Welcome, Bogart Porter Bridges

To your last question, this series definitely WILL NOT make you feel like you are on an episode of The Ride with Norman Reedus. I can't speak to the entire series, but I have recently completed Ryza 1 and nearly finished Sophie 1.

At it's heart these two games in the series seems to be about young women discovering alchemy, learning more about it, and using it to help those around them. A huge part about the games are the alchemy (crafting) systems, different in each game seemingly. Each game has main plots other than that which the characters get involved in, but the alchemy / crafting what it is about at the core. That, and A LOT of character interaction and dialogue.

I was actually asking the same thing as you a month or so ago. The consensus seemed to be start with Ryza (more popular in the West) or Sophie (more popular in the East).

I know 100% I am going to get hate for this but I think Ryza is the superior game and enjoyed that far more than Sophie, but Sophie is really fun too. I'm a complete new comer to the series with nothing to compare either game to in the series other than themselves.

Ryza has active real time combat, is newer with better graphics, and a more streamlined alchemy system. And I don't think of it as dumbed down or alchemy for idiots - I mean it is more accessible and user friendly in the best possible ways. I also felt I was more able to enjoy the game at the pace I wanted - the game made it very easy to avoid advancing the plot if I simply wanted to craft and discover alchemy recipes. Sophie's game had people literally banging down the door to her home and forcibly advancing the main story completely by surprise to me.

Sophie has turn based battles, English Dub (a plus for me but non issue for many it seems), a more in depth (but also more subject to RNG) alchemy system. The main con of Sophie is there were times in the early and mid game I just wanted to go an area, fight some monsters / collect some materials, and return home to craft something. I was then subjected to forced dialogue after dialogue after dialogue that literally came to the front door. With Ryza, if you wanted to ignore the main story line almost no will bother you. With Sophie, Hideo Kojima himself seemingly conjures cutscene after cutscene that you cannot escape from.

Overall though, both games are quite enjoyable and I spent the majority of each game just enjoying the alchemy systems and crafting gear. If you or anyone else need information about the game let me know in this thread and I will give you a list of resources (gamefaqs pages, various websites, and tools on helping with conversion loops).

Edit: Wow I didn't see the date on your question. Hope you got one of these games on sale since then LOL.

Originally posted by Turbo Rob:

Welcome, Bogart Porter Bridges

To your last question, this series definitely WILL NOT make you feel like you are on an episode of The Ride with Norman Reedus. I can't speak to the entire series, but I have recently completed Ryza 1 and nearly finished Sophie 1.

At it's heart these two games in the series seems to be about young women discovering alchemy, learning more about it, and using it to help those around them. A huge part about the games are the alchemy (crafting) systems, different in each game seemingly. Each game has main plots other than that which the characters get involved in, but the alchemy / crafting what it is about at the core. That, and A LOT of character interaction and dialogue.

I was actually asking the same thing as you a month or so ago. The consensus seemed to be start with Ryza (more popular in the West) or Sophie (more popular in the East).

I know 100% I am going to get hate for this but I think Ryza is the superior game and enjoyed that far more than Sophie, but Sophie is really fun too. I'm a complete new comer to the series with nothing to compare either game to in the series other than themselves.

Ryza has active real time combat, is newer with better graphics, and a more streamlined alchemy system. And I don't think of it as dumbed down or alchemy for idiots - I mean it is more accessible and user friendly in the best possible ways. I also felt I was more able to enjoy the game at the pace I wanted - the game made it very easy to avoid advancing the plot if I simply wanted to craft and discover alchemy recipes. Sophie's game had people literally banging down the door to her home and forcibly advancing the main story completely by surprise to me.

Sophie has turn based battles, English Dub (a plus for me but non issue for many it seems), a more in depth (but also more subject to RNG) alchemy system. The main con of Sophie is there were times in the early and mid game I just wanted to go an area, fight some monsters / collect some materials, and return home to craft something. I was then subjected to forced dialogue after dialogue after dialogue that literally came to the front door. With Ryza, if you wanted to ignore the main story line almost no will bother you. With Sophie, Hideo Kojima himself seemingly conjures cutscene after cutscene that you cannot escape from.

