Atelier Sophie 2 Preview: Dreaming of Alchemy
There are never enough good jrpg games! Atelier Sophie is an interesting RPG with alchemy - it promises to be colorful, beautiful, and just plain better than the first game.
Read the review Atelier Sophie 2 Review: Dream or Nightmare?
This text was based on the PC version.
A direct sequel to Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book, Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Dream follows the story of the young titular alchemist as she discovers a whole new world after getting separated from her friend Plachta. It is a JRPG that feels very similar to its predecessor with some welcomed updates that make the game feel smoother, more inviting, and just as intriguing as Sophie’s first game.
Despite my preview only covering the first three hours of this sequel, I was able to get a lot of time with its battle system, familiar crafting mechanics, and colorful cast. Fans of the series will feel right at home and appreciate the story, new characters, and combat updates, while newcomers will realize just how fun a JRPG about alchemy can be!
New world, new faces
The game starts off with Sophie and Plachta wandering through a forest until they suddenly get sucked into a vortex that separates them and sends Sophie to the dream world of Erde Wiege. This world was created by the dreams of people so everyone who lives in it came from some point in time. This leads to some interesting plot twists and the realization that the Plachta Sophie finds a different version of the one she just lost.
Sophie meets various new characters in Erde Wiege who help her on her quest to find Plachta and then stick with her when she discovers even more of the good news. You’ll meet the adventurous and animated Alette, the protective gunslinger Olias, the savvy merchant Pirka, and plenty of other new faces who join your party and fight alongside you as you explore new areas and fight off monsters.
Alchemy adventures
Like in past Atelier games, alchemy is a big component of your adventure so you will spend most of your time traveling through Erde Wiege collecting resources like flowers, rocks, and spider webs to later transmute into new items. You will also have to fight off monsters for the ingredients they drop to make items you may need for a quest. Sophie will also learn new recipes as the story progresses incentivizing you to collect as many ingredients as possible to see what else you can make.
Once you want to transmute something, you’ll need to head back home to your atelier and start an alchemy mini-game that lets you arrange items in a Tetris-like grid to maximize their potential. This will lead to items having unique elemental properties, better effectiveness, or more uses. It’s the same as it was in past games, but this time everything just looks prettier.
Crafting items is not only important to have items necessary to survive certain battles, but you will also need to gather resources to craft key items needed to progress through the story. There is one point in the game where I thought I had everything I needed to make one special item, but I soon realized that I was missing one important ingredient that I had never encountered before – fish. This meant doing some research and realizing I needed a fishing rod to catch some, but in order to make a fishing rod, I also needed to craft some bait.
Moments like this are sure to happen more often as the game progresses, so it’s great that it sometimes makes you think about your next choice without simply telling you what to do. Certain recipes can’t be made until you discover them or reach a certain alchemy level, so there will be moments – I bet – where grinding will be necessary to clear certain areas.
Fighting for loot
In addition to the main quests that you can follow on your map, the game also has side quests you can complete for money and special ingredients. Completing quests increases your reputation and lets you unlock even more difficult requests from townsfolk for better items, equipment, and weapons.
Battles are as fluid and stylish as they were in Atelier Ryza 2, but they are now turn-based giving you time to think about your next move and plan your attack. Before starting a battle, you can select which character will be on the frontline and which ones will be in the back, acting as support. During a battle, you can engage in your normal attacks, block, use items, or utilize special skills that use up magic points.
Twin attacks also let you unleash some devastating combos and let you swap places with back-up teammates, but they require you to have enough technical points to use. These accumulate as the battle progresses but are spent once you commit to these special attacks. These points can also be used as a defensive mechanism to call on a support character to block an attack, decreasing the overall damage and swapping places with a teammate.
Figuring out when to use these defensive maneuvers, twin attacks, or simply blocking gives battles a very dynamic feel. An improved UI that still informs you of combat order and enemy weaknesses and resistances also make each fight feel faster and cleaner. And that’s a good thing since you will be battling a lot of enemies if you want some of their rare loot.
In addition to weather-altering items, gorgeous visuals, and an impressive soundtrack, Atelier Sophie 2 looks to be a great addition to the Atelier series. The game comes out February 25, so you won’t have to wait too long to explore its dream world.
