Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land follows the adventures of Yumia Liessfeldt. In the world Yumia lives in, alchemy is considered a cursed and forbidden art. Yumia had lost her mother in a tragic accident that devastated the town, so alchemy is better known for causing the tragic downfall of the Aladissian Empire. That same tragedy is what gives Yumia the chance to prove alchemy isn't evil. An expedition has been launched to investigate the dangerous ruins of the empire, and Yumia's alchemist skills are necessary to overcome the harsh dead land. Now she must prove that her alchemic skills are a boon while discovering the truth of what happened to the empire.

Atelier Yumia is by far the closest the franchise has come to being a full-on standard JRPG story in a long while. While the Dusk games waved their hands at the potential darkness of alchemy, they were still largely friendly titles tinged with a bit of melancholy. In comparison, Yumia is kind of dark. Yumia is constantly being confronted with the long-term dangers of alchemy in everything from massive destruction to horrific human experiments. Her friends all have grim backstories that are frequently intertwined with alchemy's excesses. One particularly dark plotline involves the rich elite quite literally paying orphans to sell their memories, so they can be poverty tourists and learn what it feels like to be a starving child who's trying to survive. Pretty much everyone treats Yumia like she's five seconds away from going on a murder spree, and she frequently has to hide her alchemist identity to avoid being attacked. It's not overwhelmingly dark (it's still an Atelier game) and there are still a lot of lighthearted and gentle moments, but for the franchise, it's probably the most serious entry to date and features a less comfortable tone than the other offerings.

However, that helps it feel like a distinct experience. As much as I enjoyed Atelier Ryza, it felt like the games were falling into a standard formula. Yumia feels like it's its own thing. I missed the relatively chill and sedate feeling of the older games, but taken on its own merits, Yumia is the first title where I felt tension and danger in the world. The potential risks of alchemy and people's response to it felt like a genuine part of the experience. It helps that the cast is likable, and the initial friction between the characters makes it feel more satisfying when they finally accept Yumia.

Like the plot, Yumia's gameplay is its own thing compared to the previous games. While Atelier Ryza flirted with open-world gameplay, Yumia embraces it. You're thrown into a large world map filled with quest markers, gatherable items, potential sides, and functionally. The game is guided by the player, and you can wander around collecting items, finding shortcuts and secrets, solving puzzles, and just exploring. The only limit is that later regions are locked until you complete the story of the previous region.

Likewise, movement is significantly improved. Yumia is agile and capable of moving around the environment with ease. She has a pair of rocket shoes that let her climb walls or survive incredible drops without danger, and as the game progresses, she unlocks more abilities, such as double-jump or riding a motorcycle. The game is designed around exploring the environments with a wonderful amount of freedom. If you see a high cliff, you can probably find a way to scale it. It reminds me a lot of something like Xenoblade Chronicles X or Breath of the Wild, where you're given ever-increasing mobility. Half of the fun is figuring out how to get somewhere. There's also an element of Metroidvania in that you'll unlock new gimmicks (e.g., special gun ammo, rope ladders) that let you access areas that were previously hidden.

Part of this new system is the Energy mechanic. Yumia has a small portable battery that fuels many of her abilities. Performing certain actions, such as breaking large walls or awakening plants that can lift you into the air, uses up some energy. Likewise, riding your motorcycle or falling from a height uses up some energy to prevent you from taking damage. More importantly, there are mana-filled danger zones that will literally dissolve you if you spend too long in them without protection; this requires a constant influx of energy. It might sound annoying, but it's so easy to replenish energy that the energy serves as a gentle reminder to return to base, drop off supplies, and do some crafting.

This sense of freedom also applies to your Atelier. While you're given a perfectly reliable basic Atelier to do your synthesis, the game offers a number of different build sites where  you can hand-craft your Atelier using a straightforward build-and-snap system. This lets you functionally create whatever house you want to live in or to set up alternate locations that contain, for example, greenhouses to mass-produce materials or a rock quarry for easy item farming. If you're not into building things, there are plenty of pre-created buildings to minimize the amount of work needed.

I suspect this shift to a more standard open world might be controversial for some, but it works incredibly well for the franchise. Having the freedom to explore works very well, especially since the games dropped the hard time limits. I was worried it might feel unfocused, but I enjoyed having the freedom to do what I wanted.

The Synthesis system returns, but it has been slightly downplayed. There are actually two kinds of synthesis: simple and complex. Simple synthesis can be performed anywhere as long as you have supplies and energy. It allows you to instantly craft items ranging from bullets to fishing lures. Pick an item, and it generates on the spot.

The traditional complex synthesis is still present, and it's a real doozy. As the game progresses, synthesis gets significantly more complex. Functionally, every item you can craft is divided into cores. Once you create a core, you'll be given a surrounding stratum, which contains multiple subcores that have item slots. Slotted items project a resonance field, and if the resonance overlaps the main core or subcores, it boosts the main core and improves the effects of the item. Once you've completed at least one core, you can craft the item, but crafting multiple cores allows for better items.

