Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy is the most recent game in the Atelier series, and the sequel to Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout. The series has spanned 23 years and 22 games (not including side games and remakes), with a focus on adventure narratives exploring the power of alchemy for crafting. Published and Developed by Koei Tecmo, Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy for the PlayStation 4 takes players on a complex journey to discover the power of ancient ruins, while learning how to best utilize the power of alchemy.
Reisalin Stout (Ryza) has a new journey ahead of her in the JRPG adventure Atelier Ryza 2: the Lost Legends & Secret Fairy as she leaves her home on of Kurken Island. Her goal is to learn about a strange gemstone given to her by Moritz Brunnen by exploring the ancient ruins outside the capital city Ashra-am Baird. Ryza reunites with friends from the first Atelier Ryza title within the city, where she teams up with Tao and his friend Patricia to explore the ruins and uncover their secrets. In order to stay in the city, Ryza makes an agreement with Patricia's father to provide her alchemy services to the city in exchange for rent. Players will have their hands full filling requests for items they gather on exploration trips, and creations they mix with alchemy.
Atelier Ryza 2 is made up of many moving parts, similar to other RPG games like Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Much of the player's time will be spent collecting items while exploring so that they can synthesize them with alchemy back in the Atelier apartment. Players will collect materials using a selection of tools, including a staff, scythe, axe, fishing rod, hammer, and bomb rod. Atelier Ryza 2 has also included new mechanics for exploration including swimming, climbing, and crawling through small spaces to find hidden areas. Players have a limited number of inventory slots however, and the restriction can be frustrating when the player makes it deep into an area, only to run out of space. This will require players to ditch precious materials from their inventory, go all the way back to the Atelier apartment to put things in storage, or simply miss out on items they will find if they continue to explore.
Players interact with the cauldron at the back of the Atelier apartment to open the synthesizer tree and explore another of the game's systems. While crafting is a critical part of gameplay in Atelier Ryza 2, the process of synthesizing is not intuitive. Players will have to sit through several lengthy tutorials to start crafting, and the process of creating high quality items with good buffs and boons often isn't clear. Because of this, it is far easier to autofill ingredients by selecting the "High Quality" option via the menu, letting the game pull the best choices from the player's inventory, rather than guessing and wasting their better items.
Atelier Ryza 2 may appeal to fans of Breath of the Wild's shrines, as a large amount of its exploration time is sunk into solving puzzles within the ancient ruins that also provide the bulk of the story's plot. Players will obtain a magical compass, the Emerald Band, that helps them to navigate through the ruins while searching for answers to the most recent plot development. Much like the alchemy component of Atelier Ryza 2, the player will need multiple lengthy tutorials to really get a grasp on how to use the Emerald Band. The addition of another complex mechanic feels overwhelming on top of everything else the player must to do to move the story forward, and they may find themselves juggling too much to keep track of the many components needed to properly explore the ruins.
The weakest element in Atelier Ryza 2 is its combat system. With so many complicated gameplay mechanics already in motion, battling is a grind to get the hang of. Enemy encounters start when the player touches a monster wandering the overworld, which triggers a timer-controlled, turn-based system where the player's party of up to three characters will battle enemies. The combat mechanics are controlled by timers restricting the player's number of attacks, much like Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core. During this time, they must deflect enemy attacks while keeping track of their party members and accruing points to use special moves. With so many things to manage, the fight quickly becomes an unintuitive button mash without a chance to build good strategy.
Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy adds many interesting new ways for players to explore maps and gather ingredients, but struggles with dense tutorials and overcomplicated mechanics like synthesizing and combat, which bog down the better elements in the game. However, Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy is a great pick for fans of JRPG games who are interested in a complex gaming experience that regularly challenges them to think outside the box to solve problems.
Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy is available now on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC and Nintendo Switch. A PlayStation 4 code was provided to Screen Rant for the purposes of this review.