Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land Reviews
Atelier Yumia is another solid outing for Gust's long-running series, which learns from its predecessor's successes while carving its own path.
Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land is an undoubtedly fun, charming, and riveting entry into a well-established franchise. With a sprawling open world to explore, a variety of interesting ideas and themes, an extraordinary story, charming characters, and a completely overhauled synthesis system, Atelier Yumia is a great starting point for newcomers, and a welcomed addition to a much-loved franchise by fans.
Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories and the Enlightened Land is far from the best entry in the series for newcomers, but it's certainly the largest and most accessible.
Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & The Envisioned Land is a fantastic entry into the Atelier series. Yumia is a fantastic protagonist for the series, and Aladiss is a fun continent to explore.
Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land combines exploration, crafting, and combat to deliver a fantastic experience. Journeying through the world of Aladiss is a remarkable experience backed by a decent story and good characters. There is a steeper learning curve than expected and the visual flaws are hard to ignore. But despite its flaws, Atelier Yumia delivers a solid exploration experience that's tough to beat.
While Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land further moves the series away from its roots, it adds some welcome novelties in return.
Atelier Yumia is the classic case of a niche series desperately trying to adapt to a changing market, losing what made it unique in the process. The shift to an open-world structure, instead of expanding gameplay possibilities, reduces them to a repetitive loop of activities, while the combat system, despite a few interesting ideas, lacks depth.
Review in Italian | Read full review
It's clear that Atelier Umia is trying to modernize the series, but when you start down the wrong path, every step forward only leads you further astray. An overly simplified alchemy system and a formulaic open world strip away the series' most essential charm, leaving behind a beautifully crafted shell that ultimately feels hollow. No matter how polished the presentation, it's hard to truly love a game that has lost its heart.
Review in Chinese | Read full review
All in all, Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land introduces many great concepts and features but fails to be wholly entertaining. It contains unnecessarily tedious features and awful performance that will hopefully be fixed post-launch.
The combat system is gonna be competing in uniqueness against Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. I have to hand it to Gust with what they were able to accomplish with their team this time. Using fantastic references, they have made another fantastic recipe with Atelier Yumia that will please ongoing fans.
It isn’t so much the story or the crafting elements that will keep you playing Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land, but simply uncovering every corner of this beautifully realised world.
Atelier Yumia has managed to preserve the series' essence while adding a fresh touch and flavor with its innovations. This is a game that will appeal not only to series fans but also to a wider audience. If you've been wanting to get started with the Atelier series but are feeling intimidated, don't worry; take your first steps with this game. You'll likely find yourself following suit.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
Atelier Yumia, making its debut on platforms like Xbox, presents itself as the ideal title to introduce yourself to the alchemist saga. With a dynamic turn-based combat system and real-time elements, complemented by a deep collection, building, and decoration system, the game focuses on exploration and alchemical creation. Despite a slow start, the vast open world, unique dungeons, and formidable challenges ensure a relaxing and visually appealing experience, cementing its identity within the series.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Atelier Yumia brilliantly pushes the well-known series into the future, serving us with a lot of fresh ideas and showing that the larger budget has indeed been used wisely.
Review in Polish | Read full review
The exploration and atmosphere of Atelier Yumia are the best I've seen in the franchise, but the story's pacing and the button mashing fest combat system outside of bosses left so much to be desired.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
It is unfortunate that the last Atelier on Nintendo Switch before Switch 2 launches has so many issues. There is great strength in the Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land character personalities, stories and design, yet the world is either environmentally rich or totally empty with little in it to see and do. By the time the credits roll, Yumia is loved enough to replay for the story's sake, as well as enjoy the New Game Plus extra bosses to fight and clear everything 100% for completionists. Nonetheless, it is not an Atelier game that fully showcases why the series is so beloved. Perhaps if there is a sequel it will solve all the bugs that so heavily affect gameplay.
Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land is full of different strengths and weaknesses that neutralize each other and ultimately bring an interesting but far from ideal experience to the audience.
Review in Persian | Read full review
While the technical issues continued to be unfortunate throughout, I really enjoyed the story, and feel like Atelier Yumia is thematically interesting in a way that I appreciated. I liked the characters a lot, and like how the themes of the game carried over through the characters, including the villains. Atelier Yumia is flawed, but a really interesting move for the series.
A stellar new entry in the beloved Atelier series
Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land is a committed effort by Koei Tecmo to further grow the series and find a new audience. It means that some of the Atelier traditions have been firmly and, on the back of the Ryza series, likely permanently behind.