Welcome to our review of Atelier Lulua, Scion of Arland, the fourth installment of the Arland series!
Once again, the hands of the clock have begun to move… And the future of “this world” rests on the shoulders of a single girl. The long awaited 4th installment of the popular “Arland” series that had begun with the “Atelier Rorona”!
In this new story, players will revisit the nostalgic world of Arland and embark on an exciting journey of alchemy together with Rorona’s daughter, Lulua. The dream of this young girl living in the small town on the border of the Arland Republic is to overcome her legendary mother in the mastery of alchemy. Unravel the future that awaits her beyond the mystery of this “ancient manuscript” and join Lulua and her companions on a new adventure through Arland!
When we received the download code for this game, I instantly requested to play this newest Atelier game. Not that I am such a massive fan of the series, but because I heard a befriended reviewer speak highly of it. He is a massive fan of the series and he literally said this was the best of the series. I did enjoy the previous games so it peaked my interest.
In true “slice of life RPG” style, Atelier games are about the story and crafting. While some focus on one side, others focus on other aspects. I love the ones that focus more on the story and Lulua is pretty much my jam. It all starts off like usual, you learn to craft and the main character tells everyone their long name which is then always funnily shortened, in this case, Lulua.
You are slowly eased into the story and one of your first duties is to go fight an evil entity in the dungeons north of town. You head off there, learn the lay of the land a little, get to experience a few nicely done cutscenes and after your initial defeat, you get helped by your teacher Pania whose help to defeat the enemy is unmistakingly needed. Once you pass that, you can go back to town and before you know it, you are tasked to synthesize certain items.
Unaware of what items you need or how to make it, the mysterious book that fell out of the sky shortly before all this suddenly becomes shiny. It is showing you what to do in order to make more information available. Information that only you (Lulua) can read and this is how the story really sets off.
In true Atelier fashion, most characters are overly cute and even the presentations are small works of art with the occasional grand introduction or description. I especially love the outfits option where you can freely pick between all available clothes and even background music are changeable as soon as they have been freed up in the game.
Even the outside parts of the world, like that dungeon I mentioned before, so incredibly impressive and beautifully crafted, at times you will really feel like you are watching an anime. I even noticed slight improvements in the moving around and running around parts. They used to be somewhat awkward looking at times, but this new game on Switch sure had much more fluid movements all around. It was at times a little annoying in previous games. I remember having to stop to pick up items in the Vita game, but it felt much more natural this time around.
As the focus of this game appears to be more story-wise, I must say this was an improvement too. While crafting is still core business, it just feels like there is more stuff to do and overall more content to the game. The menus show what to do and where you are progress wise, always an added bonus to any game. I often wish more games would do this, it is just something very helpful in case you ever want to come back to a game after a while.
In conclusion, Atelier games are a specific niche and while I am not the biggest of fans, I must say this is probably the best one I have played so far. I love the bigger focus on the game and I just seemed to have more fun with Lulua than some of its predecessors. Improved mechanics sure aided in bringing the score up to a full blown 8 out of 10. At times the crafting can still feel like a bore and for me personally, it kind of breaks the rhythm of the game and this took off a .5 from the score I originally intended to give.
