If it weren’t already obvious from my bio on GamesNight (or the 1,000+ articles I’ve published online), I’m a JRPG fanatic. I consume them like candy, and I have a sweet tooth for even their most basic tropes and stereotypes, but I also keep a keen eye on how each JRPG differentiates itself, whether from other franchises or even its own predecessors. I’m confident that my tolerance for JRPG shenanigans is higher than most, yet for some reason, I couldn’t quite stomach the latest Atelier Yumia title at all.
The first symptom of Atelier Yumia’s flaws as a modern-gen JRPG disguised under the banner of “modern accessibility” is excessively simplifying gameplay to the point of sheer boredom. As an alchemist (as the title suggests), your entire skillset revolves around mixing and matching materials found in the wild to create weapons, items, and solutions to every problem you meet. But I found the crafting/alchemy system particularly interesting in Yumia since you don’t just rely on simple ingredient mixing and can also place materials and crystals in slots during the alchemy process to optimize an item’s quality and rarity, and make personalized enhancements.
The issue is, there’s a skip button that lets you bypass the complicated crafting process. And I’m left wondering—why bother implementing a deep crafting system if you’re going to give players the option to ignore it entirely? I wanted the game to force me to engage with the complexity, using its handcrafted challenges and boss fights or whatever would make me fall back on my knees and pressure me to understand the system, but despite the battles themselves not offering that pressuring challenge for reasons I’ll get to later, the fact that I could just skip the “brain grind” needed to overcome these battles isn’t inviting anyone new to the series, it’s just denying them from the experience of actually becoming real alchemists like well, Yumia herself.
The problem of accessibility carried over into combat as well. Yumia adopts a real-time action combat system where you can switch between allies, unlock friend actions (similar to Persona 5’s All-Out Attacks), and even equip your party members with elemental weapons to exploit enemy weaknesses mid-battle. There’s also a positioning system that allows you to move into different zones and utilize abilities based on distance. It’s very engaging, especially on the PS5 with its fast load times that made opting in and out of combat a breeze compared to many other JRPG titles. The issue is, combat in Atelier Yumia is way too easy. And I mean “blink-and-you-miss-it” easy. The AI-controlled teammates don’t just stand around throwing occasional attacks—they actively participate and wipe out enemies before you even have to think about hitting targets, and the battles end before you know it. You could even find yourself skipping entire boss phases because you simply beat them up way too fast.
I strongly recommend starting on the hardest difficulty just to get a somewhat normal challenge, but even then, it barely makes a difference. You level up absurdly fast and hit the level cap far too easily, which only makes battles feel even more trivial than it should be.
The game’s balance issues are further compounded by the fact that traits (the buff abilities you create and equip to your items) can be leveled up and fused separately from the items themselves. And you can even equip or remove traits from any item as many times as you want, so you don’t have to rely on luck to create the gear you want and you can create very powerful items and weapons (or power up these weapons) really early in the game.
Atelier Yumia features three distinct regions, each with its own races, secrets, and lore, many of which tie into Yumia’s past with her mother, the origins of alchemy, and the various traumas of the five other party members. As you go through these motions, you can take on side quests, explore question marks on the map to uncover treasure troves, ruins, fishing spots, or contraptions requiring you to solve pipe puzzles or hit the right targets. Exploration is a big part of the game and that’s why you will get a motorbike halfway through the story, and ziplines are scattered across Atlessia to help you navigate faster. Of course, all of this hiking rewards you with rare materials and skill points to enhance alchemy, combat, or exploration.
The problem? This is the entire experience. The activities and puzzles never evolve as you move through different regions, even aesthetically. You might as well assume from the start that you will be exploring one massive jungle that just swaps color palettes depending on the location. The ruins don’t feel like ruins, and even Metaphor’s short-lengthed dungeons offered more substance than whatever Yumia is doing here. You can build bases in each region, but it’s more of a cozy side feature than anything meaningful.
The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land has a well established thematic core, and its script carries weight across every character, including the villains. But I wouldn’t say it’s gonna win any prizes or break any cliches.
You start as Yumia, joined by a brother-sister duo on a journey to fix the problems plaguing Atlessia while also possibly redeeming the name of alchemy along the way. Alchemy is supposedly taboo here, demonized and feared.
Maybe this will be divisive, but for a story that vilifies alchemy so heavily, I expected some real restrictions on using it. Maybe a risk factor, consequences, or at least pushback from the people around me. But no, despite voicing their concerns, everyone still lets you do whatever you want. In fact, they seem incapable of functioning as normal human beings unless you swoop in and save them with the very thing they supposedly despise, which felt really weird.
The party members have some meat in them and their stories and voice acting but my completely personal issue with them is that they aren’t introduced through meaningful hardships or shared struggles, like in most JRPGs. Instead, they just… show up. You reach an Assassin Creed-esque landmark, come back, and suddenly, they’re waiting for you at camp, ready to be your allies. It feels unearned, as if the game skips the emotional bonding process that usually makes recruiting a character in your party so complicated and compelling, but after that they get enough chemistry with Yumia herself to warrant their existence. The game in general has a well established thematic core, and its script carries weight across every character, including the villains. But I wouldn’t say it’s gonna win any prizes or break any cliches if you are looking for something in that vein. You are still signing up for the crafting experience first and foremost (if you chose not to utilize the skip button that is)
Maybe I’ve just gotten too old or overdosed on games like this, but for something that sells itself as a dark take on the franchise, I expected something more challenging and ruthless. Instead, the bold open-world direction ends up feeling monotonous and uninspired and even incomparable to the games it took inspiration from. The dungeons aren’t really dungeons, and the party members are people you can find on any random anime.
I do appreciate the little personal touches—like Yumia’s gestures changing in the level-up screens or the way the opening scene only plays after you boot up the game a second time, after you see proper context for who’s even in those cutscenes. I believe people will appreciate these touches and will feel a sense of positivity from engaging with the game in a similar vein of how uplifting Persona 5 was an experience, as if the characters themselves are having fun alongside you and are not just models moving on the screen. But beyond that? I sadly struggled to find any real personality in Atelier Yumia to warrant calling it an essential JRPG to play.
Pros
- Deep crafting system that allows separate trait nurturing and flexible customization.
- Fun traversal thanks to the motorbike, ziplines, and open-world movement.
Cons
- Combat lacks real challenge.
- Skip options undermine depth in crafting since it does the job too well to ignore.
- Repetitive exploration where activities feel copy-pasted across regions.
- Weak story execution, characters lack build up, and alchemy’s taboo theme lacks real consequences.
Atelier Yumia aims for a bold, open-world take on the franchise but falters with shallow difficulty, repetitive exploration, and an underwhelming story. Crafting and combat have depth but the accessibility options make them trivial. It simply lacks the challenge and uniqueness expected from a “dark” modern JRPG.
A review code was provided by Koei Tecmo for PlayStation 5.
