The Atelier Series

[Dice]

I just don't like that picking fucking flowers or gems off the ground can amount to DAYS.

[Kevadu]

I'm the same; I kinda liked the more RPG-oriented than task and time-oriented gameplay.

I'm terrible with timing anything.... Opera House in FF6? Terrifying.

Yeah, ticking clocks suck, but I never really feel that presure in Atelier. 99% of the time it's perfectly clear how much time an action takes and you have all the time in the world to decide what to do. It's more like a puzzle.

This.  The 'clock' in Atelier games isn't really a clock at all.  You can spend all day thinking about what to do if you want.  'Time' here is just another resource to manage, and you generally know exactly how much time every action you take will use up.  I'm not a big fan of ticking clocks either but Atelier games don't feel anything like that to me.

[Cyril]

I wouldn't necessarily agree with that.  Trying to finish everything in the older games, Elie in particular, can be downright brutal.

Nowadays, though, absolutely.

[Mickeymac92]

I just don't like that picking fucking flowers or gems off the ground can amount to DAYS.

This. Seriously, some of the times associated with certain tasks made no sense. Though I hear that's mostly a Rorona problem.

[Cyril]

That's less a Rorona problem and more a Totori/Meruru/Ayesha/Escha problem.  The big issue in Rorona, as with the earlier games in the series, is travel time.

However, to give Escha and Logy some credit, you can speed up your gathering time dramatically over the course of the game.  When the game starts, you can gather twice before one day passes.  Then you "research" and can gather about three times in a day.  Then with more "research" later in the game you can gather about 10 times in one day. But there's never really 10 gathering points in an area, usually no more than 5.  This lets you clear out all monsters and still gather in one day per map, though, which is nice.

[Klutz64]

Was feeling vulnerable today, and vulnerability equals impulse buying for me. Thus I bought the new Atelier despite having not played through the other 4 Atelier games I have. Feeling really silly about that.

[Dice]

Was feeling vulnerable today, and vulnerability equals impulse buying for me. Thus I bought the new Atelier despite having not played through the other 4 Atelier games I have. Feeling really silly about that.

Some of my favorite games were impulse buys

[Farron]

From the opinions here I'm somewhat happy for the change Escha & Logy took as even though I did like Ayesha of the 4 games I played it was the one that left me the worst impression (although not a bad one).
I can't exactly point to what bothered me but perhaps it were some characters that were just uninteresting to me. I also for some reason couldn't trigger some story scenes until very close to the time limit so when I managed to do it, I had very little time to do extra stuff and I kind of rushed the end.

I'm having some high expectations from Escha & Logy. I think that just by having my preferred audio choice will make it a much more experience for me.
Oh, and for those who are playing the game, does the gameplay and story change significant between playing as Escha and Logy?

[Elegance]

Oh, and for those who are playing the game, does the gameplay and story change significant between playing as Escha and Logy?

I'm not playing it, but from what I've heard there is no difference other than hearing the thoughts of one character over the other, and maybe one specific scene for each.

[Cyril]

There are not many differences in the main story, but there are a few pretty big differences in sub events.  Mainly with how characters interact with their comrades.  For example, the relationship between Logy and Lucille is quite different than Escha and Lucille.  A few minor event series are character-exclusive, too.

Also, you can only get the True Ending on NG+ once you have played through the game on both characters.

[Klyde Chroma]

Was feeling vulnerable today, and vulnerability equals impulse buying for me. Thus I bought the new Atelier despite having not played through the other 4 Atelier games I have. Feeling really silly about that.

Don't feel bad Klutz. I totally do the same thing on occasion. In fact, upon seeing the costume DLC for Drakengard 3 I went ahead and pre-ordered then immediately paid it off in full without having any knowledge of the other titles.

Luckily, in your case, the Atelier games are pretty forgiving in regard to picking up anywhere and not really missing out on much. Gust does a decent job of writing direct continuations with strong standalone value. Its not like hopping into say, Lunar 2 without any knowledge of Lunar 1.

Seeing Ayesha's returning cast is cool, but they all are introduced in E&L in a manner that would not seem at all strange having no pre-existing knowledge of them. (Mind you, I am still early on and may be entirely wrong on this point.)

In fact, having prior experience with some of the returning cast has made it harder to accept them in E&L for me. They sort of took odd creative liberties with some...

[Nel]

Currently own Annie and Ayesha. I'm going to be more mindful of going in continuity order when I get around to the Arland stuff.

Never knew Mana Khemia was part of this series though. Those games always looked intriguing but I saw those around the time I was about done with my PS2 and moving on to the next generation.

[Bleaker]

So I never got to finish Escha and Logy, which I will remedy this weekend, because of being away from my PS3. So, I impulse bought Totori Plus on my Vita.So far it is like a slap to the face telling me to wake up. There isn't any of that structure from Escha and Logy, now I'm my own boss. I don't know quite how I feel about that though. The game just kind of throws you in there. I don't know if I'm doing anything right or not. It is kind of freeing and terrifying at the same time.

[FlamingR1ft]

That's one of the many reasons I preferred Totori (it's my favourite of the PS3 titles). But it's probably a case of being more comfortable with whichever style you played first.

[Bleaker]

I'm going to put it on the back burner for a bit, and wait till I finish a couple other games like Stick of Truth and Escha and Logy. This one requires to much thought for my brain with so many other games going on right now.