Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Book

This game I ended up buying recently and I just wanted to try it out and see how it is. It called, “Atelier Sophie”, and it was developed by Gust Co. Ltd. I could right away from looking at the cover that this game was set in a gentler pace than what I was used to in RPG games, but I decided to give it a shot anyway.

It revolves around Sophie, whose a young girl who is a novice in alchemy and after her grandma’s death, she made it her life goal to become the best alchemist around so everyone can depend on her like they did when her grandma was still around. Right as she was working on that plan, she discovers a book she’s never seen before in her shop and it starts flying and talking to her! Plachta is what the book likes to be called and sadly she’s lost all of her memories of the last 500 years.

Sophie decides to help her regain her lost memories and in exchange Plachta teaches Sophie better recipes and skills for alchemy. As the story progresses, they find out that Plachta used to be a human and a very powerful alchemist. Also, she remembered that she was the creator of the “Cauldron of Knowledge”, which is a device that boosts a alchemist’s power or even let’s a person who has no talent in alchemy actually be able to use it.

When Sophie heard this she wanted to get the Cauldron of Knowledge in order to turn Plachta back into a human. Until then, she had to make due with making a doll for her in order to move around more. Here’s something else that I think Sophie should have also been thinking when she heard Plachta’s story after regaining some of her memories. If someone went to all the trouble of moving their soul into a random book and making sure that they lost their freaking memories, I would think that their was a very IMPORTANT reason for that, don’t you? No one just makes them have amnesia for nothing. Obviously, she either wanted to forget something so she wouldn’t be tempted to do it again or someone made her forget and could mean big trouble for Sophie if they happen to still be looking for her after all this time.

This girl is so soft-hearted that I can’t believe no one has come to swindle her yet in this game. It made want to slap her just to see if she would get angry or something. Personally, I don’t like Sophie’s character all that much, if you ask me. For an experienced gamer like myself, I’ve seen so many types of characters throughout different games with compelling backstories, emotional twists and watching character development throughout the story and other stuff, too. Sophie’s personality doesn’t seem to have that though.

So far, this girl has done nothing, but smile or be shocked, that’s it! If you watch her face you see that she still all smiles, even though, she’s thinking of something sad or something that makes her angry. It makes me think that all she can do is smile and nothing else. If they couldn’t do anything about her forever happy face, then at least make the story more in her favor. For example, she could be putting on a happy face all the time even in sad times because she still has hope in her heart that her missing dad or mom will come back home one day and tell everyone where she/he has been this whole time (both her parents are dead in the story by the way).  Something like that would have helped show her character in a different light than what I’m seeing.

Other than that their nothing really wrong with the game. It’s definitely a game for beginners or for people who want a change of pace in gaming. This game can become very addicting if your one of those people who like to beat a game as fast as possible. Be prepared though, you will be running around a lot in this game. Enjoy!

Thanks for Reading!