There are very few games in my life where I can take a step back, get comfortable, and explore a vibrant world at my own pace, while enjoying a thoughtful story with satisfying combat and crafting mechanics when I feel like it. That is until Atelier Yumia: the Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land fell into my lap.

The 26th(!) mainline entry in the long-running Japanese role-playing game franchise by Gust and Koei Tecmo Games—whose previous entries include Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key, and Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg—is a breathtaking journey from start to finish. After playing the game for over 60 hours, I can confidently say that Atelier Yumia is a resoundingly impressive game full of charm, secrets, and beauty. Not only inviting new players into the series by creating an original setting and streamlining its mechanics, but keeping its established fanbase entertained with its creative takes on the series staples.

A mature story in a vivid world

Atelier Yumia takes place centuries after the destruction of the Aladissian Empire, a once powerful nation that dominated the world in its use of alchemy, but met its end after a mysterious cataclysm. Now, nature has reclaimed Aladiss, and alchemy is considered taboo. Despite their history being largely lost to time, their practitioners are met with hatred and considered to be evil.

After losing her mother three years ago in a tragic accident known as the mana disaster, and discovering that her family comes from a long line of Alchemists, our protagonist, Yumia Liessfeldt, joins the Aladiss Research Team. Using her fledgling abilities as an Alchemist, she ventures through unexplored and perilous lands in search of the truth about alchemy. All the while asking the question: Is alchemy truly evil?

Across the course of her journey, Yumia meets a variety of loveable characters that not only inspire her to push forward, but have their own motives for joining the Research Team; whether it’s revenge, community, or to help others. 

There’s Viktor von Duerer and his younger sister Isla, a pair of siblings that belong to the Order of Eustella and were greatly impacted by the mana disaster three years ago. There is the beautiful and voluptuous mercenary Nina Friede, who hides a dark secret behind her carefree attitude. And then there is Lenja, an enchantingly cute and adorably shy member of the demihuman race, the Welleks, whose timid personality prevents her from having the confidence to trust in herself.

And finally, the character I ended up playing the most and resonating with throughout my playthrough, the lone-wolf adventurer, Rutger Arendt. A young man who suffers from chronic pain as a result of something that happened in his tragic past. Rutger is not only an amazingly well-written character that subverts the tropes of the typical anime hot-head, but a character that I believe perfectly exemplifies the darker themes and ideas that the story sets out to explore—especially surrounding the corruption of alchemy by the elite. My fondness for him is certainly helped by the fact that he uses one of my favourite unconventional weapons, a scythe.

But not everyone wants to see Yumia succeed, and in a series rarity, Atelier Yumia has not one, not two, but several villains to overcome. These formidable foes are monstrous beings capable of human speech and performing alchemy, and are the key to understanding what happened to Aladiss and the mana disaster.

Whilst the story starts in stereotypical JRPG fashion, by the end of the game’s first region around six hours in, the story rapidly moves in pace. Asking more and more questions, revealing new mysteries, establishing new characters, and building tension as each villain enters the fray. I never felt bored or left unimpressed with the game’s story throughout my 60-hour playthrough.

The three pillars of Atelier

The very foundations of the Atelier series—synthesis, combat and exploration—have not only been reworked, adapted, and optimised, but have been greatly expanded upon with the addition of two new mechanics: simple synthesis, and base building.

Synthesis returns in Atelier Yumia. This complex crafting system has the player manipulate the mana found in materials and ingredients to create all-new and powerful items, tools, and equipment with the help of recipes that can be unlocked and upgraded throughout your journey. The goal of synthesis is to absorb as much mana as possible by placing ingredients into alchemy slots to generate resonance areas and collect any drifting mana present to enhance the final project.

Another new mechanic, and a first for the franchise, is the ability to fully customise your base. Building lets you construct settlements however you want in dozens of locations by using blueprints to craft buildings, energy generators, synthesis-related furniture, and decorations to make your base your home. Building was fun for the first couple of times, but it was never something I fully invested my time in.

