I would like to request for Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book. It is currently on sale at $21USD on Steam for the next 36 hours.

My steam profile

As someone who enjoyed playing the Atelier games developed by Gust during the PS2 era (i.e. the three Atelier Iris games and Mana Khemia), I am interested in playing their games again now that they are available on Steam. As such, I would like to request for Atelier Sophie, which is the first of Gust's Atelier game to be ported to PC. It is also the first entry of the "Mysterious" trilogy.

It has been a long time since I played them, so my memories of the Atelier Iris games and Mana Khemia are a bit hazy, but I recall them being good JRPGs. The following are things that I can remember fondly from the games:

1) The battle system. It started off as traditional turn-based in the first Atelier Iris entry, but the latter games had gradual improvements that ended up with the enjoyable gameplay mechanics found in Mana Khemia: a CTB system where one could switch in party members during an attack. The opportunity to switch occurs right after one of your party members finishes an attack, which allows the reserve member to jump in with an attack and take over the position of being in the frontlines. Switching in right before an enemy's attack is also possible, thus allowing a reserve member to take the blow for and position of an active party member.

2) The alchemy system where you can create new items using other items present in your inventory. Since the properties of the ingredients can be inherited by the final product, I remember spending quite some time in the games tweaking the recipes so that I could create an "optimal" final product (for weapons). This is especially true for Mana Khemia as the game had a character upgrade system similar to the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X - with specific items being used as requirements to unlock certain nodes.

3) "Barrel~♪". Pressing the "x" button on barrels in the game makes a random character in your party call it out. I found it amusing and always did it to see how each character enunciates the word.

4) Pamela. There's always a character with the same design and name in the various games, but the one in Mana Khemia was most memorable as she was a playable character instead of an NPC. Not only that, she was one of the better party members; being immune to physical attacks and has a skill that absorbs HP.

I understand that the Atelier games released on the PS2 were slightly different to the others to the series in that:

1) The main protagonist is male and is not the titular character (the three Atelier Iris games). The rest of the franchise actually has the (female) titular character being the main protagonist.

2) They play more like traditional JRPGs with crafting as a key component of the gameplay, whereas the rest of the games in the Atelier franchise has crafting as the main component of the gameplay with battles being the secondary focus.

From what I have researched of Atelier Sophie, game progression is via making items and unlocking new synthesis recipes. There is no time limit either, so one can play the game at their own pace. The synthesis system is also significantly different than those of the games in the PS2 era - it is no longer as simple as picking a list of ingredients; synthesis now involves a sort of jigsaw puzzle mini-game where each item has a shape and size and the final result is determined not only by the ingredients themselves but also how they are placed in a cauldron grid.

As for combat, the game implements a CTB battle system that is slightly different from the previous Atelier Project games that I have played. In Atelier Sophie, the player must input the desired actions for all the party members at the start of the turn. Once the desired actions are confirmed, all the actors (party members and enemies) on the battlefield then perform the designated actions in the order determined by their speed.

I am looking forward to playing this game, as I think it would be a new yet nostalgic experience.