A great and fresh take on jrpgs.
User Rating: 10 | Atelier Totori Plus: The Adventurer of Arland VITA
I found myself jumping late into the Atelier series but thankfully like all rpgs, Atelier Totori is an independent tale of it's own. The theme is very light-hearted so there's never really sense of urgency as you follow sweet little Totori through her world in search of her mom. Her full name is Totooria Helmond but everyone calls her Totori. If you forget her name, she'll remind you in the intro just in case because it's pretty odd of a name to memorize. She can run, jump, bonk monsters on the head, visit towns and other places, talk to villagers and she's an alchemist so she can synthesize items. And if your short on Cole, go to the pub and take quests from a bartender short on his way to the poor house. This I mentioned is the bread and butter of the game which is actually pretty fun considering the fact that this is a port of a PS3 AAA title! Unlike Western ports such as the buggy Borderlands 2 for Vita, Atelier Totori looks and plays extremely close to it's PS3 counterpart. Totori's character model is well rounded and detailed along with the other NPC's you'll find throughout the game and the levels are very lush and detailed. The battle system is very traditional, it's mainly turn based. Your party members will take turns hitting opponents with various attacks and they all share the same goal, protect Totori. Whenever Totori is about to receive an attack, she'll back up and yell: "What should I do?!" and then you press the corresponding button to leap into her rescue. This happens quite frequently and the combat voices get pretty repetitive because of that. The voice dub is as good as you'd want. I feel the reason why people say it's terrible is simply because some of the characters sound too high and friendly for their own good. Like that creepy neighbor who always says hi to you and something about their smile gives you the feeling that they watch you undress when you're inside the house! The music is relaxing and somewhat tropical but not all of it is as memorable as the overworld theme. Like most modern jrpg's you find monsters roaming freely on the fields, though they are very near-sighted that you can walk around them. A bonk to the head means you get the initial strike, if the monsters catches you, the enemy strikes first. Battles aren't much of a chore but they do get a little old when it comes to level grinding. The story is interesting and it's told in fragments that occur under certain conditions. Little Totori's mission is initially to find her mom which she needs an Adventurure licence to get to restricted areas and you must renew this license every few years or else the game will end. This gives you the chance to see multiple endings but the idea of renewing your license also means that you must do everything in a certain time limit. It takes a certain amount of days to get to certain places, so it's best to plan out your paths carefully and choose how to spend your days wisely. How do you earn points to renew your license? By doing quests and challenges found on the adventuring catalogue thingy, not sure what it's called. So if you beat the game once, you unlock the changing room where you can dress Totori in different outfits you synthesized during the game including a very creepy bikini that Totori has no business wearing. Unless you're into kid hentai stuff. Frankly, she's pretty much just a little kid. If you love jrpg's and wanna try something new, Atelier Totori a good game to get. It's worth 3.something Gb. of memory but it's well earned a permanent spot in my memory stick and my heart! Graphics: 9 Gameplay: 8 Story: 8 Value: 10 Replayability: 10
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