Got the flight module after that, and now I can fly everywhere! Completed FrontNav of Noctilum, and now just running around doing affinity missions so that I can be couple of levels above the recommended level to start the next chapter.
Just flying around the world doing quick missions, killing monsters and finding relics was so fun. Spent way too much time doing that.
How many of you have gotten it already?
On the fence about it.
I’ve been quite impressed with the reviews about its overall build quality, the results of some durability test videos I’ve seen are honestly amazing. Well, asides from the screen film that scratches easily, but I planned on putting a screen protector on it anyway. However, I’ve been traumatized from so many drift issues I had, and the teardowns show that the design for the new sticks is very similar. There’s some tweaks and it’s possible they solve the main issue, but I’m not convinced about that yet.
Since finding SD Express cards also quite hard around here (and I want a 1TB one) I’ll probably wait more to see people discussing/testing the new sticks, and also follow the backward compatibility progress since there’s 7(?) games I own that are still listed with problems.
Playing Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land
The technical aspects of this game are starting to annoy me. Performance is wildly inconsistent, with some regions running quite well while others are a stuttering mess. This wasn’t as much a problem earlier in the game but gets significantly worse in the the later regions, in particular the third. Also, this game is a bit glitchy - I’ve had issues like clipping through ground, getting stuck in places you shouldn’t, or geometry not loading. It’s nothing gamebreaking and more on the “amusing” side, if you’re curious about it you can see some examples in this video. Finally, got a couple crashes too - but lost no progress thanks to the autosave. All of these things combined made it very clear to me that this game needed more development and testing time.
Despite the technical problems I’m still enjoying it, but it’s gotten to the point where I needed to highlight this for potential buyers. Word around is that it’s poorly optimized in other platforms as well, but obviously the Switch is the one that’s going to struggle the most due to that.
Back to the game, I took some time in the weekend to craft some equipment, which is another way of saying “tripled my stats”. And then I did if again some mid-week when I unlocked the facility that lets you duplicate crafted items, so I’m ridiculously overpowered right now. All of this was completely unnecessary given how easy the game is, but I just can’t resist when a game gives me the option to break it in half 😀.
I figured out that a (!) marker instead of a (?) in the map means it’s a Normal quest intead of Random one, so I went and cleared all of those that were available. Also finished the Pioneering goals for the first three regions, mainly because I got tired of seeing places I couldn’t get to because I needed the special ammo you get from these.
After that I focused on the main quest and got a lot of progress, and I’m now exploring the fourth (and probaly last) region. While I miss the all-wholesome story from the previous games I’m really liking the way this one touches on the dangers of alchemy - most of the sad/messed-up character backstories are related to its misuse, and there’s a lot of unpleasant implications on what the Aladiss Empire was trying to do with alchemy prior to its collapse. This is something that the Dusk trilogy had touched upon, but has a much bigger focus in this game.
The twist at the end of the 3rd area was really, really interesting too.
Twist discussion
Yumia losing the memories of her mother that were her main drive at the start of her journey and having to find herself a new reason to continue caught me completely by surprise. I really like how this also works as a way for her to grow, as this re-evaluation lets her accept both the “good” and the “bad” parts of alchemy.
Another great thing is how this is subtly foreshadowed by several things - Rutger’s past where he “sold” memories through an alchemic device, the lore that mana is made from memories and also in-game mechanics - when you fall down from a high place you spend mana to avoid the damage.
So it makes sense in-universe that when Yumia falls from a gigantic structure she can survive using mana - but needs to get a lot of that, and unconsciusly uses her strongest memories to create it.
I’m probably close to the end now, so I should finish it during the next week. Still have to decide what I’ll be playing next, but feeling the urge to go back to VNs, been quite some time since I finished one of these.
It’s not a comfortable controller for adults, but it’s a complete controller with all buttons that is very small.
It’s good for young kids or if you want something small you can carry around for quick sessions on the go - I used it several times to play simple games like Vampire Survivors while cycling on the gym.
I also use it for VNs at home - in those games you’re very often just pressing a button to move the text forward, so I hold with the buttons facing up, kinda like a small TV remote.