#oneaday Day 993: Endless journey

I'm really enjoying Atelier Firis, but it feels like it's taking a long time for me to get through. Part of this is down to day job commitments sometimes meaning I haven't had as much time in the week to play it as much as I like, but it also feels like there's an absolute ton of stuff to play through.

It's not an exaggeration to say that Atelier Firis could quite reasonably be described as World of Atelier, and could easily have been a final installment in the franchise, perhaps continually added to and expanded with new areas, quests and characters. I'm in two minds as to whether it's my absolute favourite in the series — but it's certainly damn near the top. The open-world structure works brilliantly, and any time I sit down to play the damn thing I know I'm going to be there for several hours without moving.

Of course, the fact that this is a sprawling games means it's taken a little longer to cover over on MoeGamer than I perhaps expected, but I'm going to ride this out and keep playing (and writing) until I'm satisfied that I've seen everything it has to offer… or at least, seen everything that I have the energy to track down. There may well be some "superbosses" and optional challenges I'm not up to, but at the very least I want to pursue some of the more interesting-sounding and involved endings for the game. At present I don't feel like I'm anywhere near any of them, though a few of the more minor storylines are starting to wrap up now.

I really am super-impressed with this. It simultaneously feels like the Atelier you know well by this point, and something completely different. It's got a wonderfully organic feeling of progression and discovering things to do; at no point do I feel like I've been working through a "checklist". Instead, I've been constantly stumbling across things, discovering new information, getting quests, taking them on if I can and moving on if not. That, to me, is a perfect example of how an open-world game is supposed to work.

For me, the benchmark for open-world games is the Xenoblade games. And while Atelier Firis isn't quite up to that standard — mostly from a technical standpoint, meaning the world areas aren't designed with anywhere near as much "freedom" about them as in Xenoblade — it's certainly a great example of what a Japanese developer can do with the open-world format. Not to mention proof if proof were needed that "open world" doesn't have to mean "game where you hoover up all the icons on the map".

Anyway, at this point I have absolutely no idea how much longer I'm going to be on Atelier Firis, but like I say, I'm committed to this project and I will see it through to its conclusion! I'm trying to prioritise Atelier Firis for my own personal gaming time at the moment because I do want to finish it… but at the same time I want to keep hanging out with Firis and Liane and Sophie and Plachta and Drossel and Shanon and… you know how it is when you find an RPG that really "clicks" with you.

Anyway, just wanted to keep you posted on progress. That's the situation! Now I'm off to bed. Some exciting retro-related news tomorrow — keep an eye on my YouTube and Retrounite to find out more!