The Quarterly JRPG Club - Let's 'Grind' Down that Backlog! - Atelier Totori - Q1 2016!

This quarter's game is going to be:

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Welcome back, everyone! This is the second quarter we're trying this out, and I'm grateful for all the participation! I understand that not as many folks have Sony consoles, therefore, less people own this game, but I think we still have a pretty good crew going through here.

Here are the stats on an estimate on the game's length.

For each month, we will be doing two in-game years. The game ends at the end of year 6, which will be at the end of March.

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Hope you're all ready for some ALCHEMY!

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I didn't get to play much of the last game, but I have this one, so there is no reason not to try

I hit the time limit on my first playthrough and stalled on my NG+. So I'll probably have another crack. Any idea how it will be broken up?

Looks like we'll be doing two in-game years per month.

Well, I'm already almost at the end of the first year (since I'm going to try and do the Gaiden thread, I figured I'd start early.)

I'm trophy-hunting, so I'm using a guide for day-by-day things to make sure I do. I don't know if it's just that, but I seem to prefer this over Rorona by far already. It's like knocking down a really satisfying shopping list for some reason. The mechanics are mostly the same but I love that turning in Front Missions late has no negative effect. Rorona was a bit harsh on that.

It's coming!

If we have any completionists here, I'd highly recommend using this excellent day-by-day guide which tells you when certain events are going to happen. It's very well written and informs you well ahead of time.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps3/991771-a...

Thanks, I definitely will do that, especially since it's my second time through.

Well, I'm already done with the first year, haha. I'm really enjoying my time with this so far! I think playing through with the guide is actually kind of a nice guideline just so you don't miss anything. It doesn't feel forced, and is just good information to have. I finally finally just synthesized my first materials which I used to forge some new weapons (after reloading the saves a couple times when failing the synthesis) so that felt good - battle should be quite a bit easier on my party now. Looking forward to more!

Anyone else gotten into this yet?

Maintaining some of the character relationships is a little bit tough. I've noticed that some of the events/flags are hitting for me before the guide is saying, while others aren't, and I had to reload a couple of times to change priorities in order to get that to happen. I've hit a stretch where the guide is telling me to do alchemy stuff until a certain date and it feels like I'm out of materials and money. Guess I should try to do some of the side quests to fill those up.

How's everyone else doing? Anyone start this up yet? I'm in Year 2, Month 2.

I started, but I think I'm still in the tutorial. No real time to play until maybe the weekend.

I'm going to do Legend of Heroes first, should get to the break point in that fairly soon I hope. Then I'll kick this off.

The tutorial and the systems can be a lot to take in, especially around mechanics and rules in actual alchemy. If you have questions, just let me know, since I've gone through it a bit. There seem to be a lot of active systems going at the same time in the game, and it's basically about pulling the right levers at the right time to keep your momentum moving forward.

So I've found that some of the flags in the guide I've linked above can be a little shaky - for the most part, the flagged events can still happen a day or two after. For example, one of the Gino Flags didn't happen until a day or two after the scheduled date, when he rejoined my party.

I'm in Year 2, in March. I should be able to get through Year 2 before the end of the month, so there's that. The game is still pretty enjoyable - I'm finding some of the Friendship Quests (or whatever - friend requests?) to be kind of pointless and arbitrary, but it's probably there in case you aren't bringing a certain character along with you as much as you should be, and if their friendship level isn't as high.

Played just a bit more this morning. I'm still very early on in the game - Mel just joined the party. If the story doesn't pick up the pace soon, I might end up just fading away, the same as I did the first time I tried.

Tangle - there is barely any story. I guess the main story is basically following these characters into becoming adventurers and alchemists, which is sort of how Legend of Heroes: Trails feels to me, in a way. There's probably more coming on that front, but this is a pretty light-hearted, 'the total is the sum of all its parts' kind of games, I think.

Damnable Bear wrote:

Tangle - there is barely any story. I guess the main story is basically following these characters into becoming adventurers and alchemists, which is sort of how Legend of Heroes: Trails feels to me, in a way. There's probably more coming on that front, but this is a pretty light-hearted, 'the total is the sum of all its parts' kind of games, I think.

Hoo boy. The same thing happened to me with Trails, then. I guess the slice of life thing may work for me in Anime, but as a RPG story backdrop, I think my attention span isn't sufficient.

I'll keep soldiering on for a bit, but I may have to drop out.

Yeah, I just wanted to manage your expectations a bit. I'd barely call this an RPG if it weren't for the turn-based combat. It's like a visual novel with crafting, moreso.

OK I'm in! Just done the first day of tutorials.

Just got my Adventurer's License. I think you do have to get into the characters and dialog, the gameplay is interesting (in particular the synthesising), but may not hold up on its own. I do find the main character pretty charming.

Got Mimi in my party (yay!) and ranked up to Iron. Time goes by dangerously fast in this game!

I'm at around Year 2, May, so probably on track. Kind of given up on following the faq, it's just so pedantic. I'm still skimming it to pick up some broad strokes. Also, it does have some basic advice about time management which is definitely worth following. And there's that upgrade for Peter's cart...

The upgrade for Peter's cart was barely covered until it was too late, because I didn't have the materials it was mentioning, so I had to rewind a bit and load an old save in order to make those materials, and for the calendar to smooth itself out so that I was back on track. That was kind of a pain.

I think early on the faq said to make sure to hang onto a bounce stone although I don't remember if it said why. I've only used the cart once since the upgrade but I think it saves at least 5 or so days on the trip. Really I would like this game more if there was no time pressure at all. That's probably a discussion for later though.

Yeah I think that's one of the mechanics of the Atelier games that sticks through them all, the time mechanic.

My favorite Atelier game. You guys are in for a treat. The pace and the characters are great.

So, it's been a while since people have updated here. I've fallen off with using the guide, and I'm taking things at my own pace now. Mainly waiting until I can get some more recipes to make. I started making a few of the items that increase your movement speed around the map, and increase your gathering speed. Just waiting for a few other things to come along so I can hopefully make better weapons. Also trying to do more quests to get money to buy more Chims! I'm nearing the middle of Year 3 right now, though.

I've been prioritising Trails (which I'm up to date on) and a huge backlog of TV shows. I would like to keep up with the schedule for this one but it's been a while. Trying to use the guide is definitely a bit of a turn off, it's so unwieldy. But I really don't want to play through again and not get a decent ending...