Review: Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist Of Memories & The Envisioned Land (Switch)

Atelier has consistently stood out as one of the more specialized JRPG franchises available, yet it has undeniably started to gain unprecedented broader appeal with the numerous successes of the Ryza trilogy over the last few years. With Gust now wrapping up Ryza’s journeys (at least for the time being…), it’s time to see if they can maintain that momentum and successfully transition to a new heroine to represent the franchise. We would argue that they have largely succeeded in this mission. Beyond the title, Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & The Envisioned Land may not be immediately recognizable as part of the Atelier series, but it is, in fact, a truly solid JRPG that validates the creative liberties it takes in deviating from series conventions.

Steering away from the low-stakes, slice-of-life approach of earlier entries, Atelier Yumia opts for a noticeably grittier and more realistic tone in its storytelling. In this universe, alchemy is a forbidden and largely forgotten craft, blamed for the catastrophic collapse of the Aladissian Empire centuries ago. Now, only the remnants of that once-great civilization remain, and solitary alchemist Yumia aligns herself with the Disclose of Eustella to assist in an expedition exploring the empire’s history and its enigmatic downfall.

While there are still plenty of charming and upbeat interactions among characters that align with the series’ cheerful identity, it’s intriguing to see how Atelier Yumia typically adopts a humbler, yet significantly, darker tone. This is evident in the subtle skepticism that many characters initially express toward Yumia and alchemy, as well as how deeply her characterization is shaped by her mother’s tragic death in an accident three years ago.

It’s an engaging narrative, one that maintains your interest by tantalizingly hinting at the answers to larger questions, and we’re eager to see where Gust leads this storyline as they develop the inevitable sequels.

With Yumia being a crucial member of a research team, a large portion of the gameplay revolves around exploration, reminding us of many recent open-world releases. Each location features a vast, fog-laden landscape filled with opportunities for discovery, while numerous ruins and ‘Ubitowers’ serve as Zelda-like dungeons filled with puzzles, secrets, and treasures.

We appreciated the unstructured approach, as you can hardly traverse without discovering something to gather or getting involved in a new adventure. Although there is a primary quest to pursue and a plethora of side quests to complete, you’re encouraged to set many of your own objectives using the ‘Pioneering Effort.’

These are smaller regional objectives, such as locating a certain number of shrines or defeating a challenging mini-boss, providing opportunities for unique unlocks upon reaching various thresholds. Not only does this mean that exploration is consistently rewarded with an extrinsic benefit, but these arrangement lists are usually designed in such a way that they deliberately encourage you to deviate from the traditional path and extract the most from each area by uncovering secrets and treasures.

Of course, the land teems with various foes, and combat adopts a dynamic style that cleverly blends turn-based and real-time elements. While you will engage alongside party members, you can only control one character at a time, each equipped with a limited set of abilities (and, of course, item uses) governed by cooldowns. You can chain together attacks into impressive combos, while enemies can interrupt at any moment with a quick strike or a significant MMO-style Area of Effect (AoE) attack, giving you a few seconds to escape the danger zone.

You can freely maneuver around your opponent, and there are two ‘rings’ to navigate between in order to dodge incoming attacks or prepare to deliver strikes that exploit an enemy’s weakness. It resembles a more active and engaging take on FF’s renowned Active Time Battle system—even though there are combat elements where quick timing and accurate positioning are essential for success, many of your victories hinge on managing cooldowns and strategically planning how to dismantle an adversary.

Some might be disappointed that Atelier is clearly moving away from turn-based combat, but Yumia’s system feels like a natural progression of the work Gust accomplished in the Ryza trilogy while maintaining its uniqueness.

As expected, it wouldn’t be an Atelier title without a robust item synthesis system. The main concept here involves a central ‘core’ of an item surrounded by a few nodes, much like subatomic particles orbiting a nucleus. You place ingredients on each node, ideally in a manner that allows their energy levels to overlap with different nodes and the core. Depending on the type, quality, and arrangement of the ingredients, the item itself will ‘level up’ its various passive effects.

It’s a well-designed crafting system that goes far beyond the tiresome and minimal efforts of many games featuring mandatory ‘crafting’ elements these days. Creativity, skill, and knowledge of the components are richly rewarded here. Naturally, this careful system could be tedious if you had to struggle through the entire process every single time you wanted to create something; fortunately, there’s always an auto-crafting option you can activate that allows you to set objectives like ‘quality’ or ‘bare minimum’. It may not produce items quite as good as you might achieve with time invested, but it’s nice to have options like this when crafting in bulk.

As an extension of the synthesis system, there’s now a decorative creation feature for those who enjoy personalizing their environments. Whether you’re in the atelier or discovering yet another campsite as part of your ongoing journey, you can craft all kinds of decorations and furniture to be placed in designated areas. Those who aren’t particularly interested in this aspect can choose from a growing list of pre-selected builds if you simply want to drop a standard camp and activate it, but we enjoyed the ability to customize our resting spots.

Visually, Atelier Yumia is… well, average. On one hand, we appreciated how sleek and streamlined the UI appears, and the quick transitions in and out of combat right there in the field are quite impressive. On the other hand, texture quality is subpar, pop-in occurs frequently, and the relatively low resolution detracts from the overall experience.