I finished Atelier Totori! I got a bad end, and then proceeded to look up guides and youtube videos on what I missed and there is so much! The game has so much heart and I already really like seeing Totori go from this meek girl who can only do rudimentary alchemy to being a great adventurer! But the stuff with her mom hits close to home and it so heartwrenching. Atelier Totori is so cool and the time limits ain't nothing to sneeze at, even if they seem very relaxed at first you still gotta explore in between other stuff.
Now that I've finished Totori, since I don't own Meruru, I decided to move onto Sophie since I own that one and never finished it.
And man
I feel like this game is such a step down
Like okay, artistically its very pretty to look at, and it runs really well (though I've had the rare and occasional graphical glitch). But I never feel pressured to do...anything at all in the game. Where it could take upwards of two weeks to get to far away locations in Totori, it takes like 2 days at most in Sophie. Most sidequests don't have time limits, so there's nothing making the player go complete them. You have this objective to make new things to help Plachta regain her lost memories, but getting new recipes was changed from reading books you buy using money you earned from completing quests to getting new recipes from examining the right object or killing the right enemy or crafting the right item, with no explanation of what exactly you need to examine/kill/craft. Its all guesswork, so you can wind up frustratingly stuck needing to make an item you don't have the recipe for and not knowing how to unlock it, making the player waste a lot of time without making any progress. Without any idea of what exactly i need to do next to progress, and without anything pressuring me to progress in the first place (no clear objective+no time limit to complete said clear objective), I'm finding it harder for this to hold my attention.
I wouldn't necessarily say Sophie is bad; its relaxing in its own way. But it feels less gamey, and I feel thats to its detriment. Can't say I like Sophie as a character as much either. Seems more generic.
Strangely I didn't feel so down on Ryza when I played it despite it also not really having a time limit, but I think I forgave that one because it felt more like a traditional jrpg where you're on an adventure learning about a mysterious lost empire instead of this weird in-between place where its like I'm playing a slice of life anime without any teeth. Ryza also had a more engaging combat system and learning new recipes wasn't so obtuse.
Anyways have some screenshots of one of the graphical glitches I encountered for funsies:
