 I have been playing Atelier Risa 3 and here are my first impressions on this very much anticipated game. I have loved Risa 1, I have loved Risa 2, Risa 2 actually being my favorite Atelier game of the entire series that spreads across like, I don't know, 24 games since 1997. First of all, it's very nice to meet them again, these friends of mine, after that sad goodbye that they did in Atelier Risa 2. I was very much looking forward to see what they would do further with the characters that are already very much established through 1 and 2. And let me just say, I predicted this game because one of the voice actors actually made it pretty clear that Atelier was going to calm Risa 3. One of them said so and I think that went through the cracks. Okay, so let's jump straight to performance. Performance is okay, it is good, but it is the switch we're talking about. I'm about 10 hours in, I think, and I'm still sort of debating on jumping ship, jumping over to PlayStation 5, I mean. But I don't know, I'm not sure. I like to take my games with me, I like the portability and the handheld gaming that the switch provides. But the switch is so aged by now, so all the gameplay that you are seeing in this video is from the Switch version and it runs okay and it looks pretty good, sometimes even impressive. So far, I have only noticed stutters and frame drops in the biggest city that I've come across so far, there it is very noticeable. I'm not sure about the PlayStation 5 version or even the PC version, but you know what, overall, very good. Considering it is the Switch, the Atelier games are actually, like, technically very impressive on the Switch, overall. So there is that. And another quick first impression that I got is that I'm very happy to see that Risa is not starting out as a total noob, she is starting out as level 20. She already knows a lot of her old alchemy recipes and you get access very early on to the materials that you need for the field tools, like the hammer, the sight, the axe, the dinette, the fishing rod, which you have to remember to manually equip in the menu under items. Never forget that. So, about the beginner-friendliness. How beginner-friendly is it to jump into this title if you have never played any other Atelier series game? Like, do you have to have played number one and two in order to enjoy number three? So far, in the hours that I have played, there are several moments where the group is reminiscing over the past events that happened in Risa 1. Because the world in Risa 1 is included in this game. Here is the map of what you did in Risa 1 and traversing through this land all over again now, four years later. They often stop and say, like, oh, do you remember when we did this at this place and stuff? So, they are referring a lot to what happened in Risa 1 and I remember what happened in Risa 1, so that is fun for me. But if you have never played Risa 1, I don't know. In the beginning of the game, if you get Risa 3, there is an opening movie that tells briefly the story that happened in Risa 1 and 2. But I think it is better if you have played at least the first one, because they are referring a lot to what happened in the first one. They sometimes refer to stuff that happened in the second one. But I feel like the first one is what they are referring to the most. Okay, so the world. You get to visit all of the places from Risa 1, like I said. Like the hometown where they are from, the little island, and the mainland. And this time around, one of the selling points of the story anyway, is that suddenly a lot of smaller islands appeared down there in the western area of the map. And at first I thought that this was the new content, the new places that you can visit in this game. And boy was I wrong if you do the main story quests a tiny bit. And this came as a surprise to me. Suddenly there is a girl that comes and say hi and blah blah blah and stuff and you travel by boat to a new continent. And you know what, I went into Risa 3 now without having seen any spoilers, so I was genuinely surprised to see this. And this is when the game opened up for me. This whole new continent with a whole new map system, you can zoom in and out of the map. Kind of clunky to navigate the map, whatever. But you can speed up your cursor if you hold down R, that is kinda good. So I was relieved to see that we have some new places to visit. Other than the new islands on that first map, so the world is divided now into two maps like this. And I like it, it's kinda definitely very big. It's kinda definitely very big. Traversing the land is an open world. There are no loading screens between anything, you can run from one part of the map and all the way to some other part of the map with no loading screen in between and I call that an open world game. Pretty good. Now the story in short is that Risa is hearing voices and the islands that I mentioned suddenly appeared and monsters has become a problem again. There is also like a whole deal about these keys. I'm gonna be honest with you guys and say that I'm not loving the new keys system, it's just there. But I haven't gotten excited about the keys. You collect some keys, you use some keys, you can equip some keys and you can use them also in combat to get some sort of buff. Not loving the keys, but that is sort of like a gimmick that they are going with in this title. Which brings me to the combat. Which is very much like how it was in the first Risa with support mode and aggressive mode. Differences between them is that you are saving AP in the support mode and in aggressive mode you let the other party members do special attacks and spend points from that AP pool. And we have CC points and we have switching in and out characters from the back. Just like it was in Risa 1. Except for a few minor differences like the key element having that as a buff sometimes. And I pretty much have to say that Risa 1's combat style is perhaps my favorite combat style across the entire series. So this is good. And I can pretty much say the same about the crafting system. Very much similar to Risa 1 and 2. And this is my favorite crafting system across the entire series. I may have mentioned that before already. And it is not complicated. It may look complicated once you see this, but it isn't. It isn't complicated. You just gotta have the materials needed and fill in the nodes. And you don't have to fill in every node. Once you see that synthesis plus sign up there, you're good to go. You don't have to pump in all of your materials into one single item. Minimal materials used in the crafting is also good, if you know what I mean. So some new things that Risa 3 is bringing. Now you can pet cats and dogs and score some good materials pretty early on in the game. There's a new map design went over that. And you can ride dolphins. There's also diving, which they introduced in Risa 2. There is the mount that they also introduced in Risa 2. So they're bringing over all the things that we have already gotten used to having. And you get a new Atelier in this new region. And this time around Boss is finally joining the party. Maybe he is now becoming the new best boy. He has had such character development. He was a bully in the first Risa. They were not friends with this guy. And now he's like switched all around and now he's such a nice dude. I am enjoying such character development that they have done on Boss. I'm loving him now. I did not in Risa 1. Lol. So about running, I feel like running sometimes feels a bit too fast and walking feels a bit too slow. But running around and collecting materials super fast. Sort of like a forespoken vibe to it. Run and collect. Risa doesn't stop to pick up an item. She can run and pick up items now. So let's talk about some first impression negativity. I feel like the game has a fog a lot of the time and there are resolution drops when something is close to the screen. I don't know how to explain it. Look at this. There is still no English voice acting. I wish there were. And the text size is actually too small. Some of it actually like the banter between them in between stuff. That text is super small even on my OLED. So I can imagine that is unreadable on the Switch Lite unfortunately. I hope they fix this and add the opportunity to increase the text size. There are several difficulty settings. Easy is ridiculously easy. So my first impression is I like it. But it is too early for me to give a final verdict. Like I'm not saying that this is better than Risa 2 or even Risa 1 at this point. It's too early because I'm taking my time with this game. This is my type of game that I'm gonna have my moment in. I'm taking my time with this one just letting you guys know. So you get this first impression video but I will not guarantee when my full review is going up because I'm taking my time. But I am looking forward to seeing where the story is going to lead and actually I am looking forward to seeing how they're gonna wrap up this entire trilogy. Like what are all the characters gonna do later on? I wanna know that so I'm looking forward to that. That pretty much concludes my first impression. I wanna hear your first impression. Are you even gonna pick this game up? The review code was provided by playon.com Listen to Disky Disc Podcast. It's gonna be there. Listen to that. And thank you so much for watching and I will see you later on Discord. 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