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GF Rating
5
Fair
Sluggish and tiring
posted by GilRavardy (DEATSVILLE, AL) Oct 7, 2006
Member since May 2005
1 out of 4 gamers (25%) found this review helpful
Those are just a couple of the words i can use for this game. Slow, aggravating, boring are a few others. The word that fits best is TEDIOUS.
I know games are supposed to be more about the storyline than the movies, but the movies (even a couple) provide a pleasant reward. The storyline in this game stutters. It's chopped into itty-bitty little pieces by all the pointless sidequests you're constantly sent on.
Slow, the game drags. From the chopped up storyline, to the load times for EVERYTHING. Slow loads on battles, slow loads on the moves and turns in battle, slow because the game is not very linear. I just get done beating a big boss I don't exactly want to travel HALF the world to get back to the starting point.
Bad character animation. The characters have very few expressions, half of which don't even match the intended emotion or phrase they match up with. NONE of the graphics are changed with new gear selections. The only saving grace is the selection of U.S. voice actors from some popular animes.
The whole synthesis thing gets way out of hand. Too much to keep track of, and way to tedious to get all the junk you need to do it all. Adding stats to your gear is almost pointless, there are very few items you can do anything to. You'll spend about half your play time screwing around with useless stuff like bread crumbs.
This game gets a 5, and i believe that to be a generous rating compared to MUCH better RPGs available in the market.
I know games are supposed to be more about the storyline than the movies, but the movies (even a couple) provide a pleasant reward. The storyline in this game stutters. It's chopped into itty-bitty little pieces by all the pointless sidequests you're constantly sent on.
Slow, the game drags. From the chopped up storyline, to the load times for EVERYTHING. Slow loads on battles, slow loads on the moves and turns in battle, slow because the game is not very linear. I just get done beating a big boss I don't exactly want to travel HALF the world to get back to the starting point.
Bad character animation. The characters have very few expressions, half of which don't even match the intended emotion or phrase they match up with. NONE of the graphics are changed with new gear selections. The only saving grace is the selection of U.S. voice actors from some popular animes.
The whole synthesis thing gets way out of hand. Too much to keep track of, and way to tedious to get all the junk you need to do it all. Adding stats to your gear is almost pointless, there are very few items you can do anything to. You'll spend about half your play time screwing around with useless stuff like bread crumbs.
This game gets a 5, and i believe that to be a generous rating compared to MUCH better RPGs available in the market.
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GF Rating
6
Above Average
Fun for awhile, but then grows tiring
posted by brett82 (VICTOR, NY) Apr 22, 2008
Member since Oct 2005
6 out of 6 gamers (100%) found this review helpful
I saw the latest Atelier Iris (4th for US?) and thought it looked neat, so I wanted to start from the beginning with Atelier Iris 1. I spent about 30 hours playing it before I sent it back.
Graphics:
The graphics are very dated and could've been for PS1. However, once you get playing for awhile, they shouldn't bother you much. There's a nice anime style to the art too.
Sound:
There's some enjoyable music.
Story:
Once you finally get a goal to work towards, I was interested at first. But then the story drags on and on and has you doing mostly fetch quests and you lose your momentum. 30 hours into the game and hardly anything has happened.
Battle:
The battle system is ok, but could've been much better. Many attacks have a small area of effect, but it's hard to judge without manually targeting every possible enemy. The skills each character can use have poor descriptions and many aren't very useful. Also, the game uses random encounters which I HATE! Note that the 3 sequels have a way of limiting this or making monsters visible. The main character Klein is an alchemist and can synthesize and use items only he can use. You find more and more of these mana items during the game and it makes him very versatile which is nice.
Other:
The dialogue is great! It's almost worth playing just to hear the funny things the shop owners say as you improve their shops.
There's a shop synthesis feature that's addicting because you can create new shop items with traits like "deadly odor" and "vomit inducing." I spent a few hours recording all the traits of materials and found how the basic combinations work, but how the item receives its final rating seems to defy logic. That's one thing that really annoyed me. Sadly, this re-synthesizing only improves the store rating, not the actual item. Too bad you can't improve your mana items to be more useful in battle.
Final:
I wouldn't recommend this game. There's better games to spend time playing.
Graphics:
The graphics are very dated and could've been for PS1. However, once you get playing for awhile, they shouldn't bother you much. There's a nice anime style to the art too.
Sound:
There's some enjoyable music.
Story:
Once you finally get a goal to work towards, I was interested at first. But then the story drags on and on and has you doing mostly fetch quests and you lose your momentum. 30 hours into the game and hardly anything has happened.
Battle:
The battle system is ok, but could've been much better. Many attacks have a small area of effect, but it's hard to judge without manually targeting every possible enemy. The skills each character can use have poor descriptions and many aren't very useful. Also, the game uses random encounters which I HATE! Note that the 3 sequels have a way of limiting this or making monsters visible. The main character Klein is an alchemist and can synthesize and use items only he can use. You find more and more of these mana items during the game and it makes him very versatile which is nice.
Other:
The dialogue is great! It's almost worth playing just to hear the funny things the shop owners say as you improve their shops.
There's a shop synthesis feature that's addicting because you can create new shop items with traits like "deadly odor" and "vomit inducing." I spent a few hours recording all the traits of materials and found how the basic combinations work, but how the item receives its final rating seems to defy logic. That's one thing that really annoyed me. Sadly, this re-synthesizing only improves the store rating, not the actual item. Too bad you can't improve your mana items to be more useful in battle.
Final:
I wouldn't recommend this game. There's better games to spend time playing.
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GF Rating
7
Good
An Excellent Time-Waster. :)
posted by BULLY123 (PRATTVILLE, AL) Jul 10, 2010
Member since Jul 2008
This game's pretty cool. It has pretty graphics (cough for a 2005 game cough) and a good plot.
The characters aren't too developed though. Sooo...you don't really get a good look at their personality. That's kind of a letdown.
But the plot is quite good. And the fighting is basically typical RPG. It's really not that much different from Final Fantasy really.
I found myself loving the music. I don't know why but it connected to me. O.O'
Although I did not finish this game through and through like I wanted to, I can honestly say that it's very good. But it had a few things lacking with the different quests and tasks. There's really not many flaws in the plot though. :)
All in all, it's a good RPG. And it's something that you should consider renting if you like RPGs. You can waste many hours...trying to beat the game though, but it's not bad: it's an excellent time-waster!
The characters aren't too developed though. Sooo...you don't really get a good look at their personality. That's kind of a letdown.
But the plot is quite good. And the fighting is basically typical RPG. It's really not that much different from Final Fantasy really.
I found myself loving the music. I don't know why but it connected to me. O.O'
Although I did not finish this game through and through like I wanted to, I can honestly say that it's very good. But it had a few things lacking with the different quests and tasks. There's really not many flaws in the plot though. :)
All in all, it's a good RPG. And it's something that you should consider renting if you like RPGs. You can waste many hours...trying to beat the game though, but it's not bad: it's an excellent time-waster!
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