After 27 years as a cult classic, crafting JRPG series Atelier shoots for global appeal with a seamless open-world, "action-like" combat, and a series-first housing system

Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land - First Look - YouTube

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The long-running but relatively niche crafting JRPG series Atelier is aiming for mainstream, international appeal with the recently announced next entry, Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land.

In an interview with 4Gamer (via Automaton), producer Junzo Hosoi said there have been aspects of the Atelier series that don't hold up to standards set by other RPGs. 

"I’m not sure if I should say this, but there have been aspects of Atelier games that compared unsatisfactorily to other RPGs but were forgiven due to being part of the Atelier series." he said. "This time, we want to create a high-quality RPG that many users who have never played Atelier before will like."

Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg kicked off the series way back in 1997, and all in all, there have been a whopping 25 mainline entries and 17 spinoffs. Naturally, there's a dedicated player base keeping the lights on at studio Gust, but Hosoi hopes to bring in a whole new audience of players who aren't familiar with the series.

Thanks to a bigger budget afforded by the success of the Secret spinoff series, Gust is building a seamless open-world map that'll allow for "more adventurous, open-field gameplay," according to Hosoi. There's also a new wall-jumping move that'll allow for vertical exploration of the map.

Traditionally built around turn-based combat, Atelier has experimented with something of a hybrid between real-time and turn-based battles starting with the Ryza games, and Hosoi said Yumia will be an evolution of that in what he calls an "action-like experience."

"We’ve basically made it so that players can ponder [their moves] while fighting, giving them a pleasant action-like experience," he said. There are also various strategic elements, including new equippable items, that'll ideally keep the combat feeling fresh and distinct from the Ryza games.

Likewise, Yumia's alchemy system is an expansion of what we saw in Atelier Ryza 3, featuring the return of a Link Morph-style synthesis system albeit with a more intuitive UI. The idea here is that it'll allow hardcore Atelier players to go nuts with potion-crafting while staying approachable to newcomers. Just one example of that philosophy in motion is new feature that lets you automatically add materials for potions.

Finally, Atelier Yumia's robust housing system is a series first and something Gust hopes will help bring in players from other genres. Although building sites are pre-determined, the system seems pretty open-ended otherwise, giving players a variety of different walls, roofs, furniture, and decorations to build their dream home all the way from scratch. And like the alchemy system, it's designed to be deep enough to satisfy those who love building stuff and, thanks to the option of prebuilt houses, totally skippable for people who don't.

Gust is obviously banking on expanding the reach of the Atelier series to a far broader audience than it's had for the past 27 years, but we haven't seen nearly enough to judge whether it'll be able to stick the landing. The game is due out on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC on March 21.

In the meantime, here are the best JRPGs you can play right now.