A little over a year ago you met Reisalin "Ryza" Stout for the first time and you fell in love with him; now you can return to live his adventures, the review di Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy is here to remind you. The developers of Gust Studio took advantage of the time period available to them (therefore from September - October 2019, when the first Atelier Ryza arrived in the West) to develop a real sequel to the franchise, which normally has never re-proposed the same protagonist. for two episodes in a row. But there is always a first time, and in this the love from the fans did not ask, but directly demanded, the return of Ryza. Let's try to understand why, but above all let's dissect this sequel well, trying to analyze in detail the various innovations within a context that at first glance appears very, very conservative. And that despite everything - balancing pros and cons - also takes the series to new levels.
The plot: where were we left?
Three years have now passed since the adventures of Ryza, Tao, Lent and company on Kurken Island: three years apparently (and quantitatively) may seem few, very short; yet they can also change everything. And so the player struggling with the plot of Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy has to come to terms with some truths: Ryza has remained more or less the same as always, with her spontaneity and ingenuity, but also a great desire to roll up her sleeves and go to adventure. The others don't.
The narrative takes hold with the arrival of the protagonist near the capital of the kingdom, Ashra-am Baird; as we will see later, if something exists and you need it, this is where you will find it. Two reasons push Ryza to travel: a letter from Tao (now a prestigious academic, who needs to speak to her) and a mysterious object entrusted to her in custody by Bos's father. In reality, it will turn out to be none other than an egg (all this was evident at first glance), from which Fi will be born, in a certain sense the "secret fairy" of the title, as well as a creature present in all the posters available today. As you may have understood, having played the previous episode is certainly a good prerequisite, but not a fundamental one; anyway here is the review of Atelier Ryza Ever Darkness And The Secret Hideout.
From the capital onwards, the Ryza's adventures, Tao and all the others (old and new characters, welcome returns and unexpected surprises) will be marked by an alternation (not always very effective) between the exploration of the dungeons, which are located around the city, and the tasks related to city life . However, Guts Studio has tried to tell a deeper story, closer to the psychology of the protagonist and her social relations with all the other characters, supporting and secondary: this is one of the main novelties of the sequel. But what do the "lost legends" have to do with all this?
The progression
We must try to make the idea of the new progression proposed by Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy. You will find yourself once again struggling with a very vast game world (but not open world: the areas connected to each other by invisible paths return), all freely explorable, even using new mechanics related to the gameplay. But at the same time, Ryza's life inside the capital will be kept an eye on, and his events with all the characters present: therefore you will not simply alternate between the dungeons to continue in the plot.
Between a dungeon and the other, but also within the progression of the same dungeon, Ryza will have to continually return to his atelier in Ashra-am Baird. Only here (real main hub) will he be able to modify the objects equipped by the characters, send the Puni, the pet pet, to furnish the house but above all else devote himself to alchemy through the pot kindly granted by the good old Tao.
Gradually Ryza will unlock new areas scattered around the capital, the Ruins of the Ancient World: the progression within these areas will still be linked to returns to the city, even if only to talk to other characters who could provide useful information. Fortunately, all this has become very fast: just a few actions in the menu of the game map, cleaned and improved, to directly access individual city areas, or return to a specific level of an equally specific dungeon.
Beyond the main plot, then, Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy offers a myriad of secondary missions ultra fast, to be accepted via the bulletin board in the Café, or real "serious" quests, to be unlocked by talking to the NPCs scattered around the city. This enriches the context of production, already rich in stimuli in itself; however, at least in terms of content, we are at other levels than the first Atelier Ryza.
The gameplay
From the moment Tao reveals to Ryza the existence of ancient legends, with related ruins to explore, the life of the protagonists will never be the same. In fact, with each new area, the girl will discover the existence of more or less sophisticated devices, which introduce significant innovations at the level of gameplay, but not as exceptional as we would have expected. Take for example the "magic tie", a kind of energetic vine that allows you to cross overhangs: it is a situational object. You will not be able to use it all the time, but only in the presence of certain platforms; a mechanic as "old" as Rayman's Purple Lums.
