Atelier Meruru ~The Apprentice of Arland~ DX

barrel (i spent my life savings on a mushroom)

人生第一部炼金工房纪念。王道主线外充斥着温馨日常，大家都是好孩子看得人心暖暖的。 炼金方面，消费额数学题很益智，理想词条上满后极有成就感。 战斗也无需担忧，甚至有逃课角色，一套豪击瞬闪走天下……感谢你吉欧伯父🥲🌹🌹

一周目50小时，二周目30小时，不能选结局还是好麻烦，全成就硬性二周目。但是可以让帕梅拉进队了！梅露菇好可爱

This is the best game in the trilogy so far.

せ、先生、スカート短くないっすか？ メルルはトトリの服を着せても短パンみたいのを履いているのに……。 というゲームだが、全体的に良作だと思う。というかやっぱりオープニングからして最高だしね。 一周目で最初の３年を乗り越えるのはもしかしたら難しいかもしれない。トトリと違ってメルルはそれなりに強いし、トトリも大幅に強化されているし、装備もそれなりのものを早めに作れるので戦闘面ではさほど苦労しないと思う。ただ、課題と依頼をしっかりこなしていかないと人がなかなか増えない。結構３年目の始まりでははらはらしてしまった。 そこを乗り越えればあとは簡単だと思う。一周目でもトゥルーエンドみたいなやつは達成できる。 とはいえ錬金術レベルを上げるのが面倒で、（二周目追加要素を抜きにしても）全部のエンドを網羅するのは無理かもしれない。 ゲームとしては面白いがメインシナリオはアトリエ標準レベルで、毒にも薬にもならない程度だった。

I can very clearly see a world where I fall in love with Atelier Meruru, and have it be one of my favorite Atelier games, but there are just a few flaws within the game that I can't help but get stuck at. Firstly, the game is way to relient on characters from the previous 2 games from the Arland series. Atelier Totori had a few characters pop up from Atelier Ronona, but all of those were in the location where the previos game took place. Atelier Meruru just keeps bring back character after character, whilst barely introducing any new ones. There are only six new characters with a bio in the library in this game, which is just to few honestly. Now I will say that I do iike what they did with some of the old characters, (Mimi being a lesbian just fits her perfectly), but then they also bring back Astrid, who might be one of the worst Atelier characters ever, rivalling Muppy, and Flay in Mana Khemia 2. Most of this could have been resolved if there were just a tad more new characters, and a tad less old ones. The second biggest issue is the progression of the game, you get enough time to do what you want, but the issue lies at that if you acidentilly miss a single action, you won't progress certain events, and the game won't tell you, or show you what you missed. Then, when you do activate the trigger multiple months later, you suddenly get thrown into a sequence of many cutscenes. This process can make the game feel bloated at times, while at other times it feels baren. Those two points aside, the game is still a lot of fun. You can tell they were trying to make this the biggest Atelier game yet at it's release. Having influence over what boosts you get, by allocating poits into the construction of facilities is a great idea. And even though I'm not to big a fan of time limits in Atelier games, I do admit that a time limit is necicairy for this to work as well as it does in game. I cannot say I didn't like my time with Atelier Meruru, but my mindset throughout most of the game was: "This is good, but it could have been even better." 7/10