^ Ayesha, rather the Atelier series is a bit of a tough thing to reccomend.
I think if Gust spent another...maybe few weeks or a month to polish the games, they'd be bumped a full-letter grade. And while the alchemy system is extremely well-done and incredible in-depth, too much of the rest is somewhat sloppy (music and artwork aside).
Since Rorona, the graphics have gotten exponentially better. But, and in Ayesha, there are about 10 variaties of enemies and I think only 3 storyline bosses (so yeah, the rest are enemies and harder versions of those enemies as "area bosses"). The game is also dialogue-heavy, which is good if you love light-hearted anime, but bad to the rest of the world because the "quality" of writing (rather lack of) makes cutscenes a drag and the characters as 3D anime tropes.
There's also a lack of direction in the games. Of course, Ayesha is the most lenient of the [traditional-style] Atelier games.
If you can excuse that, I totally recommend it because there are few games quite like the Atelier series that really exist.
It's sad to hear about the lack of polish, especially the lack of bosses. I started playing the Atelier series this gen and finally in the 3rd game (Meruru) when I started getting good and actually owning the bosses with my alchemy this game gas only 3...
The thing about the light-hearted anime style suits me fine, I think it's perfect for those days you want something to relax. The sad thing is it as once again the dual audio thing, as I like to use these games as a way to practice my japanese. If think I've gained quite a bit of vocabulary playing through these 3 atelier games. The characters dialogue has in my opinion a perfect tempo for an average speaker like me (the dialogue rarely have obscure words, no one speaks too fast and there aren't many hard structures in their grammar)
In short, I'll just wait to see if I'll gain the US version, if not, probably before June I'll get the downloadable version on PSN or get the discounted "best" edition from Japan.
