Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland PS3 game

Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland details

Format:	12 PS3
Players:	1
Genres:	Adventure, Role-playing
Developers:	GUST
Rental release:	25 May 2012

Write your own review

Most helpful review Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland

My Atelier Meruru MeReview

By Mafiaduck (4 reviews) , 14 Jun 2012

[Highly rated reviewer]

[Highly rated reviewer]

Atelier Meruru is the final game in the Arland trilogy of the popular Alchemy games, and it follows a very similar path to the two which have come before but with some added extras too.

The game still retains it's basic premise. You have to prove that you are a good alchemist, in this instance you are a princess who must prove to her father that you are best suited at being an alchemist rather than just being a princess. To do this, you have to go and kill various creatures, as well as harvest various goods from the surrounding areas. Most of your ingredients for your alchemy recipes are found via harvesting, some are exclusively dropped by certain beasts.

The difference here, is that as you play through the game you can go and talk to the King Council, Rufus, and whilst he will often give you advice on what certain means (normally delivered to you by post, and then translated by him in the castle)... he also allows you to develop your town.

When you start out, your town will have no shop. Just the castle, an Alchemy lab, and an inn where you can get some missions from. But as you progress you will build a weapon shop, a warehouse to increase the stock of your friends market stall (who automatically opens open a little way in), a shop with a ghost as it's manager who will recreated items you have synthesised before, for a price and also improve the quality of your water which you get from the well outside your lab.

Whilst these changes are noticeable, you will also change many things that are not. You can add schools, training for fighters, a factory (which actually gives you a little money each month) and many others. This is all apart of proving yourself to your father, and showing that with the help of you as an alchemist that your nation will flourish.

The game has an initial boundary of 3 years, in which you must prove to your father that you are worthwhile as an alchemist. When these 3 years are up, you are given two more years before your town merges with the larger nation of Arland, and in that time you must make your town as good as you can. You can make it a powerful town, and go out and grind enemies to strengthen yourself and buy soldier related improvements. You can just buy financial advancements and save all your money. You can even become a little self absorbed and build a gold statue of yourself.

Whilst it makes little difference what you choose (a slightly different picture at the end and 2 different sentences) it is worthwhile playing the game a second or third time, thanks to the random events that occur as you go around the town. Sometimes you will see two of your friends arguing of the colour of the pigeons, other times you help a downhearted friend feel better by dressing her as a princesss. The scenes are none interactive, and do appear very randomly (but frequently) and many of them do have a sense of humour to them, which helps the game feel a little different each time.

Of course you can also go in different directions with the game too, if you want to be a fighter, than you may want to of fighting in the Forest of Al, which walks around the nation and contains some very strong, high level enemies. Go hunting dragons, or other top level marks. However, if you're going mainly for money via making goods, you'll find their 'drops' are not important and likely stick to harvesting and killing common level enemies. Either way, the fights are fast and fun, and operate in turn based combat which is easy to follow. As the game develops, your two sidekicks, whoever they are that you choose will be able to use mega attacks which is probably the only thing you wont see if you take the harvesting route, as it takes a few rounds to build them up and low level fights are generally over within 2.

I can't really think of anything to complain about with the game. It is a little annoying sometimes when you go to harvest and it doesn't react because you're a tiny bit further away than it looks, and maybe the NPC's could have a button prompt appear so you know when you can talk to them. (you can talk to them all, but again, placement is important)

But outside of that, the game was very enjoyable, and a find end to a trilogy I have really enjoyed from a series I have followed for years.

BARREL! (series players will understand that...)
- Was this review helpful to you?
- (1) Yes |
- No (0)
Report this review

All reviews

(5)

Sort by:

Not For Me

By a customer , 25 Feb 2013

I personally didn't enjoy this at all. Bored me to no end. But if you're a fan of collecting and mixing things give it a go.
- Was this review helpful to you?
- (0) Yes |
- No (0)
Report this review
Excellent Game

By Hellkat (2 reviews) , 09 Dec 2012

This Game is the Best one out of all the Arland Trilogy. My Fiancee has the other two games already but this one has kept her playing for ages.
- Was this review helpful to you?
- (0) Yes |
- No (0)
Report this review
Wish I'd played this sooner

