After how much I found that I loved A Witch's Tale, I took a gander over at the NIS game website to see what other games for the DS they've put out, in hopes that perhaps I might find another game I like equally well. The title seemed interesting - I liked the cover, but I recognized the title quickly as sounding German...or at least, German-inspired. Oh sure, why not? I'll give it a try.I wasn't disappointed.
You're playing the role of Annie, a young lady who seemingly wants nothing more out of life than to merely "marry up" in society... You know, a gold-digger. She's lazy, has zero motivation, and never goes anywhere or does anything. Her family is worried about her, to the point where her grandfather feels the need to step in and do something. He sends her away to the remote Sera Island, where she will be trained to become an alchemist...whether she likes it or not! As you would imagine, she is not pleased with this arrangement. But, with the help of new friends that she makes on the island, she slowly begins to learn the ways of alchemy.
Initially, there's only one factor that makes her willing to try at all - there's a huge contest for all the alchemists on the island, and whoever wins will win either the King's son or daughter's hand in marriage. Talk about marrying up! Suddenly, it's nose-to-the-grindstone for Annie, and she begins to work harder than she's ever done in her life.
You spend the majority of the game mixing elements together to create different items that you'll need along your travels, as well as running errands for others. In addition, you'll be trying to build and operate the biggest, best resort the island has ever seen! Along the way, you'll run into deluges of monsters, who you must battle in a turn-based RPG style. But it's all fun, it's not as tedious as certain other games have made the genre out to be!
Where it gets interesting is that this game can have dozens of different outcomes at the game's conclusion. Just a quick tap into youtube, searching for "Atelier Annie ending" will bring up loads of these (which I sat and watched pretty much all of). Everything from the entire contest having been a huge mistake and everything's being shut down now, right up to actually going and marrying the prince. (With LOTS of possibilities in between those two.) It all depends upon just how you played the game, which relationships you developed, how well you managed things... This appeals to me, and definitely scores it major points in the replay value factor.
It's not often that I do this, but....I'm going to rate this game a 10 out of 10 alchemy pots!
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