Taking a look at the gorgeous art in Atelier Torori's premium edition

Time sure flies! Have you noticed I haven't been posting very frequently (all two of you)? Well I had, but I've been quite busy with some new and exciting stuff over the past week or so, and unfortunately I had to put all of my great blog post ideas on hold! Most importantly, I've been promoted to junior editor over at Video Game Writers, and I'm quite thrilled about that. Who would've thought?

Well today I finally got my package from the US, and in it was my Atelier Totori premium edition (among other games, but that's for a later post)! I never preorder things, let along get collector's editions, but I was so enamored with Atelier Rorona a couple of months ago that I jumped on the chance to get both the game's soundtrack and artbook. The art is just so lovely that I had to share! 

The whole set comes in a cardboard box featuring the Japanese/European box art, which is much prettier than the NA version, in my opinion:

Next we have the soundtrack CD:

And the CD itself. Isn't it cute? I haven't seen this illustration used anywhere else.  

The art book is a tad disappointing, as it's only the size of the game case itself, and as you can see they've reused the cover art.

The art inside doesn't disappoint, however, and I particularly liked looking at the character sketches and some of the earlier scrapped character designs. 

For those familiar with Atelier Rorona –– Sterk is back, but he's much more broody this time around!

I'm not particularly fond of Gino (the childhood friend)'s character design, shown right, but one of his earlier versions looks quite appealing! I really wish they stuck with the swashbuckling look. What hair!

Some of the early designs of Totori look great, too! I'm not a fan of the version pigtails, but I almost prefer the top one with the yellow dress to her final design. It's really interesting to see what could have been! 

And finally we have the tear and water resistant poster, which was an exclusive to the NIS America online store. Er, I'm afraid to ask why a poster needs to be water resistant... Anyway, this poster clearly isn't aimed at me, as both side feature Totori looking, well, cute. If it were me, I'd much rather have a group illustration or even the very first picture they used as the box art on the limited edition (or, I admit it, one of the male characters...). Can't have everything, I suppose! 

Yeah, I probably won't be hanging that up any time soon... But for an additional $10, I'd say the premium edition is definitely worth all of the extra goodies! If you're at all tempted, they still have a few left at the NISA store, so grab one while you can!

Is Atelier Elkrone's protagonist a Rorona clone?

Ok, if you haven't seen me tweeting like a mad fiend about the recently-announced otome Atelier game, then, well, I suppose you haven't missed out on much, unless you're living under a rock and didn't know that an Atelier otome game was recently announced. It's big news for me, at least, seeing as I'm a recently-converted Atelier Rorona fan and long-time otome game enthusiast. Tthere are probably at least 2 other people in the world excited for this game besides me, I'm sure.

So far there hasn't been much news about Atelier Elkrone aside from the fact that it will somehow combine traditional otome game elements, allowing you to pursue the love interest of your choice, as well as some aspect of the alchemy gameplay from the Atelier games. How much alchemy will be involved has yet to be seen, and I'll admit I'm a little worried the most "Atelier" we're going to get in the game will be in the form of character designs and story elements, but who knows. Call me a cynic.

Speaking of which, I'm already seeing some Atelier Rorona in Mery, Atelier Elkrone's protagonist:

Atelier Elkrone's Mery

Atelier Rorona's Rorona

You may have bought a new hat, Rorona, but you can't fool me! I would've been fine if they had come out and said the game was going to be about Rorona again, but making an entirely new character that still manages to look almost exactly like Rorona seems a bit like a cop-out to me. In fact, I don't think I'll be able to think of Mery as anything but Rorona, actually! It's literally hard to tell them apart!

I did some snooping on the NISA forums (NISA is the company behind the localization of Atelier Rorona and Atelier Totori) and apparently Idea Factory, the company working on the Atelier side of things, has a reputation for recycling their own material? I'd love more information on this, but I can't say I've played a ton of Idea Factory games myself, so I can't really comment. Of course the art in Atelier Rorona and Atelier Elkrone looks like it's done by the same artist, but that doesn't excuse them for being lazy! Well, if nothing else, this guy looks interesting enough:

Digging the steampunk goggles!

