0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Atelier Elie The Alchemist of Salburg 2

    

Atelier Elie The Alchemist of Salburg 2 is a fantasy themed anime style turn based RPG and the second entry in the long running Atelier series, the game is also the second entry in the Salburg sub series and is a direct sequel. Developed and published by Gust the game released on the 17^th of December 1998 for the Playstation.

As well as releasing on the Playstation the game would get a re release on the PSP and Playstation 3 on the 21^st of March 2008 and four years later on the 28^th of August 2012 for the Playstation Vita, all three additional releases were via the Playstation network, the game also released as part of the double pack with the first game in the series Atelier Marie The Alchemist of Salburg, as well as other portable systems like the Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, the Playstation release also came with a soundtrack CD.

The game is a turn based RPG from an isometric viewpoint, the game like the previous is based around gathering ingredients to synthesize new items, the game features 200 items in total to collect or synthesize, these items are separated into individual groups, you have Red Items, Blue Items, Green Items, White Items and Gold Items these items do not include the weapons and armour that can be picked up as well, also a group of miscellaneous items and books can be picked up as well.

The player has three options when synthesizing new items, the first are recipe synthesis, followed by blend synthesis and finally original synthesis, these options are made available as the player progresses and improves their alchemical skills.

Recipe Synthesis is pretty much as it sounds with the synthesis require the listed ingredients in the recipe, Blend Synthesis allows the player to make their own modifications to the recipe with the being capable of providing a positive or negative effect depending on what ingredients are added.

In order to synthesize the player mush gather ingredients, this is done in the same way as the first game in the series Atelier Marie, with the player able to adventure outside the city of Salburg, by defeating enemies in these areas it will be safe for Elie to gather the ingredients she needs to synthesize new items.

Like the previous game as well Elie is able to take tasks from the tavern which earn her popularity and money, as with the previous game popularity is key to hiring high level adventurers, popularity is also used to unlock friendship events and to earn more money.

 

There are two types of task that can be taken from the tavern, the first has the player finding a specific number of specific items, these tasks are offered by Dio and Flea just like the previous game. The second kind of task is a category specific task, with the player needing to turn in an item of a certain category, these tasks are provided by Kugel who now works in the bar alongside his brother.

Kugel will provide several choices for what to turn in, choosing poorly here will result in Elie losing reputation, during the course of the game allies will also sometimes request specific items when Elie is in her workshop.

A new additions to the game are Fairies, these can be hired to help Elie gather ingredients or with synthesizing, Fairies of different colour rank have different abilities and hiring costs, these Fairies will gain experience by doing work and can be ranked up to a higher colour, hiring costs remain the same even if they have levelled up, some Fairies are not hireable but will offer to clean Elie’s or sell items.

After the first games main protagonist Marie save Elie, she decides to follow in her footsteps and enrols in the Royal School of Sorcery also known as The Acadamy. With the hopes of becoming a great alchemist, the game is set six years after the events of the first game.

With the nature of the game the player can take main character Elie’s life in different directions add in the open world nature of the game as well and as a result the game has twelve different endings, ten which are regular endings as well as 2 bad endings that can be achieved. As with the first game in the series the player is able to recruit adventurers

Critic reviews for this game are sadly non existent so we head over to GameFAQs where we find the games user rating data as well as a users review of the game, the review first which comes from Goemon who rates the game at a 4.5/5.

Goemon calling the game a wonderful RPG, with beautiful graphics  and great music and voice work, he called the gameplay out of this world, with a simple battle system and complex item combinations, with players finding themselves up at the crack of dawn mixing potions and finding what items you can make out of a rock concluding with. Gust combined strategy with RPG and collecting elements, and has concocted a winner!

Moving on to the GameFAQs user data now we find a total of thirteen users have rated this game with an average rating of 3.73/5, with a good spread of user rating which largely don’t fall below an average rating of a 2.5/5, with a majority of users rating the game at a 4.5/5 or higher.

One user rated the game at a 3.5.5 while two more rated the game as a 3/5, just one user rated the game at a 2.5/5, up to this point the game was on for an average user rating of 4/5 however the final user rating for the game knocked it down to the current 3.73/5 and that is a 0.5/5 rating from the final user.

Next on to the games difficulty where we find nine users rating this category with three users each rating the game as either having just the right difficulty level or on the tough side. Two more users rated the game as easy, while the final user rated the game as being simple. Overall though the game rates as having just the right difficulty level

Finally on to the games lifespan where a total of six users have rated this category with a good spread of gameplay times over the previous entry in the series. Starting off one user spend around 12 hours with the game while another user spend around 20 hours, a jump up to 40 hours with the game for the next couple of users, while the final user spend around 60 hours with the game. Averaging out this comes to an average lifespan of around 30 hours.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude who unsurprisingly don’t stock this Japanese only release, same goes for Retrogames.co.uk, eStarland has the game listed on their site however at the time of writing the game is currently out of stock, with a usual price of between $5.18 and $12.95 for a used copy.

eStarland.com also offer a trade in for the game and are willing to pay up to $4.50 for a complete copy of the game, this price will vary if your copy is not complete, with a missing case you will be looking at up to $3.08 for a missing manual you can get up to $3.38, if the copy is missing the second disc which is a soundtrack CD you can get up to $3.60, if you are missing all three you will only get up to $1.04.

Finally on to Amazon.com where we find a small supply of the game available, but largely the used copies on the market are in good condition or better with two very good condition copies currently the cheapest on offer priced at $13.70, with both coming with free shipping from Japan.

Used prices don’t raise too much with a current high for a used copy at around the $26 mark, with one copy best ignored, priced at $15.02 the shipping costs add $18.49 to the price which is just stupid (are they shipping it from Mars)

If you are looking for a new copy of the game I seriously hope you have a deep wallet, were talking sinkhole to the centre of the earth kind of deep, with the single new copy currently available on Amazon.com priced at $279.26, on a plus it does comes with free shipping to the bottom of that sinkhole which is handy, not for the poor delivery guy though that is one hell of a climb.

Written by

P J Gibbon