With the arrival of Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key, which was developed by Gust and published by Koei Tecmo, we have finally reached the pinnacle of this epic trilogy of Atelier Ryza. Ryza, who is now probably one of the best alchemists for her age, is off to another adventure in this conclusion with old friends and new ones to meet. I remember the moment I first encountered this series back in 2019 with Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout, and it was a beautiful beginning for Ryza and her friends.
The story opens with strange new islands known as the Kark Isles forming right close to Ryza’s house. A voice in her head tells her to seek something called the Code of the Universe, and something supposedly linked also gives her the ability to magically summon keys, as she is entrusted with determining the origin of the new islands. She catches up with old acquaintances along the way while meeting new ones as well.
In the world of Atelier Ryza 3’s, players will enter a world that is vibrant and expansive, and players will be able to fully explore everywhere once an area key area is unlocked. Ryza will be able to explore these places with her friends in beautiful towns, dark mines with rich resources, and breathtaking grasslands gathering crafting materials and learning the mystery of the world. Another remarkable thing to keep in mind is Ryza’s friends, because not only will our main protagonist be growing, but so will all the other eleven characters. Each character has their own story arc and character development is what makes this game shine the most.
Just like in the previous series, there are Fast travel landmarks that help a lot to get to places such as towns or areas with specific resources you need, but also still give players room to explore on their own taking the scenic route. Every area has resources, you just have to search carefully at every nook and cranny you can find because you never know, you might find that rare ingredient you need also there are optional side quests that players can enjoy because they occasionally give out amazing awards that can help you on your journey but also to complete other quests in the game.
Combat System
In this beautiful world of Atelier Ryza 3, dangers are lurking in every corner of Kark Isles, from slimes to large birds, you never know what to expect. The combat system is one of my favorites because it is a hybrid between turn-based and real-time active battles. You will have three active party members and each member can spend AP to perform combat skills that have both elementals and skill effects. With a certain type of attack, it will be able to trigger powerful order skills, this will affect your party’s Tactics level which can give better enhance some of your skill abilities and increase your AP capacity, often time this also gives better rewards at the end.
During battles, you will be able to use items to damage your enemies but also boost your allies’ CC (Core Crystal) levels. Core Crystal is quite important as a sub-action system that is using items anytime during combat and exploration. Any CC left over from your battle will apply to the CC pool used during exploration, which is capped at 10 usages. In addition, during battle, you can switch out your party characters with any of your two reserve party members so you can keep doing many different attack combos. The battle is all about timing, using items and skills, and planning one step ahead of your enemies.
There are also new magical keys that Ryza can use which offer so many different various effects. Ryza’s new magical keys also offer various effects, for example of can be activated to use a regenerative healing spell to recover HP for a set number of turns before it wears off, or another can use a party-wide buff to everyone to boost up their offense and defense.
The Power of Alchemy
I would like to take this opportunity to put emphasis on the mechanics of alchemy, which I believe makes up 60% of the gameplay, which I consider to be the most important aspect of the game. As with every other game in the Atelier series, especially with Ryza, alchemy plays a very important role throughout the story since it is at the core of what the story revolves around. I would like to take a moment to go through how it works in this game, which should be familiar for many people who have been playing the series previously, but for newcomers, it will be difficult to grasp at first.
In Atelier Ryza 3, players will be able to harness the power of alchemy by synthesizing objects from all the ingredients they have collected throughout the world in order to harness the power of alchemy. To do this first we will have to return to ateliers that are built anywhere in the world. We will then use the cauldron to create items such as weapons, consumables, accessories, and even higher-tier advanced crafting ingredients. Every recipe you must acquire will require certain core ingredients that will be added to the crafting tree menu which also has elements nodes that correspond to the four elements of the game.
Traits can be added depending on what type of ingredients you use such as selling an item for a higher price or adding extra damage. The game tutorial will be able to teach you step by step how this works, it can be complex and tricky but there is an option for “auto-craft” which just does all the work for you and you don’t have to choose what ingredients you need and save you a lot of time, this can be useful in the beginning but if you are a player that wants to create powerful items that you will have to manually do it yourself, the number of items you can create with different traits are endless.
The Crafting mechanic of this game is so important that as I mentioned before it is part of the story, Ryza’s journey and her role as an alchemist are based on everything you can synthesize. Every ingredient you find is important and it can help be effective, especially in battle, making the next best weapons or trying to enhance them to become stronger. Using consumable items can help turn the tide both in combat or help you explore. Even the titular keys that Ryza has provided special abilities while synthesizing. Every ingredient you find in each area is as important as the next one because they are all part of who Ryza is as an alchemist, so get ready to master these abilities and try to synthesize the highest quality of items you can create and become one of the best alchemists.
Controls, Audio, and Artwork
The controls for the game weren’t too bad, I had no problem playing with the keyboard or mouse or even using my Xbox Controller, also I noticed that there are no official PlayStation buttons for this game on PC when you want to use a PlayStation controller because it is default using an Xbox Controller as of now. You can also remap across all control options to fit your playstyles when for different in-game situations such as exploration, combat, and crafting.
There is no English Dub for the game, and many players might have some problems with the small subtitles text screen. The game music just like in the previous games is fantastic. The music brings out the vibe of the game, especially my favorite is “Summer Dawn” which I have to say is one of my favorite battle theme music. However there is other music within the game, and they are all perfect in their way and each fits perfectly in every aspect of the game.
Ryza 3’s art style brings out the color of the game. The character animation was done fantastically, you can see the colorful expression of each character, which brings their life out of them. There is also the world design level from the grassland to towns which brings out the creativity and colors for each area.
What can you expect
All of these exploration and combat have a tutorial system so many will not get lost, however, it will be hard for players who are not used to this type of game mechanics, but with the amount of exploration and combat you will encounter there are plenty of time you will find to test out stuff and learn the mechanic of the world. The only thing that will be tough for people who never actually played this series is they might get lost in the story and not be accustomed to the combat and crafting mechanics of the game.
Like many other Atelier Series games, “yes” there is a new game plus. So money, items, and equipment to your characters get carried over but not your character levels. Also, you will need to finish the main storyline which should take roughly 30 hours if you want to focus only on the story, but if you are a completionist then it will take closer to 60 hours which includes everything including challenges.
My Final Remark
Atelier Ryza 3 is a remarkable beautiful game that is a perfect conclusion for such an amazing Trilogy. The vibrant world, the character’s development and charms, and the well-done combat system. This is a game that not only has fantastic storytelling from beginning to end but also it comes with a beautiful OST that fits perfectly for this genre of an Alchemy JRPG. This is a game that gave me such joy to play and learn about Ryza and her friends, exploring the world finding ingredients, and crafting so many different items with different traits that can be used in battle and for questing. The battle animation of the game is my all-time favorite, and I had such a great time learning the mechanic and feeling nostalgic as well because the system is similar to some of my favorite final fantasy games, which means this is a game that brings out the true nature of JRPG. Many players who have been a fan of the series will enjoy the game and will find joy and sadness because this concludes Ryza’s journey to becoming one of the best alchemists for her age, however, this will not be good for new players yet until they first played the previous two games in the series if they want to enjoy the story which I believe is the richest part of the game.
A digital copy was provided by Tecmo Koei for review purposes.
