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Let's run an alchemy studio with Atelier Rorona!
03-29-2013, 08:21 PM
So, yeah, I'm doing a Let's Play.
![[Image: lprorona_001_003.jpg]](http://i1260.photobucket.com/albums/ii568/morganthene/Lets%20Play%20Atelier%20Rorona/Update%20001/lprorona_001_003.jpg)
I've already got a thread at rpg.net, but since this is my main home online, I thought I'd like to bring it up here, and Bob said it was fine.
The actual updates are posted on my livejournal, with a table of contents being here. What I've done so far covers a bit over the first third of the game.
Questions, comments, and opinions as to whether that thing I did in Update 4 was at all comprehensible are not only welcomed, but actively desired.
-Morgan.
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Just got to part 3-3, and I've rather enjoyed it so far.
However I've got to stop reading for now since you've seriously put me in the mood for these games, I'm going to go play Meruru now.
Before I go though I just thought I would say that the reason to use Zettel is because it can easily be made with over 100 quality with all the traits you want, and if it is just 1 of a large enough batch of cloth it won't inhibit what type of cloth you get.
I don't know how sloppy you are with saving, but I just feel it important to warn you, Rorona has some severe game-freeze issues that made me end up abandoning it by just after the start of year 3. I kept having to replay months at a time because I forgot to save, and it completely sapped my will to play.
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Ehehehe. That's good?
Yeah, I did that for cloth requests a few times, but lately I don't really feel like they're worth the time. (Except for friends, of course.) And the freezing comes up in chapter 4, but luckily I'd saved pretty recently. I'm saving a lot more often now.
-Morgan.
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Just started reading (I'm only on Part 1-2) but I notice a lot of images seem to be missing, not broken, their just a blue icon that says No Picture and has a circular logo under it.
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If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all.
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That's just an icon I'm using for system text. (It's taken from the .hack games.) There's also a couple "placeholder" images I use for minor characters who don't have portraits.
Photobucket's error image if something actually is missing is a lot more distinctive. (And says "Photobucket" on it.)
-Morgan.
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Quote:Yeah, I did that for cloth requests a few times, but lately I don't really feel like they're worth the time. (Except for friends, of course.) And the freezing comes up in chapter 4, but luckily I'd saved pretty recently. I'm saving a lot more often now.
Ooo, yeah, I actually meant for making good early armors. Cloth requests kinda suck unless you have the proper cloth registered for mass production(A mid game ability that allows you to buy exact duplicates of something from the stores).
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Quote:Morganni wrote:
That's just an icon I'm using for system text. (It's taken from the .hack games.) There's also a couple "placeholder" images I use for minor characters who don't have portraits.
Photobucket's error image if something actually is missing is a lot more distinctive. (And says "Photobucket" on it.)
-Morgan.
Ah I see. In the first case it showed up, the formatting + text made it look like there was supposed to be a photo there. Since the next big game I'm waiting for won't be out for months (Tales of Xillia w00t) I was thinking of trying one of the Atelier/Alchemy games. Any suggestions as to a good one for a newbie to the series? Non hand held preferred.
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If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all.
The Wanderer
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Just popping in to say: I've never heard of this series before, and I'm not entirely sure I'd enjoy playing it, but I'm enjoying reading this quite a bit.
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Darwithe: That's coming up in the next update, actually. Except no one so far seems willing to take cloth or ingots. (Or I just haven't taken any with me when I went to register stuff, which I suppose is also possible.)
Florin Wrote:Ah I see. In the first case it showed up, the formatting + text made it look like there was supposed to be a photo there. Since the next big game I'm waiting for won't be out for months (Tales of Xillia w00t) I was thinking of trying one of the Atelier/Alchemy games. Any suggestions as to a good one for a newbie to the series? Non hand held preferred.
The formatting in the first part is probably a bit wonkier than the rest, since I was writing the code by hand at that point. (Then I realized how much of a pain that was, and wrote a script to generate the HTML for me.)
As for a recommendation... I might not be the best person to ask. I've enjoyed every GUST game I've played, but that's mostly the Ar tonelico games. Of the Atelier series, I've only played this one and Mana Khemia. The latter is probably easier to get into just because it doesn't have the time management stuff to deal with, and the combat system is a lot better than Rorona's. (Actually it's probably one of my favorites of any RPG I've played.)
The Wanderer: Thank you!
-Morgan.
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Quote:Morganni wrote:
As for a recommendation... I might not be the best person to ask. I've enjoyed every GUST game I've played, but that's mostly the Ar tonelico games. Of the Atelier series, I've only played this one and Mana Khemia. The latter is probably easier to get into just because it doesn't have the time management stuff to deal with, and the combat system is a lot better than Rorona's. (Actually it's probably one of my favorites of any RPG I've played.)
-Morgan.
Eh, I also enjoyed the Ar tonelico games (even Qoga despite it occasionally going creeper on me). And I think my local EB Games might actually have a copy of Mana Khemia. Guess I'll take a look at Metacritic then see what ones I can find.
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If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all.
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RE: Registering cloth, I might be mistaking it from one of the sequels, as I had actually forgotten that Pre-Meruru the different places only accepted certain items, and the Hom equivilent in Totori can dupe /anything/ perfectly.