A similar and partly different discourse applies to the other tools, beyond the objects with which to obtain resources for crafting (shovels, hoes, hatchets, and so on): for example, there are candies to make you breathe underwater, which will prove essential to proceed towards another submerged dungeon. Very often the game is not particularly generous with information, you will have to understand for yourself what is needed at a given moment; the English language, the only one present, will not help every type of player, although his level of difficulty is certainly not that of the university. But let's talk about a title that makes texts its backbone.
Still as regards the gameplay, Guts Studio had talked about vertically developed environments, with lots of possibilities by the protagonist of to climb. In part it is also true, it is enough to find that sort of ivy / creeper that has marked the areas where it is possible to climb by clinging to surfaces. But even here everything is very situational; as it is situational to "walk sideways" along some areas of the dungeons, "pretending" that you are in danger of falling below. All this only partially changes the use of the environments in terms of level design, making it a little more dynamic. A bit'.
Improved alchemy and battles
Undeniable, however, how much Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy has improved or made the use of entire aspects of the gameplay more accessible. L'alchemy, for example, it still remains a cumbersome activity for professionals: yet there is no lack of guides, suggestions, or even buttons for self-manufacturing. And if you really can't find that log of wood you need for a hatchet, there is the local market outside the home: take out those coins accumulated with the secondary missions.
It goes without saying that alchemy now allows you to create many more objects and tools, which is part of the general deepening of the mechanics mentioned above. The clashes against monsters, in dungeons and not, even by changing the names of what are now Support Mode and Aggresive Mode (in the latter the various members of the party can also use offensive tools, because those who hit for first knocks twice).
From this point of view, too, we have tried to improve the dynamism of the encounters: the player can quickly pass from the control of one character to that of any other, structure his own strategy, combine the basic attacks and the special attacks, obviously taking into account the "points" that can be spent both for skills and for the use of secondary objects (the "core items"). Everything has a cost in Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy: you have to do the math well to win the fights, it is not enough to have the weapon with the best statistics.
PlayStation 4 Trophies
Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy, like its predecessor, allows players to unlock the coveted Platinum Trophy; however, it seems that it is not anything too complex, since there seem to be no missing trophies. The difficulty, then, is nothing really insurmountable: arm yourself with patience and dedicate yourself to alchemy, the rest will come by itself.
Technical sector
We got to test the version PlayStation 4 of Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy, but by running it on PlayStation 5: however, the real version optimized for the new Sony console will only be available when the embargo expires, so eventually we will come back to you at a later time. Basically we had to "settle" for a compatibility mode, which is truly remarkable. In this way, in fact, the game uploads (necessary in the passage from any area to another) are practically non-existent (2-3 timed seconds).
The general glance is more than satisfactory, even if the technical sector it would have needed some more finishing in certain elements of the game: the city stairs, for example, always show a strange white patina, seen from a distance. But in truth here the speech is different: that is, that productions of this type would need a new game engine, to see their individual objects redesigned from scratch instead of reusing the previous assets to the bitter end. The frame rate hasn't shown a moment of uncertainty, but we're not sure it's anchored at 60 fps.
Comment
Tested version PlayStation 4 Digital Delivery PlayStation Store Price 59,99 € Resources4Gaming.com8.2
Readers (2)7.1
Your voteAtelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy should be thought first of all as the sequel to a title that in itself already worked just fine. The developers welcomed the feedback from the community, polished some aspects of the production, but all in all in just a year and a little more it was absurd to expect better. And this is how the gameplay novelties are resolved, all in all, in a series of "actions" that make exploration more enjoyable, but nothing really fundamental; much more sensible, then, the changes that have tried to make the use of alchemy more intuitive (which still remains the real stumbling block for all neophytes). For the rest, the adventure of Ryza and his friends (old and new) is very pleasant, and there are all the bases to witness the arrival of Ryza 3, in the coming years. However, here it will be legitimate to expect true innovation, even from a technical point of view.
PRO
- Long-lived and pleasant plot
- Revised (and improved) crafting / alchemy system
- New possibilities related to gameplay
- The innovations remain all in all marginal
- In some moments really too diluted and slow
- Technically identical to the predecessor (even in defects)
