[PS2] Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm

Originally Posted by Summonmaster

I only played the first Atelier Iris and eventually lost interest in Azoth of Destiny quickly, seeing as the first one was just all right. The card cost system I might look into, since anything with cards utilized as a battle system catches my attention. Of course job classes are also fun to play around with.

I just hope that the character designs are interesting.

Personally I find prefer the new character design style to the first two games both in sprite and overlay work.




The big thing I hope they can work out is the technical issues normally found with NIS localized GUST games. GUST uses an odd compression for sound and voice and for whatever reason NIS hasn't been able to figure it out. The result is the load pausing found before voice overs and/or sound effects during battles or story sequences in the NIS versions.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

So hey this is out, and I've been presently surprised with this game so far. Reading the reviews I was expected a dumbed down follow-up of some decent RPGs. Surprisingly I was completely wrong. First off there are only three player characters in this one however this game takes the quality over quantity approach and does it well. It allows for each character to be developed in far more detail than say if you had a cast of 5 or 6 characters and it makes for far more interesting combat as of the three people in the party are adapted to cover a few of the standard RPG archetypes.

The game runs on a central town hub system, but again surprisingly this one town in more detailed than 3-4 towns combined in previous Atelier games. They are also dynamic and the townsfolk are quite sensitive to whats going on in the game and to what you are doing.

Probably the biggest weakness I've found so far is that there aren't too many areas to explore, rather the game sends you to the same areas many times on various different quests. The time limit imposed is a bit frustrating at the beginning until you figure out how to get around each area and exploit the speed at which you kill enemies. But again fortunately there is a quality aspect which helps balance out the lack of quantity. First off these areas are HUGE rather than just being a few screens like in past Atelier games. Placement of objects and enemies also changes as you process so other than the scenery, everything else changes.

Finally, the quests. Again I didn't expect much from a quest driven system, but this game does it so well. There are different kinds of quests and more types might open up as I play more. So far I've been sent on treasure hunting quests which require me to find an item in a dungeon. I've gone on extermination quests which requirement to kill X amount of Y types of enemies. I've been sent on boss hunting quests. There are also quests that don't require fighting. Some quests require you to make certain items through alchemy while some quests are simply social interactions between various NPCs in the town. The best part is you are almost always rewarded with a interesting (and very often humorous) character dialog as you do each quest and complete them. There are no "Go get me 5 rocks." "Okay thanks here is your reward" types quests in Grand Phantasm. All the quests have their own mini-scripts and various reasonings behind them.

If you liked the first two games, check this one out. My biggest enjoyment in the Atelier Iris series is the character interactions and this one by far is the best of the three in that aspect and I'm only about 10 hours into the third game. Also that annoying load pausing found in past NIS games are indeed gone!

There's nowhere I can't reach.