Atelier Yumia was offered by Koei Tecmo for evaluation. Thanks!
Once I play survival video games, I are inclined to all the time gravitate in the direction of gathering as a lot as I can and hoarding my supplies. I like to verify I’m ready for any circumstance and have sufficient supplies to maintain me occupied. Naturally, this acquired me into crafting so much, which is how I began my journey into the Atelier collection. A JRPG that revolves round gathering, crafting, and exploring simply roped me in, and Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Reminiscences & the Envisioned Land does an awesome job at preserving me engaged whereas additionally increasing on what is predicted of this franchise.
Once I consider any Atelier video games, the very first thing that involves my thoughts is alchemy. The core of every sport revolves round utilizing alchemy to synthesize and create totally different objects for each your self and others. So, with that in thoughts, I wished to see an alchemy system that’s simple to grasp however has the complexity to make the objects I would like extra highly effective in distinctive methods. I really feel Atelier Yumia finds a strategy to steadiness this, making the system really feel rewarding each throughout and after the method.
There are two key elements that make objects stronger when synthesizing: resonance and mana. Growing these will enhance your merchandise with higher high quality, stat upgrades, and extra highly effective merchandise traits. These enhance relying on the objects you employ as elements, which fluctuate in measurement and high quality themselves. The higher high quality the elements are, with a bigger resonance space, the extra Resonance and Mana can be amassed. These elements may have their very own particular person results that additional buff your merchandise, like an extra enhance to the resonance space or elevated well being or protection.
Every merchandise can have a number of cores, which enhance totally different elements of every merchandise. For instance, with Yumia’s weapon, we are able to have a core for assault energy, one to present it further trait slots, and one to particularly enhance high quality. All of those can have elements poured into them, giving many possibilities to extend their energy and provides them new results like slowing down enemies, growing your pace, and extra.
To get the elements to craft, you must discover them within the open world, which has been refined to be fast and environment friendly for essentially the most half. You run round a fairly gigantic open world, discovering crops to select, rocks to mine, bushes to hit, and monsters to hunt, all to assemble the perfect elements to enhance your alchemy. Gathering is comparatively fast with quick pickups, however mining requires a 1-2 second animation. Fortunately, most animations could be prevented by capturing the supplies together with your trusty gunstaff as a substitute of mining them.
The fight in Atelier Yumia has been iterated on a bit as effectively whereas nonetheless retaining the aptitude from the earlier entries. I’d think about this real-time fight on rails. You may transfer round in a circle across the enemy you’re preventing with a collection of close-up and far-away assaults. Your alternative of assault is necessary, as it could actually stun enemies, which provides you an opportunity to see what they’re weak towards and do some massive harm. You may as well swap to one in all your teammates in real-time, with three of your six actively preventing and the opposite three taking over a assist position.
It took me somewhat longer to get into the fight as a lot as I ought to have, however it’s loads of enjoyable as you stage up and get new mechanics. It might probably really feel somewhat floaty at instances as effectively attributable to essential assaults not exhibiting as a lot of an influence on the monster’s well being, however when you unlock Pal Actions, Precision Countering, and extra highly effective objects, it will get approach higher. I discovered primary assaults and abilities to be meaningless apart from to stun the enemy to get their weak point and deal large harm to them. However it’s pleasant to look at play out and swap between totally different allies.
Nevertheless, the beautiful open world is one in all my favourite components of the sport. There are such a lot of actions unfold all through the world, all dictated by query marks on the map. It felt rewarding to exit and discover treasure chests, uncover ruins, tackle aspect quests, and restore shrines to earn new elements and talent factors. I like how massive the world is with the 4 distinct areas, and the power to construct bases and customise them the best way you wish to is good. I admire that we are able to construct power turbines to replenish the power you employ to navigate the world and Easy Synthesis to make smaller objects it’s possible you’ll use extra usually, like bullets or restore kits.
To encourage us to discover extra, we even have the Pioneering Effort, which does an awesome job at giving a motive to maintain exploring the areas. This checklist of actions to finish provides you bonuses the extra you do and requires some journey around the globe. This could unlock new recipes, totally different ammo sorts, and new buildings to create that may show you how to retailer objects and domesticate elements.
I did discover it somewhat laborious to traverse the panorama at instances. You are able to do triple jumps on some surfaces however not others, and the bike you get afterward would not have as a lot use as I anticipated. Utilizing the bike does assist getting round on roads and flatter surfaces, however exploring cliffs and extra condensed areas will not be as simple to get round.
Then, we have now the talent tree, which is used to enhance your synthesizing, exploration, and fight abilities. There are some important abilities to get right here, just like the Pal Actions talked about earlier or growing the standard of all gathered objects, so the upgrades make a distinction in your gameplay. I a lot favor this over the same old elevated stats or fight skills. Nevertheless, the one strategy to get factors is by finishing quests and discovering actions within the open world, and it could actually really feel like a slog to get for later abilities because it will get dearer to unlock. Even nonetheless, it is a enjoyable time to go around the globe, and it is easy to get misplaced in all the actions.
