I'm having a real blast with Atelier Iris 3 (and, pleasingly, I'm getting through it nicely ahead of schedule, too, as I still have at least a couple of Iris 2 articles I want to post!) — I'm really glad I've finally got around to playing these.
Iris 3 does something that I absolutely love in RPGs — putting a layer of deliciously "video game" abstraction atop the battle mechanics, making it highly enjoyable to engage with, whether you're fighting bosses or just grinding through random enemies.
The highlight for me is the "Burst Chain" system, whereby hitting enemies adds to a meter at the bottom of the screen, and filling this up then whacking the enemy as many times as possible before it either runs out or you kill everything results in experience and money bonuses. Pretty much every action you take, be it normal attack, physical skill or spell, hits more than once, so there are various ways of building up both the Burst meter and the Chain bonus — getting to grips with the different ways of doing this makes each battle feel like a puzzle to be solved.
And the characters are great, too. I'm absolutely 1,000% in love with Nell, but that's a discussion for a whole other day, I think. Now to figure out how to juggle playing this and FFVII Remake…
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