The only complaint I have about the Synthesis system is that it feels like there are fewer major items to craft, and it's mostly limited to armor, weapons and usable combat items. One thing I adored in the previous games was eventually crafting items that allowed me to gather more or improved my abilities, but most of those upgrades are now tied to the skill tree or a BotW-style system where you can complete puzzles to get items to upgrade your skills and abilities. This isn't terrible on the surface, but alchemy is such an important part of the game that I wish they had tied ability upgrades to it instead of something functionally divorced from it. Likewise, the ease at which you can swap out traits means there's less encouragement to do the more meticulous crafting chains from the previous games.

The combat system in Atelier Yumia is a new one for the franchise, but it is in some ways an evolution of the way Ryza was going. The combat is fully real time and significantly more directly action-based than the previous games. Rather than taking turns, each character has a "charge" system for their attacks. Each character has multiple attacks, and each time you use one, you lose a charge. Charges refresh naturally over time but only as long as you're not using that specific attack. This means you're encouraged to constantly swap the attack you're using and never stop attacking.

Likewise, items are traditionally mixed into combos and tend to take the form of special elemental weapon attacks. Enemies are weak to either physical or magical attacks, and after hitting them with a certain number of those attacks, they become stunned. Once stunned, your items get an instant refresh, and if you hit the enemy with an element they are weak to, you'll execute a special combo attack for massive damage.

Positioning is incredibly important in Atelier Yumia. By default, your team is arrayed in a circle around the enemy you're targeting, and you're able to move left or right. This is essential because some attacks have different effects if you're targeting the enemy from specific directions to avoid enemy attacks. Most enemies' attacks create danger zones on the ground (think of the attacks in Final Fantasy XIV). To avoid full damage, you need to move your character to a safe zone.

In addition, you have an inner and outer ring that you can swap between at any time by tapping the d-pad. This allows you to avoid certain attacks, and each character has a different set of moves in each ring. Yumia has self-buffing melee-type attacks when she's up close and item-enhancing magical gun attacks at a distance. In comparison, Viktor's Pile Bunker builds up charges as you fight in melee combat, which he can spend to do high-power, no-cost attacks at range. There's even a third set of attacks called Mana Surge attacks that you only start gaining after level 50!

You can also block and dodge, and they must be done in real time. You can hold one button to block or, while blocking, tap left or right to dodge. If you time this perfectly, you'll do a Perfect Guard or Evade, which minimizes the damage you suffer. In addition, you'll later gain the ability to do a Precision Counter after evading; this ends up swapping you to another character with a useful damaging attack.

Enemies are also unusual. While you have individual fights against enemies, a number of the fights are called Rumble Fights. They have a group of enemies that functions like a single foe. They attack in unison, such as having an AoE attack where each of the three enemies faces one cardinal direction, and you must move into the fourth to avoid it. The enemies are only defeated when all of their health bars are depleted. In essence, it's like fighting an enemy with multiple parts rather than fighting a group of enemies.

If this sounds a lot like a real-time combat system, that's because it is very close to one. The closest comparison I can think of is Lightning Returns, where the RPG elements are still a major part of the game but enough real-time mechanics straddle the line. Most gameplay mechanics are incredibly forgiving — the Perfect Evade window is a mile long, and you can dodge many attacks by spamming it — but it's still the latest in the long line of RPGs where real-time mechanics meld with traditional RPG gameplay.

I like Yumia's combat system a lot, but there are many small elements that could be optimized. The overall game difficulty is very low, and most standard enemies die so quickly you don't get a chance to interact with them on the Normal difficulty. You need to start on the Hard difficulty or even Very Hard to interact with the mechanics. It feels deliberately softened in some ways, and anyone who's familiar with the franchise will need to take advantage of the tougher challenge modes.

Combat is messy. From the moment it's introduced, there's a near-constant barrage of animations, attacks, battle cries, attacks to evade, and more. The specific quirks of combat, such as swapping directions or dancing between different attack types, can feel overwhelming. During boss fights, there are attacks coming from every direction, and it can feel absurd. When an early boss separated Yumia from her party, it somehow made the fight easier. I really enjoyed it once I had enough time, but it's very easy to imagine many people seeing it as a barrage of incoherent colors.

Like the other games in the franchise, Yumia is low-budget but charming, with some genuinely lovely art design and well animated characters balancing out some awkward texture work. The cut scene direction has taken a huge step upward, with most major boss fights having some cool-looking fight cut scenes interspersed. The voice acting (exclusively in Japanese) and music are also quite good. I like Yumia's voice actress, and the moody and atmospheric music works well for the game. You know what you're getting into with an Atelier game, and Yumia doesn't break the mold.

Overall, I really like most of the changes in Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land. There are a number of rough spots that keep it from being perfect, but it's a very solid attempt at shaking up the franchise without losing what makes it successful. I can see it being a controversial entry in the franchise due to the shift in tone and gameplay, but it does a lot of things right. I had a great time wandering around, collecting items, and crafting items and weapons. In general, it felt like I was on an adventure. It might not be the Atelier I was used to, but it was plenty of fun.

Score: 8.0/10