This was a great review. I'm going to buy atelier meruru dx for the nintendo switch since i never really played the original game for the ps3. I also really love the art style of the atelier arland games too. It really looks good. ^_^
Great review! Another fun game that I really wish I had time to play. With the Nintendo Direct and all the games there I want to get, it’s going to be so hard to make more time for an Atelier game.
This is My favorite Atelier Game, and I've played all of them up till Firis, which is next for me. I'm happy to hear you enjoyed it, and took the time to share with us!
Great review for a great game. You'll find that it's actually a much easier game to complete this one 100% given that there aren't super strict dates for character flags and you can get most of them at your leisure. I felt less stressed with Meruru than the rest of the series, because I knew I had to play it a second time for a certain character's flags and endings anyways, so I enjoyed this game a lot more than Rorona and Totori(especially) since if you make sure to make great gear and get select helpful items for your second playthrough, 100%ing the game is a blast. I thought it was a nice and relaxing change of pace from the first two games, ESPECIALLY Totori(once again). Thankfully, the games after the Arland titles are less stressful overall, and for that reason, more accessible and enjoyable, as you know from playing Lydie and Suelle. I hope Lulua doesn't return to the super crazy time management of the first two titles. For a period, I almost decided not to play the series anymore because time management and platting the titles made the games feel like a chore. I didn't arbitrarily decide to platinum them either, but you will only get the best endings for doing so, at least in Totori, but I don't remember with Rorona. Rorona is ironically a much easier game than Totori. Totori Plus is actually the most strict game in the entire 12 or some odd last titles. Unlike the quality of life improvements added in Rorona Plus, they went and nerfed several methods of advancement, battle items, and money making methods. If you want to get the best ending in one playthrough in Totori, you have to grind cups for like 10 hours, which is hours and hours of opening cup items and selling black inks. It's terrible. I think i had about 80 saves for that game! Anyways, despite the time limit strictness in the first two games, I really love this series's charm and characters, and I really enjoyed your review. It was a nice trip down memory lane. I also agree that Meruru is the best game of the Arland series. It's just so much more relaxing and polished than the other two games(although Rorona Plus is quite fluid and fun), and the addition of the kingdom development did add extra motivation to keep playing. Those building bonuses are so nice. But yeah, keep up the great work. Love your hardcore RPG-playing mentality. Might I suggest time boxing Persona 2 several times a week to help you get through it? I usually set aside 2-3 play sessions of about 25-30 minutes a week for games that I get stuck on. That 25-30 minutes sometimes turns into an hour or five. It's helped me get through the Kingdom Hearts non-mainline titles, for sure. Also, off-topic'ish. How long have you been studying Japanese? You seem to be making good improvement lately. Is it just from playing games? I'm pretty much at the level where I can play entry level rpgs, but there are so many words I don't know that it's not very fun (It took me 3 hours to get from the intro to just past the moogle part of FFVI). Any tips for improving? Sorry for the long post. Thanks.
That's awesome to hear about 100%-ing Meruru (not so great about Totori with the cups but I'll cross that bridge later lol), I love the gameplay of it most and have kept pretty unspoiled for the other endings for this one, so I would love to dive in and have fun with it all over again sometime! I still wanna see what other ending I can get in Rorona and maybe even Totori sometime, but it's really good to know :) Thank you for your kind words :) I really should box some time in for Persona 2 in that kind of way, between work and making content recently I haven't had time for much gaming minus a bit of Rorona here and there, but I should probably replace some of that with Persona 2 too. I'm trying not to force it too much, but I know if I want to do it quickly it's necessary occasionally. Ideally I'll find a small block of time or two weekly to do it, just gotta choose it! haha well done getting through the Kingdom Hearts titles too, that's something I really wanted to do before KH3 and just didn't cause new games and P2, so yeah :3 it's a lot to get through! haha I've been studying Japanese for about 4-5 years, but probably didn't found a study method that actually motivates me until I started playing Rorona in Japanese. I'd played with a lot of spaced-repetition and textbooks for awhile, but I think I've found reading textbooks for 5 minutes at a time before doing practical practice (eg playing Rorona and dictionary-ing when I need it or watching shows