Impression: Atelier Totori - The Adventurer of Arland

I’ve mentioned once that originally I am not that big of a fan of Atelier series, but in 2010, Atelier Rorona was released for PS3 and it completely changed my impression toward Atelier series, for the better. And then the sequel, Atelier Totori was released. The localized version of the game was out somewhere at the end of last year, though it is not until a few weeks ago that I got my hands on the game. And that’s where most of my gaming time in these last few weeks were spent (aside of Dota and FIFA12). With that said, my impression toward the game so far has been good – enjoyable, relaxing and fun : )

Title: Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of of Arland
Developer: Gust
Platform: PlayStation 3 (PS3)
Genre: Japanese role playing game [jrpg]
Release date: June 2010 [Japanese], September 2011 [NA/EU]

So far I would say that I’ve ventured pretty far into the game, currently in my 4th year and 8th month, in the middle of building ships for oversea adventures. About 200 points to go to Galaxy rank, Adventurer and alchemy level 40+. Could have finished the ship sooner, but I decided to explore most of the Cobalt areas and play with item traits to make awesome equipments and bombs.

Back to the game, Atelier Totori was set a few years after the events in Atelier Rorona. The story is now focused on a young girl named Totooria Helmold, an innocent village girl who dreams of being an adventurer to search for her missing mother. So there you go, now instead of trying to prevent a workshop from getting scrapped in Atelier Rorona, in Atelier Totori you basically had to be a real adventurer, ranked up your Adventurer License by exploring areas, defeating monsters and synthesizing things through alchemy, and follow the (humorous) story, from the way each character talks and bickering with each other, to many other trivial things like Sterk's concern about his expression and Guid's lack of presence. By the way, Totori is Rorona’s alchemy student, and it's always fun seeing her getting teased by everyone, like a certain someone in Atelier Rorona : )

Some characters made a return in this game. Rorona is back, now in her early 20s (and somewhat becoming more and more Lionela-like, if you know what I mean >.<) and often travel across the land to teach alchemy (and failed as usual LOL). Sterk is no longer a knight, but his job now is to look for the “runaway” king. Cory works as Adventurer Officer at Arland, handling all stuff about Adventure and licenses. Tantris and Lionela didn’t appear, but their names were mentioned in one of the scenes in mid-games. Esty Dee is gone, searching for a husband (lolwhut) and her job is now taken over by her shy (and yuri) little sister, Filly Dee. The shopkeepers (Iksel, Hagel, Tiffa and Pamela) are the same, if not looking older.

Then there's new playable characters like Mimi, Mel, Gino and Marc. Overall the characters are pretty similar to those in Atelier Rorona. I mean, Totori is a LOT like Rorona – airhead, a bit dumb, clumsy, weak, fun to tease…ouch. Mimi is a carbon copy of Cory (loli, aristocrat, tsundere etc), while Melvia was pretty much a female version of Sterk, minus the seriousness. Too bad since we can recruit both of them, Mel was often left out because, well, Sterk is simply the better of the two. Gino is somewhat like Iksel – a childhood friend, except that instead of cooking, he’s crazy about adventuring.

Gameplay

Playing Atelier Totori wasn't that much different to Atelier Rorona. You still had to go out exploring new places, fights monsters, gather materials for synthesis etc so those familiar with Atelier Rorona will have no problem getting used to Totori. Well, there's no point in playing Totori if you haven't play Rorona anyway.The concept was similar, with a few tweaks to the mechanisms. For example, gathering (I mean, the act digging items from gathering points) consumes time. Battle consumes time. Walking on world map consumes a LOT of times. Therefore in early games, when you don't have the right equipment to speed up your gathering/walking speed, times flew very fast that you really had to be careful whether or not to dig a gathering point and engage in a battle. At first I was a bit pissed off because time passed so quickly than I anticipate at early game, but after awhile I'm getting used to it (especially since I got my Speed Gloves and Traveling Shoes pretty fast) and getting around the world isn't much a problem. On a side note, there's 2 main city/town in the game: Arland (I'm loving the fact that it still re-uses most of the BGM's from Atelier Rorona), and Totori's hometown, Alanya. Both place has a workshop/Atelier and specific scenes can trigger in each place, therefore we also need to be mindful about traveling back and forth from Arland to Alanya, because by default it took about 2 weeks to travel from one place to another (1 week with upgraded Carriage, ZERO days with a Warp Gate).

Synthesis

Synthesis has been a core for Atelier series, and it is no different in Atelier Totori. The mechanics was similar to Rorona, but in Totori it was more complex yet easier to manipulate to yield powerful items and equipment. Synthesized item in Totori is now associated with specific Cost Level which determine how many traits you can put in the item. Yes, now we can have a loads of crappy and good traits listed and manually select any favorable traits that we want, as long as they are within the item's Cost Level. Some new traits were also added (Eg Final Strike), while some old traits removed (eg Restrain Range). Other than that, I can't remember any other significant change of synthesis mechanic in Totori.

Battle

Like Atelier Rorona, battle is nowhere a big priority in Totori. It is needed to defeat stronger monsters and obtain rarer materials, but the emphasis in this game is more or less on synthesis and exploring areas. The basic of battle doesn't change much from Rorona and I don't really want to go into details about it. One thing for sure, in Totori you can no longer just toss a bomb to win a game (say goodbye to super awesome ultimate crazy good Meteor and Tera Bomb). Good bomb still hurts many enemies and bosses, but not to the extent of overkill that Meteor and Tera Bomb had. And since Rorona is playable, you can imagine a fun outing with both Totori and Rorona in the party, tossing bombs around. Beware of strong monsters though, since both Totori and Rorona are complete fail and fragile without their items....

Trophies
As usual, I'm trophy hunting while playing the game and aim to get Platinum on my first try. Like Rorona, most of the trophies were obtained from special scenes and multiple endings, which require us to manipulate and do several saves and reload in order to get all the endings in one playthrough. Overall it looks like getting a Platinum for Totori is easier than Rorona because the time gap/triggering requirement for many of the events aren't as restricted as Rorona. And with the game spans over 6 years, there's really plenty of time to go on adventure, collect materials, synthesize, do quests and trigger specific scenes.

Overall, I had a good time playing Atelier Totori, the scenes were always amusing to watch and although the battle/gameplay wasn't as extravagant as many of the games on PS3, it totally fit with the setting of the game. I'd feel awkward if an Atelier series had a graphic and gameplay like Final Fantasy 13. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to finish the game as soon as possible and move on to the next game.

p/s: Totori started as a kid (about 12-14 years old I assume). So at the end of the game (after 6 years), shouldn't her appearance changed to be a bit more...mature?



Next on my playing list: Final Fantasy XIII-2 : D