Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout DX

Okay so, I played this with very low expectations because the protagonist (a minor btw) is basically a walking goonbait but honestly, I ended up loving it; gameplay, OST, story, characters, everything. I'd say it's one of the most beginner-friendly Atelier games for someone who wants to get into the series. The main story isn't very long (a big part of my playtime comes from farming & maximizing alchemy items lol) & the extra episodes are also short, they don't even reach 1h. The combat is ATB a system I'm not used to & that also stressed me out at first but it becomes easy to manage once you get used to it. The cast is really pleasant & their connections & dynamics feel natural & fluid, you really enjoy watching them develop & interact with each other. I genuinely enjoyed the game a lot &, for me, it's a breath of fresh air compared to the latest RPGs I've played, because in most RPGs I don't connect with the characters & they tend to have the same typical anime or FF/DQ-like stories without much depth & the ones that do have depth tend to be more intense &/or forced stories/characters lol (not all of them but again, **MOST** of them). As for the game itself, I literally have no complaints other than there being 9 playable characters while you can only have 3 active characters in battle, so sad. But whatever, is a enjoyable game. By the way, Kilo is so broken. --------- THIS RANT ISN'T ABOUT THE GAME BUT THE COMPANY. But regarding Koei/Gust... I understand that they used Ryza as goonbait & a walking fetish because they want to attract more people to the series but I don't know how beneficial that audience really is for them (many of them don't even play the game, although of course the company knows that, which is why they release certain merchandise &.. "projects" iykyk) when they're going to have to give in to their gooner demands, & the second they don't have something exactly the way **THEY** want it, they'll start bombarding them. They already have the results with Blue Reflection: Quartet, on a somewhat smaller scale, Yumia; for not giving her panties for them to see.. same thing for Fatal Frame 3 Remake. Deadass. A normal audience doesn't do that. They don't **DEMAND** things & then bomb games with negative reviews & toxicity towards anyone who is interested in the series if they don't get what THEEEY WANT, negatively affecting sales. Atelier is still a niche series no matter how many gooners they've attracted since Ryza. It's a shame that the series has been twisted into something more... you know, since this Ryza. They've developed this habit of introducing characters who are walking goonbait & fetishes (Ryza, Lila, Yumia, Nina... even Karia for some people since.. mmm.. she has her stomach exposed!!! wtf). Thankfully, at least they aren't stripped of their personalities & everything else, but it's still sad that they are used as an appeal. Ryza would've looked better without torpedo boobs & without being so thick overall, at least in the first game. Yumia straight up has an uncomfortable anatomy to look at because of her torpedo boobs & torpedo butt lol. Lila & Nina look like a parody of anime that exaggerate female characters' attributes so much... You can make a character thicc without making it this exaggerated. These two fit to be thicc yea but c'mon. I mean you can sexualize whatever characters you want but without making it such cheap sexualization like they've done with these characters (except Karia.. she's being sexualized for the audience they've been appealing to for a while now, because it's absurd). For a while now we've been seeing news about merchandise & collaborations involving Atelier (especially Ryza.. since she's the one they mostly use for.. certain things like that) that are mostly appealing to gooners & it genuinely makes you feel like you're not even part of the Atelier audience anymore. Weird to wanted be "mainstream" with such bad reputation to normal audience. What a fkn decline, is really sad. Not to mention the biggest & most serious problem with this company. Well. Two big problems. The first one, releasing 1-2 Atelier games per year. Crazy. A lot of ADULT ppl with actual lives.. ADULT lives can't keep up with that kind of pace, especially if they have other interests & other games they want to play. & the second one, that disgusting & predatory habit of releasing the "first" version of the trilogies & then once they're finished, releasing the DX version later, which can also basically be considered.. the complete version of the games, with more content, all the DLC etc.. with things that weren't even in the first version. Surely that habit doesn't affect sales very well, who knows why!!! Tbh I have absolutely no hope that they'll stop doing this habit.