with subtitles and dictionary-ing) seems to keep me interested as I don't mind reading slowly. I also live in Japan atm which helps me get speaking practice in sometimes (but its my weakest point lol) so that helps, but since I'm shy playing games and reading stuff keeps my attention and is refreshing both what I learned years ago and helping me learn new words. So yeah, right now its mostly games :3 I used to feel the same as you did about slowly getting through games, but weirdly being able to look up kanji by drawing them into Google Translate then properly checking them made me feel like things were more accessible enough to stick with it this time. Also quitting study methods I didn't like (spaced-repetition and also for some reason trying to do EVERY exercise in my textbook before going to the next chapter lol) helped a lot too. Most important thing I think is finding a way that is enjoyable and you feel like you can stick with :) I'm very much still learning too though :3 I hope that helps, sorry for the long post too haha! All the best :)
@@JRPGJungle I wouldn't worry too much about 100%-ing the games. Krystal109 has some good guides for them on Gamefaqs. You can pretty much follow the Atelier Rorona guide to a T, and you should be ok as long as you stick close to her dates and keep a note of the Plus/DX additions for the extra year and such. As for Totori, just look up a platinum guide for the Spring Cup trick for money-making. Krystal's guide is outdated and only applies to the original game, so it leaves you totally unprepared for this task should you be caught off guard and realize her method is no longer valid. The guide is great otherwise. Also, look up how to make perfect bombs and healing items for each game, to familiarize yourself with the best traits, so you can be on the look out when you're out and about during your 100% runs. Other than that, utilizing Homs to their full potential in Totori and learning not to overlap ending triggers is the hardest part of the games, which thankfully goes away with Ayesha which is the first game that allows you to pick your ending in the case of overlapping. The Atelier Meruru guide she provides is also good, but she tells you what you have to achieve in the first playthrough of the game in order to follow it more easily. You can do it! As for timeboxing, I do it with a game when I lose my will to just play it organically. I know it's not a good idea to force something, because it can lead you to hate it, but on the three days I don't workout, I find 25-30 minutes to play a game that I've started that I'm perhaps not too naturally enthused about at the time. This usually allows me to get out of my slump and I typically get to a good part in a game because of my little push, and I end up wanting to play again for enjoyment. I couldn't have finished the KH side games without it. Unlike you though, I got caught up and it burned me out so bad that I still haven't played KH3 yet (so perhaps you had the right idea). I need some time to recover, lol. At least you really liked it and it seems a lot more fun than the the non-numbered titles. Also, when you go back and play the other games, I'm sure parts of KH3 that you didn't understand will start to click and that'll be a fun experience. So it seems Japanese is just a grind. I'm about to hit my two year anniversary in March, but I don't live in Japan, unfortunately. I do however have a 60 year old Japanese friend on Twitter. That's fun. Living in Japan must be majorly awesome though, because you are put in situations where you have to use it. I also can't speak much in the language, versus what I can read and understand. Speaking of games, I'll tell you one that I was able to play for hours on end, Pokemon Black/White. It has really easy Japanese, but it's not the most interesting series. When i get into anything more complex, I just spend more time drawing kanji like yourself, but on kanji.sljfaq.org/draw.html instead. I didn't know Google Translate had that feature. Also, sometimes I know at least one reading for each of the kanji in a new word, and I can just type them out individually or as part of another word and string them together in a dictionary for "easy" look up. It's actually a great learning method, but it starts to feel like actual study after awhile if you can't game without an interruption every sentence because of a new word, because the look-up is just so time consuming. Games have so much vocab you won't find from most typical reading materials, though, so its worth it. Like yourself, I also SRS'ed a ton back in the day, but I've lost my taste for it as well, so I just review for 30 minutes a day on the weekdays. I try to read an additional 30 minutes a day, otherwise. Manga, books, NHK easy news, or playing thirty minutes of a game and spending all of that time on five text boxes. Fun times. Anyways, I don't expect you to respond to my obscene wall of text, but I just wanted to say I enjoyed this exchange and your channel is awesome. It's great to see someone who enjoys what you do, as much as you do (if not more). I wish you the best.
