Here we are again! As a fan of the Atelier series I’m being treated well by Gust and Koei Tecmo, because not only did we get Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land earlier this year, we get another game in Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian this year. Is Gust spreading themselves too thin? Or are we just lucky enough to get another good Atelier game?

Atelier Resleriana takes place in the town of Hallfein, previously a successful town that has entered hard times due to a massive tragedy several years prior. You play as two dual protagonists, Rias and Slade, who are both working to restore the town as well as find out what happened those years ago.

If the name Atelier Resleriana sounds familiar to you, it’s because it’s also the name of a mobile gacha game that has since shut down. While Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian is technically a sequel to Atelier Resleriana: Forgotten Alchemy and the Polar Night Liberator (the mobile game) you don’t need any sort of prior knowledge or experience in the mobile game. And if you aren’t a fan of mobile gacha game mechanics, you’re in luck! Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & The White Guardian (referred to just as Atelier Resleriana from here on out to save us all a little time) is a standard JRPG with no gacha mechanics or free to play elements.

What the console game does carry over from the mobile game are references to previous games in the series. Atelier Resleriana is a massive crossover from the previous games in the Atelier series, with both major party members and characters you run into being from previous games, explained as being travelers from other worlds. While knowledge of the rest of the Atelier series isn’t necessary to play Atelier Resleriana, it is very fun to see just how far this goes in rewarding fans of the series. I was very happy, for example, to see Totori from Atelier Totori show up (one of my favorite games in the series) and mention events from her game and interactions with her mentor, Rorona. One of your party members is also one of my personal favorite side characters, Willbell from the Dusk subseries. There was even stuff I felt like I was missing, as a fan of the series - the first character who joins your party is Raze from Mana Khemia 2, a fan favorite subseries from the PS2 that I haven’t had a chance to play. This is highly rewarding to fans, but shouldn’t be something to keep you from playing Atelier Resleriana.

Another aspect of Atelier Resleriana that will be familiar to existing fans is the gameplay, both with the gameplay loop and combat. The gameplay loop is classic Atelier, where you explore the world to get materials, use those materials in alchemy to synthesize items, and then use those items in combat. However, Atelier Resleriana adds a new twist with a town and shop management mechanic, where you sell items in a shop to both earn money and also develop the town. Then you can further development with investing the money you’ve earned as well as items you’ve gathered and crafted. I always love the Atelier gameplay loop, and the additions here work well, feeling like a natural extension of classic Atelier gameplay. The combat is also back to classic Atelier, returning to turn based combat. While some of the real time combat of the Ryza/Secret games and Yumia has been good, I think turn based works a lot better with the rest of the systems, and it feels great here. I also love the alchemy system in this game, which involves you picking out the items to be used in synthesis (with various strengths and traits) but then also being able to morph recipes if using specific ingredients which allows you to discover new items. It’s a very fun system which has lead me to spend a fair amount of time messing with alchemy to see how many items I can discover.

The game also looks and sounds great, with a few caveats. The character designs and models are some of the best in the Atelier franchise, which is especially exciting given all of the legacy characters incorporated into the game. That being said, some of the textures are really rough and feel almost shockingly out of place. If the team had to spend its time on one thing I’m glad the character models were given priority, but some of the environmental textures might not feel out of place on a game from a few console generations ago. I found it easy to get over pretty quickly but it’s a bit jarring. The music is great too, and also references previous games - I heard a song from Atelier Ayesha that immediately felt nostalgic.

Atelier Resleriana is in a lot of ways a love letter to the rest of the series. While Atelier Yumia was looking forward, Atelier Resleriana shows that Gust is more than willing to look back at the things that made the series beloved in the first place. While I really enjoyed my time with Atelier Yumia, I think Atelier Resleriana will be my favorite Atelier game of the year. This is a review in progress due to the fact I’m not quite done with the game and can’t speak to the completed story, but I think the gameplay and characters show just why so many fans like myself have fallen in love with the Atelier series. It incorporates classic Atelier gameplay with fan favorite characters while still including fresh gameplay ideas. While this was definitely made with existing fans of the series in mind, Atelier Resleriana is something that new fans can also appreciate as well.