Anyone have any opinion on a good game to start with? Do I need the full story or should I just pick up this one up? since it seems the most positively reviewed.

as said, progress is stuck on this, dont know how i can synthesis +4 quantity but story progress is stuck on this quest for alchemy clay

My system is i5-8400 / 1070 Ti / 16GB DDR4, better than the recommended requirements. Getting framerate drops all the way down to 40's while in town, turning down the settings doesn't seem to help much, if at all. Didn't have any issues in Ryza games. Yes, I have a controller plugged in, so it's not the micro-stutter you get when the game is constantly scanning for one. Is anyone else experiencing performance issues? Should I just refund?...

I am at the volcano. This feels to me like a late game area. I still do not have the recipe!!! I even looked it up online. Gather nitro water, and do major gathering with base bomb hammer. I've tried both. No recipe updates at all! I've gone further down in the recipe trees to see if that opens any more slots, but nothing so far. Internet is not helpful at all. HELP!...

Feeling very conflicted. I beat Ryza 1, but honestly I came away feeling exhausted. The game represented a massive learning curve for someone like me who had never played an Atelier game. I wanted to do Sophie next because I needed a change of pace. Different setting, different characters etc. I really REALLY liked what I saw in trailers for Sophie 2, so I decided to start with the first one and go from there but . . . it looks kind of dull. I haven't played enough of it yet to really determine if it click...