The story itself did not hook me till the primary 45 minutes had been finished, however after that, I used to be fairly intrigued all through. The story is predicated round Yumia investigating a brand new continent to additional a analysis crew’s efforts to find what occurred on this land and why Alchemy is so stigmatized. Determining what occurred to the Aladissian Empire and the atrocities which will or could not have been dedicated resulting in the present state of the world is charming to study.
I additionally favored how the characters had been portrayed. I used to be nervous that our protagonist, Yumia, could be a extra stereotypical ditsy anime woman, and whereas she does have her moments, there have been extra instances than I anticipated that she confirmed some spine. Not one of the core crew of six had been too stereotypical, apart from Lenja; she is a stereotypical timid, shy anime woman. Even nonetheless, I loved studying about them and going by means of their private aspect quests to find extra about who they’re and their previous.
Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Reminiscences & the Envisioned Land – Steam Deck Efficiency
Whereas Atelier Yumia is a enjoyable sport, it’s a little bit of a blended bag on the Steam Deck. On the default settings with XeSS upscaling on balanced, we principally get a median of 40 FPS, with some areas going to 26 FPS (like at your Atelier and a few fights) and a few going to 60 FPS (like on the Willeks Village). It might probably fluctuate wildly, and it was laborious to determine my favourite strategy to play since I used to be continually swapping backwards and forwards between stability at a decrease body charge and ranging smoothness at the next charge.
There’s not a ton of leeway because the CPU and GPU are being pushed fairly laborious. Nevertheless, I can solely select one group of really useful settings, and in the long run, I most popular stability.
Beneficial Settings
Ultimately, we do need to make do with some slight efficiency drops it doesn’t matter what, which takes place principally within the first area, however we are able to nonetheless have an pleasant time within the sport. I found that setting the in-game framerate restrict helped efficiency greater than loads of the opposite settings, so with that set to 30 FPS and a mixture of Commonplace and Low high quality settings, we are able to play at a principally strong 30 FPS with XeSS on High quality. This provides us strong visuals that are not too blurry with XeSS.
Nevertheless, we do have to make the most of as a lot energy as doable. There are sufficient areas and fights the place the framerate drops, and to get essentially the most steady expertise, we want as a lot energy as doable. So, we do have some excessive battery drain that fluctuates between 17W and 24W. I’m not shocked by how demanding the sport is, however there is not way more we are able to do to reinforce the expertise with out sacrificing high quality. I did additionally attempt the Dynamic Decision possibility, and whereas it really works somewhat higher, it additionally makes the sport a lot blurrier.
As a result of it was practically unimaginable to get to a strong 30 FPS with out making some drastic adjustments that will make the visuals a lot worse, I like to recommend taking part in this fashion:
I additionally observed some minor stutters when choosing up assets in area 3. It would not have an effect on area 1 and a pair of. Whereas it is not the tip of the world, it is nonetheless somewhat obnoxious.
Tremendous Steady Settings
This was extra of a last-minute add, however after some testing, I really feel it is a viable strategy to play the sport. It’ll require somewhat extra compromise, which is a bummer, however I used to be capable of get a close to steady 30 FPS within the areas that had been having points earlier than. So, for this group of settings, we might want to really convey the decision all the way down to 1024×576 and use the low-quality preset, together with XeSS at Balanced. It does make the sport somewhat blurry, however as a result of aesthetics of the sport, we are able to use SteamOS FSR upscaling to make it look higher.
It sounds bizarre to make use of two upscaling strategies, and it could actually introduce somewhat little bit of ghosting right here and there, however it does preserve the sport extra steady and nonetheless appears to be like okay. You may convey the decision all the way down to 960×540 for extra financial savings, however it does introduce extra ghosting, and we are going to nonetheless want a 30 FPS lock. Nonetheless, it really works, and it is extra steady:
Accessibility
There are various settings we are able to change to customise our expertise. For battles, we are able to toggle focus digital camera, auto guard, holding to flee, and talent digital camera. We are able to additionally change the digital camera controls, aiming pace, digital camera shake, map rotation, auto-save, aiming mode, auto-sprint, textual content measurement (set to three), textual content coloration, and audio sliders.
The sport would not assist 16:10 resolutions, so there are black bars on the high and backside, however it does have cloud saves and controller assist. There aren’t any HDR settings.
Conclusion
Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Reminiscences & the Envisioned Land is a improbable expertise with participating mechanics and a strong story. Synthesizing objects is addicting, the story is attention-grabbing, and the actions across the open world are fulfilling. Fight will get pleasant afterward, however it could actually really feel somewhat floaty typically with primary assaults. Other than some minor points traversing the panorama, I did not discover a lot I disliked in regards to the sport, and I’d suggest checking it out in the event you benefit from the collection or identical to JRPGs typically.
Enjoying on the Steam Deck is sort of utterly strong, with a fluctuating framerate. However outdoors of some areas within the first area and a few very flashy fight, we are able to get a steady 30 FPS with the sport wanting fairly strong. It wants some compromises, however in the long run, it’s playable and pleasant.
Our evaluation is predicated on the PC model of this sport.
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