Atelier Lydie & Soeur announced for the Nintendo Switch, first screenshots and artworks

14 August 2017 Lite_Agent Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings, Gust, Koei-Tecmo

A couple of years ago, Koei-Tecmo released Atelier Rorona Plus: The Alchemist of Arland on Nintendo 3DS: a downport of the game, previously available on PlayStation platforms. The game didn’t fare well and sold pretty poorly with barely 8 000 units sold during the first week. But this wasn’t to be the last Atelier game to be released on a Nintendo platform, as Atelier Lydie & Soeur was announced earlier this week for the Nintendo Switch.

Its full title is Atelier Lydie & Soeur ~Fushigina Kaiga no Renkinjutsushi~, and it will be released this winter in Japan (most likely in Early 2018). The game features not one, but two protagonists:

Lydie Marlen (voiced by Maria Naganawa): Soeur’s older sister, and a pretty quiet person. She’s described as a gentle girl, and a bit of an airhead with a unique sense for art.
Soeur Marlen (voiced by Hikari Akao): Lydie’s little sister, and a pretty energetic person. She’s described as a tomboy, but also a genius who happens to be scared of bugs.

The two sisters are actually twins (14 years old), and they run a small atelier in a city called Melveille, which happens to be the capital of the Adalett Kingdom.They do so while helping their father, which is an alchemist. Their dream? Make their own atelier the top one in the country. They’re together throughout the game, and you don’t get to choose one over the other.

The setting of the game is “an adventure inside a painting”… the very paintings that Lydie and Soeur ends up finding one day, with a mysterious world within it. As you progress through the game and complete side-quests, your Atelier Rank rises, which allows you to enter even more paintings. Some pretty rare materials, to be used in alchemy, can be found inside those paintings.

The story is based on concept of “coexistence of the ordinary and the extraordinary”. To be more precise, it depicts the warm and comfortable every day life, alongside an extraordinary journey in the worlds of the paintings.

One of the central elements of Atelier games is the synthesis system, and it received some major changes in Atelier Lydie & Soeur. One of them is the “activation items”. Those can have various effects, such as drastically shifting the panel colours when used during synthesis for example.

As for battles, they’re intoduced as “combination battles”, and with such a name, it’s no wonder the characters fight in pairs. There can be up to 6 characters in your party, so three pairs. You don’t get to control all the characters, though: only those at the front, with those at the back being controlled by the AI (there’s a front/back character in each pair). Naturally, the game features special combo attacks, said to be quite flashy.

Interesting details: synthesis is possible during battles, too: it’s called Battle Mix. However, it remains pretty simple and straightforward: you can create items using those already in your possession, nothing too fancy.

Famitsu also mentions significantly improved 3D models (which have been improving since Atelier Sophie), with CG model supervised by the illustrators themselves. The game has two character designers:

NOCO (who designed the protagonists in Atelier Sophie)
Yuugen (who designed the protagonists in Atelier Firis)

According to the magazine, the game has two producers: Keisuke Kikuchi (development producer) and Junzo Hosoi (General Producer). The former didn’t take part in the development of Atelier Firis (the previous Atelier game), but he came back for Atelier Lydie & Soeur, which marks the completion of what the developers call the “Mysterious” series, and which is releasing for the 20th Anniversary of the Atelier series.

Since the game is all about travelling inside the mysterious worlds of painting, the developers did consider having the players travel to the worlds of Atelier Marie or Blue Reflection. However, since they wanted to bring the “Mysterious” series to an end, this idea was rejected.. though something could happen if there’s enoigh demand for it.

Development is said to be 58% complete, further confirming that a 2017 release is not likely. If you’ve never played an Atelier game before (and especially those from the “Mysterious” series), you don’t need to worry: the game was designed so that everyone can enjoy it, even newcomers.

The game is getting several editions:

stand-alone (retail, digital): 7 300 Yen + taxes
Premium Box (retail only): 10 300 Yen + taxes

copy of Atelier Lydie & Soeur ~Fushigina Kaiga no Renkinjutsushi~
Visual Book
3 mini clear poster
Extra Tracks & Voice CD (2 discs)
B3 double-sided poster
Download codes for some DLC

Atelier 20th Anniversary Box

copy of Atelier Lydie & Soeur ~Fushigina Kaiga no Renkinjutsushi~
Visual Book
3 mini clear poster
Extra Tracks & Voice CD (2 discs)
B3 double-sided poster
Download codes for some DLC
Atelier Sophie & Firis Premium Visual Book
Lydie & Soeur Double Crystal Paper White
Atelier 20th Anniversary Pin Badges Collection

Finally, first-print copies (all editions) come with a download code, that allows you to get Marie (from Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg) and Elie (from Atelier Elie: The Alchemist of Salburg 2) as playable characters (as replacement of Lydie and Soeur).