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DS
| Annie no Atelier |
| Written by Mei |
| Tue, Apr 14 2009, 04:53PM |
 Title: アニーのアトリエ～セラ島の錬金術士～
English Title: Annie no Atelier: Sera Shima no Renkinjutsushi Genre(s): RPG, Alchemy Platform(s): DS Release Date: March 12, 2009 Rating: 6/10
Story:Annie, a girl who spends her days lying around in her room because she finds it too troublesome to step her foot outside, was "kidnapped" to an island by her famous alchemist grandfather as she was sleeping and was told that she has 3 years to become a great alchemist, or else. So, with the help of a midget-y spirit "teacher" whose help her grandfather enlisted to help her, Annie reluctantly set out to learn alchemy from scratch and help with the island's development at the same time.Game Features:
Main Characters:
Review:
Gameplay: This game pretty much fully utilizes the touchscreen, however, I found it easier just to use the buttons instead. A few complaints: 1) once you have accumulated a lot of materials/recipes and such, it becomes a pain shifting through them to find what you are looking for. 2) I actually hated the random story events that occur when you enter a new area. Because most of the time I would be juggling quests and have a specific purpose for entering an area but I would keep getting disrupted by these story events (for instance, I would enter the Central Plaza trying to turn in a quest to a character there, but a story event would occur and as a result that NPC I'm looking for would not be there so I'd have to leave and re-enter...which would trigger another story event...and rinse and repeat. -_- so it would take me like 20 mins just to get to the NPC to turn in a quest.) 3) You can't store more than 99 of one item, regardless of the attribute of the type you collect, and it's really inconvenient because some times you need many of a type (say, "red" attribute) material to make something but like 90 of say, "blue" attribute of that item clogged the space and you don't have enough. It sucks for a packing rat like me. 4) there's a "success chance" with the creation of an item which should make it more challenging since you have a chance of failing that alchemy attempt. But it doesn't. Because about 30 mins into the game, (and like 3 months of game time) you have pretty much gotten Annie's alchemy skills to high enough level to get 100% on all recipes you can do at the time -_-; and since her skill level would keep raising and become high enough before new recipes become available, I have never gotten anything but "100%" after the first 30mins, which makes the alchemy aspect of the game a tedious pain rather than something fun. Well, despite my ranting on the bad aspects of the gameplay, it is somewhat interesting. Since there are more materials to be collected as new collection spots open up as the story progresses, and new recipes and other items becoming available after each new main quest. But nothing really novel. Graphics: It's 2D, and very...GBA-like. The avatar of the characters are as such. But the "pictures" of characters look good =P Too bad it isn't an otome game so there are really no romance endings, or else the male characters in the game all look pretty good. Sound: Music gets repetitive but I give it credit for having full voice acting for the intro and voice clips for certain places like a the end of battles, etc. But even those end-of-battle-talk clips began to annoy me more than anything half way through the game. Length: Depending on how you manage time in-game your 3 years of game time might go by faster or slower, but generally speaking, it goes back pretty fast. I think you can finish it in about....20 hrs or less. because even though 3 years sound like a long time, considering how 1 material gathering trip can take up to over half a month and you can go through 1 such trip in under 5 minutes, it really isn't long. And even though the game basically gives you half a game-year to do each main quest alchemy, I could always finish it within the first game-week of getting it. So, the rest of the time was wasted on traveling around and upgrading the buildings. Overall: It isn't a bad game, and game play can be considered relatively smooth despite all of its shortcomings. But it definitely is not one of the most exciting games out there. If you are a die-hard fan of the series, go for it; and I would recommend it if you just want an OK game to play. But if you are looking for really engaging games, look elsewhere. |
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