Recently I finished playing through Atelier Rorona DX as part of my goal to play some older Atelier now that they have DX releases. With that one finished and all Rorona's tasks completed, I moved on to the next game in the Arland trilogy, Atelier Totori. Now that I've played through it, I'd like to share my thoughts on it.
Story
Atelier Totori is set five years after the end of Atelier Rorona. The king of Arland has abolished the monarchy and joined with nearby settlements to form a republic. This new, larger Arland needs people to map out uncharted territory and protect the populace from monsters. This is done by adventurers, people licensed by the Adventurer's Guild to explore, defeat monsters, and perform various jobs for the guild.
Our adventure stars a girl named Totori from the small fishing village of Alanya south of Arland's capital. Her mother was one of the most famous adventurers, but one day years ago, she stopped coming home or writing. Most of her family assumed she'd perished, but Totori believes she's still out there somewhere, and dreams of becoming an adventurer herself to find her mother. A year prior to the start of the story, Alanya was visited by Rorona, who taught Totori the basics of alchemy, a skill that helps Totori obtain her Adventurer's License, but she is informed that she will need to increase her adventuring rank enough within 3 years in order to have it renewed and keep it.
Visuals and Music
Just like in the previous game, the soundtrack in Atelier Totori is fantastic. It's got the perfect vibe at every moment, and to top it off, there's a lot of returning tracks from Atelier Rorona, particularly when you visit familiar locations in Arland. I listen to it a lot even when I'm not playing the game, so it's definitely a strong point for me.
I'm a fan of the visuals as well, but the graphics definitely show their age. The environments don't have a ton of detail by today's standards, but everything is visually discernible and the designs are distinctive. The character designs in particular are great, done by Mel Kishida just as in the previous game. Characters are unique and easily recognizable, and Totori herself has a style that's similar enough to Rorona's to show that she's an alchemist too, while being different enough that the two aren't identical.
Gameplay
Adventuring
You're given three years to rank up as an adventurer in order to keep your license. To rank up, you need to earn adventurer points, which you get from a variety of things: synthesizing a lot of items, increasing your alchemy level, finding landmarks in various areas, defeating enemies, doing jobs for the Adventurer Guild, and more. When you have enough points, you can head to the reception desk at the guild to have your license evaluated, and then rank up. Each time you increase your rank, you'll gain access to new areas and information on more things you can do to earn even more points!
The jobs from the guild resemble the quests you would get from the palace in Atelier Rorona. You'll either have to defeat enemies or turn in certain items. You'll be rewarded with money and crafting materials, and if you turn in particularly high quality items, defeat bosses quickly, defeat more normal enemies than requested, or complete the job quickly, you can earn more than usual, so even if you've already earned all the points you can from doing jobs, they're still worth doing to keep your adventures funded!
Exploration is a bit different this time around, especially in regard to the world map. Time still passes when you move between areas, but this time around you also use LP to travel, gather, and battle enemies. When your LP gets low, your characters become significantly weaker, so it's important not to go too long without heading home to rest! You also spend time to gather items and for each turn of battle, so it's important to be mindful of the date whenever you're out adventuring.
Combat
Combat is more or less the same as in the previous game. Battles are turn based, and your aim is to lower an enemy's HP to zero without them doing the same to you. Characters have MP they can spend to use special skills, and alchemists in particular can also use items both to heal and support the party, or to hinder or harm your enemies. Totori in particular doesn't get many skills, but since she also needs MP in order to synthesize items, she wants to avoid overusing it anyways.
Crafting
Crafting has also not changed a lot from Atelier Rorona. At the workshop, you can synthesize items you have recipes for, and can get recipes new by buying them, being gifted them, or finding them while exploring. They may require specific ingredients, or just ones that fit a certain category like plants or metal. The materials you use will determine the quality of the final product and how strong its effects are. If they have any traits, those traits can be passed on to the final product, and there are a lot more traits this time around than there were in the previous entry, not all of them positive. Crafting also costs MP, and if yours is too low, your success rate for making an item drops dramatically, and you can end up passing out and losing a few days, so make sure you keep well rested!
Characters
Every good Atelier game is defined by its characters, and Atelier Totori has some really great ones. Whether it's people that are new to us but close to Totori like her friends and family from Alanya, entirely new faces like her self-proclaimed adventuring rival Mimi, or returning characters like Rorona, there's a whole bunch of people to get to know and adventure alongside. As you spend more time with a character, events can happen that advance their own stories, akin to a visual novel, and several of the game's endings are tied to these stories. Thanks to that, and my adoration for these characters, Atelier Totori is a game I'll play again in the future, probably a bunch more times until I've seen every ending!
Conclusion
I've really only scratched the surface, but I'll wrap up my review here. Atelier Totori had me hooked from the get go and the characters kept me there the whole way through. A lot of things were familiar from playing Rorona before this, and my experience was definitely improved from having experienced Arland as it was years before the start of this game. This might be my favorite of the Atelier games that I've played so far, and it really has me excited to give Atelier Meruru a go. If you like character driven or crafting heavy RPGs, or if you're a fan of later Atelier titles wondering if the older ones are worthwhile, then I insist you join Totori on her adventures.
VERDICT: Recommended
Reviewed on PC
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