Overall though, both games are quite enjoyable and I spent the majority of each game just enjoying the alchemy systems and crafting gear. If you or anyone else need information about the game let me know in this thread and I will give you a list of resources (gamefaqs pages, various websites, and tools on helping with conversion loops).

Edit: Wow I didn't see the date on your question. Hope you got one of these games on sale since then LOL.

Thanks very much for the in depth response man. Can I ask how many hours you've got out of each of the games? I didn't buy this time around but it's not a big deal as they are often on sale.

Keep on keeping on.

Originally posted by Bogart Porter Bridges:

:dslike: Thanks very much for the in depth response man. Can I ask how many hours you've got out of each of the games? I didn't buy this time around but it's not a big deal as they are often on sale.

Keep on keeping on. :dscheer:

Just finished Sophie 1 yesterday. I'm looking at 112 hours on Ryza and 94 on Sophie. I'd say I got mostly everything done in each, but what I did not bother doing is post story game grinding with no real purpose other than achievement hunting / 100%. Those numbers can go up a bit if you really want.

Oh and another thing to note, there seems to be no "missables" in either game, apart from one of Sophies friends inviting you to attend an event that they are featured in. You'll miss it if you beat the last boss before you attend...but if you are at all paying attention thats nearly impossible.

Originally posted by Turbo Rob:

Originally posted by Bogart Porter Bridges:

Thanks very much for the in depth response man. Can I ask how many hours you've got out of each of the games? I didn't buy this time around but it's not a big deal as they are often on sale.

Keep on keeping on.

Just finished Sophie 1 yesterday. I'm looking at 112 hours on Ryza and 94 on Sophie. I'd say I got mostly everything done in each, but what I did not bother doing is post story game grinding with no real purpose other than achievement hunting / 100%. Those numbers can go up a bit if you really want.

Oh and another thing to note, there seems to be no "missables" in either game, apart from one of Sophies friends inviting you to attend an event that they are featured in. You'll miss it if you beat the last boss before you attend...but if you are at all paying attention thats nearly impossible.

Appreciate your responses buddy and also for the achievement info. Thank you. :)

Originally posted by Turbo Rob:

Oh and another thing to note, there seems to be no "missables" in either game, apart from one of Sophies friends inviting you to attend an event that they are featured in. You'll miss it if you beat the last boss before you attend...but if you are at all paying attention thats nearly impossible.

I think "A Challenge From Plachta" is "missable" too. That should be the one where you need to make the philosopher's stones before you beat the final boss.

Originally posted by Turbo Rob:

...

Sophie has turn based battles, English Dub (a plus for me but non issue for many it seems), ...

Your posting helped me so much as I was wondering about where to start and I settled between Sophie and Ryza.

If you don't mind me asking about the English dub as on the store page it says it has no English audio and in general I saw in all youtube videos that there is only Japanese audio and you would have to read everything.

And one other thing (although this might be something you can't answer if you're not affected by this), is there a problem with motion sickness? I tried Genshin Impact once and got motion sickness that kept slowly creeping in. This game looks similar to Genshin Impact.

Not sure if you'll ever see my posting 🤔

Originally posted by FuzzyDarkness:

And one other thing (although this might be something you can't answer if you're not affected by this), is there a problem with motion sickness? I tried Genshin Impact once and got motion sickness that kept slowly creeping in. This game looks similar to Genshin Impact.

While a bit of a necro, this I can answer. I have vertigo, and in general the Atelier series is pretty motion sickness friendly. There are spots (especially in combat) where you might have problems, as the camera will shift to focus on a particular character's attack. This is especially bad in the Ryza trilogy, especially 2 and 3 because the camera is VERY close to you and it's more active ATB-based combat.

Camera control for exploration in Sophie and Ryza isn't too bad at least, you might have problems with combat most. One other possible problem would be the mount in Ryza 2 and 3, it does shift the camera a bit and the creature has "bobbing" movement as it runs.

One final issue is present in Blue Reflection 2 and Atelier Ryza 3; Gust has been doing a lot of background blurring and this gets very uncomfortable.

Thank you so much smeredith as this helps a lot. One more question if you don't mind. I saw that in Atelier Sophie the PC graphics were downgraded compared to other versions. I couldn't find if that was patched or is that still the case?

Sophie's graphics in general are a bit of a downgrade from Shallie that came before and Firis that came after. It works but it's noticeably old looking.