Moving on to exploration, the world of Atelier Yumia is expansive, and secrets abound in every nook and cranny. Exploration will see you investigate four distinct regions with different flora and fauna, and as a member of the Research Team, it is your job to discover and record everything you find. From treasure troves to lore-providing memory vials, the opportunities to explore a vibrant and beautiful open world are boundless. With new traversal features, tools, and seamless transitions between each region, the game allows you to explore at your own pace. When exploring, you’ll also be able to collect a variety of different ingredients and materials to empower your next synthesis.

However, repeatedly pressing the gather button over and over and over again became more than just being repetitive, it started to hurt. In a game that prioritises relaxation, comfort, and the cozy sensation that comes with exploring a biodiverse world, this was certainly an opportunity where the developers could uplift accessibility by having a setting that automatically picks up ingredients on the ground, whilst still also requiring that players engage in gathering and foraging through the special animations required to mine ore, break mineral deposits, and shoot out of reach materials. 

And finally, battle. Whilst exploring the world you’ll frequently run into monsters and engage in fights. Combat now happens on the field, and rather than the turn-based systems of past entries, takes on a more tactical form and adopts real-time action elements. Players can freely move in a circle around enemies, switch between the inner and outer fields, parry, evade, and use items crafted from synthesis to deal elemental damage, heal the party, or inflict status effects.

Players will primarily be using their attack skills whilst in combat, which are each limited to a certain number of ticks that can be replenished by stunning the enemy, or waiting for them to cool down. Skills have either a physical or magical attribute, and the skills available for each character differ depending on the attack zone you are in. Yumia, for example, uses physical attacks whilst in the inner range, striking with a barrage of kicks, strikes with her staff, and occasionally a bullet or two, whilst using magical attacks when in the outer range to bombard her foes with a barrage of bullets from afar.

Recognising when an enemy is weak to physical or magical attacks is essential to stunning enemies and revealing their weaknesses. When an enemy is stunned, the player can inflict even greater amounts of damage through their skills or items. There is also the Mana Surge ability, a powerful state that the player can enter by accumulating Environmental Mana in battle by using items. Mana Surge drastically increases the power of skills, whilst also giving them access to an ultimate attack, and boons that differ from character to character. Such as Rutger, who whilst in Mana Surge deals more damage the less health he has.

To say that combat is fun would be an understatement. Combat is thrilling, action-packed, and exciting. It’s constantly evolving as new features are added, such as Friend Attacks, Precision Counters, Mana Surge, unlocking new skills and abilities, and crafting more powerful weapons, armour, and items to support you in battle. Whilst there is not much in terms of difficulty, even after I switched to very hard after the game’s first boss, combat is still fun and rewarding from beginning to end. And surprisingly, the game manages to continually perform at a consistent 60 FPS even in the most visually intense regions and battles.

However, some rather glaring issues hold Atelier Yumia back. The game bombards the player with ridiculous amounts of jargon and terminology, that despite the game being labelled as a friendly entry for newcomers, can honestly make you feel a little overwhelmed. Whilst the game provides a glossary that you can access at all times, and highlights keywords in dialogue and tutorials to alleviate some of that stress, I still felt quite swamped by the influx of new concepts, events, and terms. Especially in the game’s introductory act when the world feels at its most unknown.

And finally, there is also the game’s genuinely atrocious camera. In tight and enclosed areas like ruins, your base, and even in combat, which you will frequent quite a lot. The camera will violently jostle against anything that is behind you, and cause this rubber banding effect that hurts the eyes. It always managed to find the worst position it could be in, either intensely zoomed into my character’s back so that I couldn’t see the enemies in front of me, or finding itself hiding behind a tree, rock, or even getting stuck in the ground at times. It was one of the many reasons I struggled with base building, as the camera would at times cause the item I was trying to place to go somewhere completely different, making the whole experience quite unpleasant.