Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Dream

Atelier remains the comfort food of video games, and Atelier Sophie 2 is one of the more comforting snacks. With so many dense and complex games releasing around one another at the moment, having something that is light, warm, and good-natured is a nice release. I don't know if launching immediately after Elden Ring and Horizon, and immediately before Triangle Strategy works in Sophie's favour, but if you can resist making those comparisons, what you'll see here is one of the most refined and beautiful entries in this long-running and utterly wonderful JRPG mainstay. The game deserves better than to be compared like-for-like with these other titles, as it no doubt will be.

Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Dream is an absolute gift. Sophie is just as charming and inspiring as ever, and even though the story tacks on more dimensional time-travel drama than I would've cared for, it's just as touching and cozy of an experience as the first Atelier Sophie. Gathering, crafting, and battling are all plenty of fun too, and flooded with enough layers of mechanics that it's easy to pick an area you want to focus on and purely master that one element of the game. By looking to the past, this surprise sequel has delivered a promising vision of the future of the Atelier series.

ATELIER SOPHIE 2 is a hidden gem that didn’t get enough attention during the crazy first quarter of this year, and it’s not a game that pleases everybody, but it offers so much when you dig deep into it.

A pleasant journey lies in this 2022 iteration of the Atelier saga, with old-school gameplay and new ideas. A bit weird not to find any PS5 version or french subtitles as in the last entry, but still, this is a great game for veterans and newcomers alike.

Atelier Sophie 2 massively improves upon everything from the original game. It has a much more interesting story, plenty of heart-felt character interactions, and a ton of different side activities to keep you busy. Becoming a master alchemist and exploring this vibrant dream world is a fantastic way to celebrate 25 years of Atelier titles.

If Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Dream had been published before the furious revolution unleashed by the two Atelier Ryza, probably some of its imperfections would have seemed little compared to its merits. For some inexplicable reason Gust has in fact preferred to give up all the improvements devised in recent years to re-propose obsolete mechanics that have ended up obscuring the most important innovations of the package, such as Double Actions or the removal of the transitions between battle and exploration. In short, Atelier Sophie 2 confirms itself as a product designed almost exclusively for long-time fans who may not wait to embrace the crazy and at the same time tender bombarole by Kirchen Bell.

Atelier Sophie 2 does a lot of things well, keeping pace moving forward at a relatively good pace. At the same time, it leaves plenty of opportunities to grow as there are some franchise issues that remain in place.

One of the BEST Atelier and GUST games. Really good story, amazing characters, good combat and stunning places and music.

If you played the last Ryza 2 game, you will like the overall experience of this game. Although I find the pace of the tutorials and recipes to be very slow. Fighting is fun and sometimes strategic. Graphics are nice. Some minor clippings. The animations are superb. The story is interesting in it's own way. One of the big issue of this game is that at certain points, the game tells you to synthesize an item, yet put very little help on the direction to take, or what to do. I had to go on the net to find out. One time was because I received a recipe but it never showed up in the listing. Also, even when you have an item in your inventory, the game doesn't take account of it when you get the quest to synth an item (yet all the side quest works with the actual inventory). I give the game a 75%. I think they downgraded a bit from the previous version. The game is still fun with perky dialogues but something is very odd with the quest systems.

So here it is, Sophie 1 was the beginning of a downward spiral for this series and I'm still lost as to why they'd go back to the Mysterious titles after all the garbage it was. BUT then I found out that while the games were Meh people liked Sophies design WHICH I actually agree with and they figured since Ryza's biggest success came from being a interesting character design that benefitted from the art community and anime community. They went with the most interesting looking and if that's there goal I agree. I do love her design. Now the gameplay, lets be honest. This is a Atelier Lulua situation, but following the worse series in Atelier. It works, but it's just that. After playing Ryza, it's just not a interesting move. Here's another problem I have with this game specifically and the Mysterious games. Koei Tecmo and their cheap practices covered in excuses. They removed dubs with the 3rd game in a series of games that follow each other, they did this with Lulua as well after we know her mother and everyone else with English voices ruining the experience for people who played that way. I'm fine with the Ryza series being Subs only for the fact it's a series that didn't get a dub to begin with. But that's just trash imo. I really want Atelier to succeed, but Koei and Gusts practices feel more like they're trying to milk than make a good game now

Huge step back from Ryza 2. Animations and graphics are not up to date like one review said, it doesn't even have a ps5 version. FPS is not 60, combat is old and dated compared to Ryza 2s active turn based, nothing exciting about it. Overall design of everything feels super dull. Sophie 1 was my favorite before Ryza, but its a decade later now, and sophie 2 feels like a 2007 release game. With combat mechanics true to turn based models, sure, but it doesn't feel anything like ffx or persona in that regard. It just isnt….. fun, even a little. Bad move gust. Stick to 4k 60fps PS5 with active ATB combat .. They’ve been skimping on english VA for years now and got away with it for Ryza. Now they’re even trying to skimp out on the entire next gen? It is upsetting that they'd treat one of my favorite entries so horribly…

I'm starting play Atelier series since Ryza 1, and I'm Falling in Love to Atelier and of course I Played Ryza 2, and I Love it. But when I play Sophie 2 well...I really don't Like the Story and point of view character on this game! Sophie 2 it's Defnetly Downgrande from the previous series! I don't mind gameplay Battle system Turn Base! Even I really Like it! But... Grafic downgrade! Bad Character! Bad Story! Everything character logic it's too kind and cute, that was very not Natural! specially I Hate Elvira, Sophie, and plactha Chara! I'm Regret to Buy This game!