By A1ch3mi67 (1 review) , 09 Dec 2012

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS Show review anywayHide

*may contain spoilers* depending how much you want to know. This game is simply a little gem that has never had enough light upon it to get any real attention. I won't go into too much details because you'd rather find the juicy bits yourself but a few key points: Voice Acting ~ Usually I play jrpg's with japanese voices because western actors simply don't have the usual passion that japanese actors have but they nailed it with this game. I have listened to the japanese voices and actually prefer the westerners in this game so thats ticked my book. Combat is great fun! And you get chibis!! The fighting style is turn based much like dragon quest or blue dragon. You see who's move is coming next and depending on your next action you can also see how far down the line you'll be next. Weaker moves recover faster so you can attack more often. Story is currently very much unknown to me at this point because i'd hate to google the plot THEN play the game but i've been playing this for over 48h now (real time) and I feel i'm still in one very large tutorial simply because there's some basics thing's that i'm still learning or granting as new options. You basiclly start in a small kingdom that you are the princess of. You complete tasks for the villagers to earn coin and reputation and gain developement points by killing monsters and clearing areas. You can then use your developement points to build structers like Academys, Forges, Barracks or Lodging etc. Each building you make will grow your city in size, population and what you have available to you. Keep running tasks and more people will visit will opens up more tasks for you to do. The whole game also appears to develope around everything you do including who you use in your party. Some characters would prefer to be with you all the time and removing them may upset them later down the line or open up new dialog when the time comes. In all this is a very lovable jrpg with all the elements you'd expect. Otaku fan's or moe lover's will enjoy this game. You also get small cutscenes depending on what you've done, whos in your party and where you are. Some of these are .... typical from Japan. If you've played jrpg's in the past then you can expect certain dialogs or scenes to emerge from this game.
- Was this review helpful to you?
- (0) Yes |
- No (0)
Report this review
Great ending to the series.

By windjunky (12 reviews) from Cumbria, U.K , 20 Aug 2012

[Highly rated reviewer]

Over the top cutie and very in-depth Japanese RPG with lots of gathering ingredients for alchemy. Avoid this if slow paced character heavy story is not your thang.

Definitely one to play if you liked the first two in the trilogy, though I don't think it really necessary to have played the other two to enjoy this game.

Make sure to switch to the original Japanese voice acting with subtitles on because the English dub is pants.
- Was this review helpful to you?
- (0) Yes |
- No (0)
Report this review
My Atelier Meruru MeReview

By Mafiaduck (4 reviews) , 14 Jun 2012

[Highly rated reviewer]

[Highly rated reviewer]

Atelier Meruru is the final game in the Arland trilogy of the popular Alchemy games, and it follows a very similar path to the two which have come before but with some added extras too.

The game still retains it's basic premise. You have to prove that you are a good alchemist, in this instance you are a princess who must prove to her father that you are best suited at being an alchemist rather than just being a princess. To do this, you have to go and kill various creatures, as well as harvest various goods from the surrounding areas. Most of your ingredients for your alchemy recipes are found via harvesting, some are exclusively dropped by certain beasts.

The difference here, is that as you play through the game you can go and talk to the King Council, Rufus, and whilst he will often give you advice on what certain means (normally delivered to you by post, and then translated by him in the castle)... he also allows you to develop your town.

When you start out, your town will have no shop. Just the castle, an Alchemy lab, and an inn where you can get some missions from. But as you progress you will build a weapon shop, a warehouse to increase the stock of your friends market stall (who automatically opens open a little way in), a shop with a ghost as it's manager who will recreated items you have synthesised before, for a price and also improve the quality of your water which you get from the well outside your lab.

Whilst these changes are noticeable, you will also change many things that are not. You can add schools, training for fighters, a factory (which actually gives you a little money each month) and many others. This is all apart of proving yourself to your father, and showing that with the help of you as an alchemist that your nation will flourish.

The game has an initial boundary of 3 years, in which you must prove to your father that you are worthwhile as an alchemist. When these 3 years are up, you are given two more years before your town merges with the larger nation of Arland, and in that time you must make your town as good as you can. You can make it a powerful town, and go out and grind enemies to strengthen yourself and buy soldier related improvements. You can just buy financial advancements and save all your money. You can even become a little self absorbed and build a gold statue of yourself.

Whilst it makes little difference what you choose (a slightly different picture at the end and 2 different sentences) it is worthwhile playing the game a second or third time, thanks to the random events that occur as you go around the town. Sometimes you will see two of your friends arguing of the colour of the pigeons, other times you help a downhearted friend feel better by dressing her as a princesss. The scenes are none interactive, and do appear very randomly (but frequently) and many of them do have a sense of humour to them, which helps the game feel a little different each time.

Of course you can also go in different directions with the game too, if you want to be a fighter, than you may want to of fighting in the Forest of Al, which walks around the nation and contains some very strong, high level enemies. Go hunting dragons, or other top level marks. However, if you're going mainly for money via making goods, you'll find their 'drops' are not important and likely stick to harvesting and killing common level enemies. Either way, the fights are fast and fun, and operate in turn based combat which is easy to follow. As the game develops, your two sidekicks, whoever they are that you choose will be able to use mega attacks which is probably the only thing you wont see if you take the harvesting route, as it takes a few rounds to build them up and low level fights are generally over within 2.

I can't really think of anything to complain about with the game. It is a little annoying sometimes when you go to harvest and it doesn't react because you're a tiny bit further away than it looks, and maybe the NPC's could have a button prompt appear so you know when you can talk to them. (you can talk to them all, but again, placement is important)

But outside of that, the game was very enjoyable, and a find end to a trilogy I have really enjoyed from a series I have followed for years.

BARREL! (series players will understand that...)
- Was this review helpful to you?
- (1) Yes |
- No (0)
Report this review