Hard work will not be rewarded, thats the model of Atelier Iris 3
Atelier Iris 3 stars Edge and iris, both whom are teens and are mercenaries at a local guild. Quest are typically posted and updated after every other mission has been completed. After gaining a certain amount of quest experience, you'll be promoted to rank up and enter Mission mode. Mission mode is the main story mode. The structure of mission mode revolve around talking with an NPC, defeating a boss, and proceeding onto chapter 2 where you'll further accept job request to rank up and be promoted to advance the story.
The city is where you'll spend the majority of your time. There's approximately 7 dungeons to visit, and every time you enter a dungeon there will be a hourglass on the right side of your screen. This hour glass is possibly the most obnoxious implement ever in an rpg game. Since when did exploration had a time limit? For a game that prides itself in performing mediocre side quest, the lack of freedom is a huge turn-off.
The NPC's you encounter are either animals or people with very little clothes on. The amount of fan-service in here is astonishing. What's even more exuberant are the tedious, mandatory help request at the guild. The most obnoxious of them all is Pamela, not only because she lives on the 3rd floor of grimoire, but because she forces you to return gifts back to her friends because she has no space to put them, but because she wants you to bring her a huffin flower which you'll travel deep into the ancient forest, and prior to giving her the flower she wants you to fetch her a vase to put it in. Now you have to go back to your shack and create one for her. To top things off, she tells you to fetch her a pile of water before you can receive your rewards. Jeez, am I getting paid to play this game?
Alchemy of course makes its appearance in here as in almost every Gust game. You'll be able to purchase recipes in shops and create your own recipes through experimentation. Through successful completion of melding alchemy, you'll increase Iris's alchemy level and gradually increase her stats. You'll also find that gaining ingredients are much easier than those in Atelier Iris 2.
As Iris increases her magic ability through alchemy, Edge and Noelle can obliterate everything without any customization. When you win battles, your characters will gain EXP and Skill Points. Skill points will level up a characters skill for their particular Mana. Say if you got the mana Plua maxed out and you want to work on your other skills, you'll need to enter the alchemy circle in the west shack and configure it. It's definitely one of the more exciting elements in Atelier Iris 3 because of the implemented BURST gauge. By attacking the enemy, you'll built meter and the opposite happens if your being attacked. Once the meter maxes out, the enemies will enter a momentary stun and your attacks will increase in damage by 4x. It's not as compelling as other role playing games, but it's a great leap from past Atelier Iris titles. Do pay attention to enemies weaknesses and resistance as button mashing will only lead to a game over.
The Music in atelier iris is still strong and charming. The Voice actors also do very well in delivering their lines. What does seems to be gone is the charm and personality found in the first two Atelier Iris. Everyone is absolutely 1-dimensional, they never grow out of their personalities. Even the villains can be sniffed out a mile away by their stereotypes. The introduction video is the only Anime scene in the entire game, so why even bother having one in the first place? Whenever characters try to be funny, they come off sounding obnoxious and incompetent. There's also the non-existent conflict between the beast man and the fairies that takes up 80% of the gameplay where you'll have to launch yourself back and forth through cannons repeatedly to talk to the village chief. I've launched myself back and forth 50 times just to find out that there is NO conflict, so much for all that work.
Atelier Iris 3 lacks imagination, originality, and the jokes works against itself. The whole game is quest driven with mandatory backtracking and predictable plots. I am lead to believe that Gust devoted more time into designing skimpy outfits rather than actually refining a great game. This is the weakest installment in the series and gamers are going to have to work really hard, hoping that the game will grow on them like its predecessors. Unfortunately it never grows and the game remains 1-dimensional. There is nothing Grand about this Grand Phantasm, ditch this game as much as possible.