics: a description, how to use and gather it. What category it is (sand), which of the four elements it can have (ice and wind) and lastly, where you can gather it (main road, Sunken Mine).
The Explosive Uni
Before we go further: there is so much info on the synthesis screen that you might want to click X to Check Tree first. It gives you an oversight of all effects and traits you can achieve and pressing ZR or ZL will let you zoom in to look more closely.
While Polish Powder is an item that is used a lot in other recipes, it isn’t one that has interesting effects. It shows that it can increase in quality, like most items do. So for my further explanation, I will take one of the first recipes you’ll learn: the Explosive Uni, comes in very handy in battle.
Like I mentioned, the effects for this one are cool. When you press – on the Uni, and choose the Explosive Uni in the Related table you get the Uni’s info. Pressing Y after that shows the effects of an Uni.
When used in battle, the Explosive Uni can have the effect of Burst, Scatter or Explosive. it can cause Spike, which means it damages the Stun Gauge. It can also cause a small, medium or large surprise, delaying the enemies turn in battle. You don’t have to memorise all of that, but you can see this is a mean little bugger!
Material Loop
The Material Loop is the string that appears on screen when you want to synthesise an item.
1: what kind of materials you can use, you will see it corresponds with your inventory items.
2: the element of the node: the nodes in the loop have a colour based on the four elements in nature. The nodes are either red (fire), blue (ice), green (wind) and yellow (lightning).
3: element value: the nodes and the title near them shows what you can achieve by using the right ingredients in them. You could use another color by the way in the nodes when adding the ingredient, but if you use enough materials with the proper element (colour) you can uncover a new effect, trait or add to the quality.
4: shape of the node: some nodes have ” Effect” above them, others have ” Trait“, others have ” Quality” and others have “Recipe” (we will come back to that last one later). Trait and Effect nodes are circles, Recipe nodes are octagonal, Quality nodes have six corners and lastly there are diamond shaped nodes that need a special material.
Some nodes are still chained up, others are accessible immediately. You have to add enough materials to the one you can access to unlock adjacent nodes if you match the element value of the original loop (remember, the elements are fire, ice, lighting and wind). That needed value is above the Choose Quantity box.
Let’s make that Explosive Uni
Back to the Material Loop for the Explosive Uni. Do you see the Choose Quantity box above? There are two orbs above and it says Choose Quantity 4 times. The orbs are the minimal amount of materials needed to synthesise, while the choose quantity number indicates the maximum of items you can use before you are forced to synthesise.
The first node gives the basic effect of Burst (on the right lower corner of the screen). Beneath the Effect 1 node, you can see the additional effects you can achieve for an Explosive Uni: Scatter, which needs three lightning elements and Explosive, which needs five lightning. The materials to put here are a choice of Uni.
Every uni has two elements in this example, all have lightning and wind (yellow and green). Some have a small number 1 beneath, others have a 2 beneath. Picking a uni with only 1 fils one yellow element when you’re looking at the effects to achieve. The ones with a 2 beneath fill up 2 yellow elements.
Asides from that, the uni’s each have their own quality level. Pressing X lets you sort them according to quality or whatever sorting filter you need. I’ve chosen the one with the highest quality and the highest number. Putting that one in the first node (Effect 1) fills up 2 elemental value dots and opens up the two adjacent nodes for Effect 2 and Effect 3. My quality goes up to 28 (on the right of the screen) and I’ve still got only Effect 1, Burst.
Put in another uni and the Effect 1 node levels up. You have now reached the effect Scatter (check low right corner) but my quality has gone down to 26 as I had to use a lower quality uni. The Choose Quantity number has gone down to 3 times, so I can only do three more placements before I’m forced to synthesise.
I can keep on putting uni in to get the maximum effect of Explosive. The quality goes down. I can also choose to go for effect 2 which is Spike by adding gunpowder, or I can go for effect 3 which is Surprise by adding fuel. If I go for the latter, I get a choice of materials that count as fuel. Note that for Surprise I have to fill up red elements for fire.
If I choose the natural oil that is my highest quality fuel plus it has the element of fire, my quality levels up and Surprise S is added as effect to my Explosive Uni. And what’s even better: my oil had a trait too, ” Few Bonus lv 4” called Steward’s Blessing. It says in the info that it increases item power and heal create with fewer targets. If you want to know more about the traits or the effects, press – on this screen.
The nice thing about traits is that they can be inherited. So when you use your explosive Uni for instance for making a bomb, using one that has Few Bonus lv 4 will inherit to the bomb as well.
In my example I’ve put in another oil as fuel, and in this way I’ve made an Explosive Uni with a quality of 32, which makes it a C rated item.
I can also choose to spread my bets and add gunpowder to effect 2. In this way I get a quality 30 item that has all three effects, but it is a D item instead of a C.
Notice that you don’t have enough choices to make to unlock the entire material loop. Finding materials that fill up more of the elemental value dots in one go will help here.
Unlocking a recipe
Aside from learning new recipes that you find in books or get by doing quests, you can unlock new recipes too in a material loop. Looking at your recipe list you can see some of them with a white sheet before the name or a red sheet. A red sheet means you don’t have the necessary materials to unlock the recipe. A white sheet means it’s within reach. Let’s look at the material loop for the Grass Beans.
I’m adding a Tall Taun to the blue node, which unlocks Quality +10, a blue flower trait, a yellow flower trait and a potential recipe. For that one I need flour that I don’t have so I’m skipping that for now.
I’m focussing on Effect 2, with asks for a lighting element, and if I put in a Sunny Honey Flower which has a lighting element too, Blue quality unlocks.
But let’s go back a step, because I want to unlock the recipe. For that, notice that 2 red fire elements are needed. So yes, I’m putting in a Lantern Grass that has a fire element and a lightning. It unlocks the blue quality, but it fills up one of the required fire element in the hidden recipe. So back to the yellow effect 2 node, and I’m adding another material with a fire element.
A new part of the Material Loop is added for the recipe Blessing Ointment.
And that’s how hidden recipes are found. Brilliant addition to the game!
I hope this synthesis guide is helpful for you and makes for added gaming fun. I know it has helped me to understand what I’m really doing. I might even try my hand at a battle guide, but first, I’ll enjoy the game for a bit!
Neat. This grid kind of reminds me of the skill upgrade tree from Mana Khemia, but a lot more simplified in that you just make/find an item and put it on a character tree for bonuses. I admit I’m still lost reading all this but that’s kind of because I don’t have the game (yet) to compare and test the stuff myself.
I think there’s a real engaging loop in trying to make items better quality than in other Atelier games, and can’t wait to try this out.
Of course you are lost reading this without the game, as it’s supposed to be a step by step guide if you’ve got the game sitting at your side. I have never gotten much further with Mana Khmer’s, but it’s still on my Vita from years ago. The visuals are quite different from atelier games these days!