The Arland trilogy is finally on sale on psn store. I think i'll finally get Meruru, since i still think the trilogy is too pricy. I've played them all on ps3 but wouldn't mind revisiting Meruru with new trophies. Also it was the only one of the Arland trilogy i enjoyed at the time. I didn't start becoming a big fan of Atelier till after Ayesha released. THat was when the series really felt great.
My PS4 is stuck in safe mode, so im using my PS3 and i actually plan to beat this game, I've owned this game for years, and never got to actually progressing in it at all, but i feel ready to try and accel, and progress my kingdom, craft crazy items, and explore the world, and bask in the comfy and consistent storytelling. The addition of almost FULL voice acting, was very impressive, I'm actually starting to see why this game is fun.
I'm glad you're enjoying it (and that something good could come out of the PS4 being stuck, mine used to do that sometimes 😅) The gameflow is really fun, hope you enjoy the rest ^__^
Atelier Meruru was my first experience with the Atelier series and it wasn’t just so much fun and sweet ! I loved it on the PS3 so I believe I’ll replay it on the PS4 one day soon. Right now, I’m playing through Atelier Lydie and Suelle.
Well I don't have DX, but I really did like Meruru Plus, I think it was the most enjoyable out of the trilogy just in general, in fact I didn't really change the music so much in the game since some of my favorite tracks are on there (like Astarte and the Meruru Song).
Even tho I did enjoy more rorona, idk exactly why tbh, I can totally agree with your review, it is quite fun also child rorona is SO FREAKING CUUUUUUTE *_* Thanks for the video =)
I can get what you mean, I still think there's a certain addictive quality to Rorona for some reason too! And child Rororn is adorable! :D Thanks for watching!
Hey Atelier Fans ! Just a question on the Dusk series. What did you personally think of Atelier Shallie ? Did you enjoy the game overall ? Honestly, I bought it because it was the first PS3 game in the series without a time limit BUT I still think 🤔 it was missable and WTF.
This was my first atelier game and i had so much fun playing it. 1st playthrough was a complete disaster but then i managed to get better at it. My only issue was time management. It is really complex because everything consumes time and i really don't know how you all manage to craft everything, beat dungeons and still have time left. Some people who play this franchise are gods lol
Some people really are! haha yeah, the time management was pretty intense in Meruru, I really want to try come back and get it perfect sometime! It's so easy to unexpectedly burn through time lol but it's definitely fun, I'm glad you enjoyed it too :)
JRPG Jungle The only thing left for me is to beat the special dungeon Makina Domain. I get destroyed at the first boss so still not prepared it seems haha. I’d love to play other atelier games. Do you think the new one that’s coming out this May 21st is good? I heard there is no time limit so maybe i get the chance to beat everything :D
Oh, sounds intense! I hear a Makina Domain will be DLC in Lulua too and they described it as a super hard dungeon, so I'm guessing the Meruru one was hard too. Atelier DLC dungeons always seem pretty haha would love to conquer one someday! And Lulua seems great so far! Lulua's a fun character, it's got a lot of inspiration from the previous Arland games but made smoother and looks beautiful :) and no time limit, yeah! I've got the Japanese version and have just been running around doing quests and stuff without punishment, it's really nice lol I recommend it :)
@JRPG Jungle I'll prepare the money then. Thanks! PS: i don’t think makina domain will be so hard on atelier lulua due to the fact that you don’t have the pressure of the time limit. I think that’s the issue on atelier meruru DX, cause you need to decide which buildings are you going to get and sometimes you don’t have the points for the statue that unlocks the level limit. Also, the developers nerfed some skills so you can’t stack specific skills on both accesories and armor. We’ll see what happens :D
Would it be understandable and fun if I started with this game? I haven't tried any of the Atelier games but this seems interesting. Would I get confused or not find it as fun if this was the first game I tried?
I started Atelier in the third game of the Mysterious Trilogy, so since this is the third of Arland, I’m sure you could enjoy this one :) there are some throwbacks to older characters that you might wanna come back to someday if you play the others, but I don’t see why you couldn’t enjoy this one :) only thing is there are some pretty blatant spoilers for the other two Arland games, but if you’re okay with that go for it! 👍🏻
I disagree about this being a bad place to start. I started with Meruru, and I had as much fun going back to previous games afterwards and enjoying them like a kind of origins story. This is easily the most accessible in terms of gameplay too.