This is my first Atelier game, and honestly, I'm very impressed. Some of the things I've heard about the older games like there being a hard time limit, actually kinda turn me off just a tad but not severely, and I've heard things about how the older games have a more complicated crafting system, which considering this game has one of the most robust crafting systems I've ever SEEN, I'm now interested in trying them.

Considering basically the entire game format changed between games, it's understandable that some people might not like this game compared to the others, but as someone who's starting this series for the VERY first time, well, I'm very interested. Not only that, but I like this format, and different as it may be, I haven't played the others so I don't have context for them yet, from what I've heard, I can definitively say this game is still a great place to start, even if you are more interested in the older games.

Despite the grievances I've seen about the new format, I simply have to brush them off as irrelevant, because on it's own this game is STILL excellent, and while it's different, majorly changing a series doesn't mean the new entry is BAD, the old entries still exist and people still have the freedom to make more games inspired by the old ones, like how Ni No Kuni 2 is an entirely new format, but despite that, it's still a great ARPG dungeon crawler.

Although at the end of the day, I just really like a casual pace and super detailed crafting. I plan on playing the other games, but I'm going to judge them mostly separately to this one, considering I myself am biased towards liking one of the big changes, since I tend to hate time limits in almost any game. Considering this is literally the 23rd game in the series, the game reinventing itself is by no means a problem considering there are literally over a dozen games of the old format to enjoy.

So I've talked a lot about other people's complaints, but why is this game fun? It's very casual, encourages gathering and crafting above combat, and also has a lot of charming and well written dialogue. It's charming and yet also addictive, but casual enough that it can get me through work when I need to switch away from the game a lot, since I don't have to time manage or think about how I can advance the goals each in-game day.