There's still a lot to be seen regarding Atelier Elkrone, but even if the protagonist looks exactly like Rorona, knowing me, I'll probably give it a shot.

What kind of game am I playing? Or, things that creep me out about Atelier Rorona

I had a lovely, in-depth post all ready to go about my impressions of Atelier Rorona so far, but since it was such a meaty piece I decided to hold onto it and develop it into a full-fledged review for www.videogamewriters.com. I'll probably chop it down and do a shorter version for this blog later in the week, after I've played a bit more of the game (I'm about 1/3 of the way through at the moment).

Nevertheless, I have quite a few things I could say about Atelier Rorona, so I don't really see the harm in making two posts about it! I thought I'd share with you all some of the weird stuff I've come across in the game so far. Before you read on, keep in mind that I am seriously enjoying this game, so while the following quibbles may bug/slightly disgust me, it certainly isn't detracting from me having more than a little fun synthesizing item upon item and meeting all the request deadlines.

First thing's first, here's a quick rundown of the game: Atelier Rorona follows Rorona, an apprentice alchemist under a woman named Astrid at a workshop in the kingdom of Arland. The king of Arland has decreed that unless Astrid can complete 12 assignments given to her over the course of 3 years, the workshop will be shut down. Astrid, being more interested in napping than doing anything the king asks of her, passes the task on to Rorona. Right now I'm just over a year in, and the combination of expertly-voiced story sequences, adorable artwork, catchy music, countless items to synthesize and requests to fulfill is definitely keeping me busy.

Creepy observation #1: It's more than a little obvious that this game caters towards a certain type of male-dominated Japanese nerd culture, and I was well aware of this when I started playing the game. What I didn't know is how much creepy innuendo was going to be a part of the game's humor! A lot of the story features older women more or less hitting on Rorona, and while I know that's a cultural thing to a degree (nothing wrong with a 20-something woman calling a 14-year-old girl cute, I guess), sometimes it gets a bit out of hand. Alright, ok, I know what I was getting myself into, so I won't say much more about this (to each his/her own), but how about: 

Creepy observation #2: Some of the female characters are more than a little well-endowed for their age. I usually file these observations in the back drawer, except for when those in charge of the character models deem it appropriate to animate one of said character's bobbing breasts even when she is standing still. Good thing for me I don't really like said character very much and as such will probably not make her a member of my party very often, but seeing her undulating chest in every single battle is as much a turn-off for me as any.

The character in question, Lionela, is a traveling performer.

I guess I'm not the only one who noticed how her breasts seem to have minds of their own (cute cats, though)

Creepy observation #3: I've saved you the best for last. Last night when I was playing, I was happily introduced to my new workshop assistant, who was created for Rorona by Astrid using alchemy. Ever-curious and eager to learn, Rorona does some research into the recipe that was used to create Hom, the homunculus assistant. Ingredients include horse droppings... And in the case that horse droppings aren't available, the use of human semen is said to also be possible. Let me reiterate that for you. The recipe that was used to create Rorona's assistant calls for horse droppings and human semen. Just what sort of game is this?!?

Depending on how you answer Astrid when she asks you whether you'd like a little brother or a little sister, you can have either a female or male version of Hom, the horse-poo-infused assistant. I answered "sister," but after seeing the two designs, I wish I had ended up with the male one!

 Even though I'm enjoying poking fun at the game, I'm honestly having even more fun playing it. It's just the right recipe of pretty visuals, lighthearted story, and engrossing gameplay for me, and these weird, uh, quirks make it all the more the odd yet engrossing experience. I have a feeling this isn't going to be the end of my creepy observations, though... I've still got 2 years of game time to go!