RE: Recommendation
Atelier Totori is probably the best overall of the recent ones IMO. With the biggest downsides being that it has some of the least satisfying non-true endings, and probably the hardest overall time-management.
Atelier Meruru features probably the sanest protagonist, if you consider that the writers basically froze her as a 14 year old the whole 6 years. Downsides are that 90% of the characters are directly reused from the previous games and the main plot is probably the least interesting of the games, plus you have to put up with Astrid being an even worse bully than in Rorona, and the container sorting is inferior to Totori so finding that one trait you need for specific supplements out of a container of 1300 items can be a huge pain(Only comes up when making "ultimate" stuff).
Atelier Rorona features by far the simplest time management and combat systems, it is quirky and funny without trying too hard to be /more/ quirky and funny than it's precursors, and there is actually some fairly good plot going on in the background. For downsides I'd say the #1 is that it is too short, and the features to aid you(Hom/Registering items) get introduced waaay later than I'd be happy with and are inferior to the later games. It also is the only one with random freezes that can kill your progress. Also once you make and register a adequately well made bomb all combat becomes trivial since you'll be able to do upwards of 3k damage for trivial amounts of money.
One thing to keep in mind is that none of the Atelier games were made to be played through only once; you are expected to need to play at least one New Game+
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There's always the self-imposed not-much-of-a-challenge route of not using bombs like that. (Although non-consumable damage items are already trivializing a great deal for me.)
-Morgan.
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Maybe GUST is just bad at combat balance? I don't remember facing much of a challenge in any of the Ar tonelico games, with even the last bosses generally being little more than a speed bump.
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If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all.
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@Morganni Those bombs are also the only way to win certain fights that aren't really tedious, the 2nd? Year Festival 4th fight for instance IIRC hits hard enough that you only have 1 round to beat him, and frankly the scene when you win is waaay too funny not to do.
@Florin
I'm pretty sure that GUST just doesn't balance their games around combat at all. The Ar Tonelico games are very nearly a straight-up visual novel, but at the same time I've seen youtube videos of people who just don't get whatever new combat mechanic they add, and really struggling with easy enemies so *shrug*.
The Alchemists of Arland series uses combat largely to restrict certain areas until the protagonist grows strong enough, either as Adventurer or Alchemist.
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Eh. I thought the combat in Mana Khemia worked pretty well. And AT1 and AT2 generally weren't particularly hard games, but they weren't pushovers. Especially for AT2 if you're trying to do certain fights as soon as they become available, which I doubt is actually recommended. (Arguably, Rorona's design could be considered "working as intended" too, since you still have to earn your victory... you're just doing so in the workshop rather than during the actual battle.)
AT3 on the other hand seemed to have some really bizarre degenerate conditions with the way it's numbers worked.
@Darwithe: Good thing I can handle tediousness then!
Also, uh, could you refrain from bringing up things I haven't gotten to yet? I did actually already know about that fight, but I'm still trying to do this "semi-blind".
-Morgan.
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Quick Q: Which of these have a Mac release? 
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Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
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How's PS2 emulation on Mac? :p
Or DS I guess, but only one of the DS Atelier games has been localized.
-Morgan.
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Quote:Also, uh, could you refrain from bringing up things I haven't gotten to yet? I did actually already know about that fight, but I'm still trying to do this "semi-blind".
Yeah, no problem, I was in fact as vague as possible about it for exactly that reason, sorry. ^_^
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Update 7: Replicant
Update 7, Part 1
Update 7, Part 2
Update 7, Part 3
A programming note: In the scene with Tiffani, like most other scenes with event CGs, the characters portraits are not shown, and so the expressions used for dialogue are chosen by me. I'm pointing this out since there's a lot of them here, and while I've tried to choose ones consonant with the tones of the character's voices and the flow of the scene, they are ultimately arbitrary.
(And if you're asking which scene... you'll know it when you see it.)
-Morgan.
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Wow, I had completely, totally forgotten that Esty wasn't willing in Rorona... That makes the "Drunken Legend" sequels even more creepy to be honest.
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I'm just not sure what to think about that scene. I mean, when I thought about it while writing the commentary, I concluded it's probably *not* supposed to be read as "And then Tiffani raped Esty". But in that case, still, what the hell?
-Morgan.
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The absolute best spin I can put on it is that Tiffani forced Esty to get roaring drunk and then she wakes up with a hangover... At least in the 2nd game Taffani has started to become concerned about what she's doing to scare people.
Truthfully 'thou, it's GUST so it probably IS supposed to imply that. Which is why it makes it even creepier for when Esty and Hanna apparently doubleteam Meruru in the 3rd game and she seems to trauma block it, but at least it requires Meruru to technically hit 18 y/o first.
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Esty doesn't seem to mind getting drunk with Tiffani though. Unless it's "drunker than usual", but that's getting kind of complicated... I don't know.
I'll admit there's a certain amount of "I want to continue liking Tiffani, la la la" going on here too...
-Morgan.
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True. Actually it could have been consensual with Esty regretting it once sober. For that matter she might just think something happened, as her sister says she never remembers her drunk episodes.
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