Atelier Ryza Ever Darkness Amp; The Secret Hideout Review

[Agalia Valcin]

Thegame follows the story of Reisalin Stout, a girl living on Kurken Island seeking adventure. One summer day, she finds an abandoned rowboat and ventures to the mainland with her friends Lent Marslink and Tao Mongarten. Along the way, save the daughter of a traveling merchant and meet the alchemist Empel Vollmer with his companion Lila Decyrus, which starts Ryza on the path of learning alchemy and her interlining adventures and soon discover the real truth about her home.

Atelier Ryza features a variety of gathering tools such as axes, hammers and scythes. Using different tools on the same gathering spot allows the player to obtain different materials. For example, in a tree you can use the axe to get lumber, the staff to get fruit and the scythe to get wood chips.

Gathering areas can be created with alchemy. With different materials, players can tune the type of field, the obtainable items and the enemies present. These areas can also be shared with other players.

A new real-time, turn-based system is introduced. During battle, time continuously passes, and characters and enemies can only act when it's their turn, without time stopping. Up to three characters can take part in battles, and the player can switch freely which one to control, while the AI takes care of the other two.

The MP bar, present in every previous entry, is replaced by a shared AP (Action Points) system. Action Points are gained during the course of the battle, and they are used to trigger skills. During combat, the new "Tactics Lever" meter increases. This system serves to boost skill effects.

Follow-up attacks between party members can be triggered with "Action Orders", and an ultimate attack once the Tactic Level is fully maxed called "Fatal Drive" can be activated when a party member is waiting for an order.

For more information, go to Atelier Customization (Atelier Ryza)

The appearance of Ryza's atelier can be customized. The interior walls, exterior walls, floor, roof, terrace, and rug can be changed to one of several themes with bonus effects, varying from weather conditions or rare chance of appearances. Inside the secret hideout also consists a sofa, bed, and table that can also be customized, with some of them exclusively changed differently from the exterior customization.

The game was first teased on 23 May, 2019, when the Gust Youtube channel posted a short video teasing their next game. The video showed a clip of four characters standing in a field of grass under a blue sky, followed with a text ("our adventure is about to begin") and then the announcement of more information coming the 28th of the same month.[1] The teaser trailer was hosted in a temporary website, but since the game was officially announced the site shows a link to the official Atelier Ryza website instead of the teaser video.[2]

Two days after the teaser, the magazine Dengeki PlayStation revealed that the teased game was called Atelier Ryza and that it was expected to be released for the PlayStation 4 in autumn. The magazine interviewed the producer, Junzo Hoso, who revealed many details about the title.[3] Among other things, he confirmed that the development of the game started around July 2018 (at the same time as Atelier Lulua), that they are using a new engine and that development was at around 45%.

The 27th of May, the magazine Famitsu showed their online preview for the week, with Atelier Ryza on it. They revealed that the game is expected for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Steam and showed some images, including the logo of the game.[4]

The 28th of May, Atelier Ryza was officially announced[5] and the website was launched. During the month of June, it was revealed that the game would launch the 26th of September. The localization for the west was also announced for the 29th of October (North America)[6] and the 1st of November (Europe)[7].

A few weeks after the game was released in Japan, a season pass was announced. Its content is scheduled to be released between October and December 2019, and it will include tracks from previous Gust games, weapon skins, additional character stories, costumes and an additional high-difficulty area.[8][9][10]

Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout got "generally favorable" reviews on Metacritic receiving a metascore of 84/100 on Nintendo Switch based on 13 critic reviews,[11] 75/100 on PC based on 4 critic reviews,[12] and 74/100 on PS4 based on 19 critic reviews.[13]

During its first week in Japan, Atelier Ryza sold more than 150,000 copies.[14]. On February 14th, 2020 Gust announced over 350,000 copies was sold worldwide. [15] The game had hit 420,000 units in shipments and digital sales in fiscal year ending March 2020, and had surpassed Atelier Sophie, which was the previous best-selling Atelier game.[16]

By 26th March 2020 hits, Atelier Ryza reaches 500,000 in shipments and digital sales worldwide, surpassing any other Atelier titles existed. They commemorated the celebration by an artwork by the game's character designer on the Gust's Twitter page.[17]

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