The Atelier series has always been a popular but still niche set of RPGs, focusing more on crafting and telling slice-of-life stories than the usual combat and apocalyptic stakes that the genre is known for. Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories and the Envisioned Land, launching in March, aims to draw in a larger audience, but its kitchen-sink approach waters down what made the offbeat RPG series so attractive in the first place, leaving behind a disjointed but generic adventure.
The star of the show is Yumia, one of the last alchemists in the world after an alchemy-induced catastrophe that destroyed a kingdom and left the survivors with an unending hatred of the magical art. That’s a shame, because it turns out alchemy is useful as all hell, capable of summoning just about any item you can think of out of thin air. In Atelier Yumia’s story, the distrust of alchemy mostly manifests as Yumia constantly being insulted to her face by everyone she meets, and having to prove again and again that she’s more interested in making potions than leveling cities.
