History YMMV / AtelierSeries

** Gillian Clout of ''Atelier Annie'' is another good one; her name was initially given in Japanese sources as "Jalia Kraut. Thankfully NISA had the good sense to put that to bed quick-smart.

* SurpriseDifficulty: These games are full of {{Moe}}, cute girls, and SliceOfLife plots (except for the [=PS2=] games, which are closer to traditional [=JRPGs=]). So you'd expect a laid-back, relaxing experience, right? Wrong. If you don't take the time to master the complex alchemy mechanics and craft good equipment, you won't stand a chance against most enemies. This is compounded by the fact that in many of these games, you're on a TimedMission, so you absolutely need to find the correct balance between gathering materials, completing requests, and synthesizing new items. This alone is enough to scare off many potential fans from the earlier instalments. And once you've beaten the game, don't think the challenge is over, because the {{Bonus Boss}}es are NintendoHard, and will absolutely ''annihilate'' you if your equipment isn't optimal.

** Koei Tecmo's decision to stop dubbing the games altogether has also split the fanbase. Some fans who were found the English voices are heavily disappointed of Koei Tecmo decided to stop dubbing a popular jRPG series, while other fans noted that the Atelier series is very niche and much of the fanbase prefer the Japanese voices over the English voices anyways (which the later statement is confirmed by a PR manager on why they stopped dubbing the games altogether).

* {{Woolseyism}}: There have been a few in the games that have crossed the sea so far; the aforementioned ESRB Joke is practically the [[Franchise/{{Lunar}} Clinton Joke]] of the Noughties at this point.

* MemeticMutation: HIGH IMPACT SEXUAL VIOLENCE (shocked-character-reaction.gif). This began as a Totori-exclusive meme but has become something of a general meme for the franchise among the English-speaking fanbase. It usually takes the form of the line, and then a character, often one of the leads, making a shocked or scared expression taken from a game or promotional art.[[labelnote:Explanation]]The meme originates from the Australian ratings board giving the UpdatedRerelease of ''Totori'' its harshest rating possible, usually reserved for explicit pornography, with the attendant note about, in fact, the "high-impact sexual violence" within. This immediately became memetic due to how absurd it was.[[/labelnote]]

* EarWorm: In any given game, the music that plays in your workshop is bound to get stuck in your head since you'll be listening to it on loop for a long time while you make your items. More recent games allow you to customize the music, which alleviates this somewhat, but really only lets you choose ''which'' track will become your ear worm for the day.

** The Arland games have a tendency cause this. Certain fandom sections often describe the Arland games (and thus the wider franchise) as "[[HGame eroge without the actual ero bits]]" and are mostly in it for [[{{Fanservice}} the girls]] and, uh, [[ADateWithRosiePalms what they can do]] [[{{Squick}} with them]]. This makes many older ''Atelier'' fans '''bristle with rage''', as the games have ''never'' been intended to be erotic; [[MsFanservice Marie's odd chest... thing]] aside, the hottest any pre-Iris game got was having Lilie in a nightgown for one scene. [[note]]And really, the hottest any ''post''-Iris, pre-Arland game got was a chest-and-up BarbieDollAnatomy scene of Lita in a tank in ''Iris 1''.[[/note]] The actual Arland games don't help ''at all'', either; on the one hand, there's the occasional scene with, uh, [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/atelier_tentacle_ohdear_5207.jpg what can only be called "overtones"]] (possibly nsfw), but on the other hand, Arland games are nowhere near close to actual eroges, and the actual ''occurrence'' of "fanservice" is less than contemporary [=JRPGs=], to boot. At this point many people aren't quite sure what to think, but the debate [[FlameWar rages on]] even today.

* {{Sequelitis}}: Even the most die-hard Gust fanboy has to admit that, with no less than one release every year, the franchise has ached at times due to all of its sequels; even attempts to legitimately mix up the franchise such as ''Mana Khemia'' or ''Atelier Annie'' (which added a little SimulationGame to the mix, with its focus on helping to develop an island) sometimes came off as a bit stale, and quality assurance took a ''precipitous'' dip in the [[TurnOfTheMillenium late Noughts]], as evidenced by ''Atelier Liese'' and ''Mana Khemia 2'' and their '''evisceration''' in the Japanese gaming press (to say nothing of the ''titanic'' voluntary recall that ''Atelier Liese'' saw at one point). The series was on a roll again up to ''Shallie'', which ended the Dusk trilogy in a disappointing manner, with ''Sophie'' selling mostly because of the promises that Atelier is going back to its roots. People then found out that ''Sophie'' was anything but that, which led to the low sales of the other two of the Mysterious trilogy. It doesn't help that ''Firis'' launched in, once again, a horribly buggy state. ''Lydie & Suelle'' was more well-received, but it was too late for the trilogy.

* SurpriseDifficulty: If you look at the art of Atelier Annie, it's a little bit cute compared to the Iris games. There's more than a few bishounen characters in the cast. And the cover has an E10+ rating. But this is also a game where if the player rushes into battle without bringing healing items or changing the heroine's equipment, then a single Puni can kill her.
** Most of the early Ateliers were like this; if you were too lax in recruiting some party members, didn't upgrade equipment or went too far from town too quickly, you could quickly find yourself overwhelmed. This is part of what made ''Atelier Lilie'' NintendoHard, since your starting party options consist of your twentysomething alchemist heroine and her ''two ten-year-old hangers-on''. They can easily go out into the woods and get mauled to death by wolves at the start of the game.

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: In Japan, the two ''Mana Khemia'' games received a fairly lukewarm reception from the established fanbase, and ''Mana Khemia 2'' received a lot of flak from reviewers. In the West, on the other hand... well, just take a gander at which of the dedicated game pages is longest and which one received so much attention as to warrant its own character page (and reportedly sold ''better'' in the West than it did in Japan). ''MK 2'' also got a ''much'' warmer reception from the Western press than it did in Japan, scoring slightly ''higher'' on average than ''MK 1'' did. (This may have something to do with those {{Game Breaking Bug}}s getting fixed for us, though.)

* MemeticMutation: HIGH IMPACT SEXUAL VIOLENCE (shocked-character-reaction.gif). This began as a Totori-exclusive meme but has become something of a general meme for the franchise among the English-speaking fanbase. It usually takes the form of the line, and then a character, often one of the leads, making a shocked or scared expression taken from a game or promotional art.[[labelnote:Explanation]]The meme originates from the Australian ratings board giving the UpdatedRerelease of Totori its harshest rating possible, usually reserved for explicit pornography, with the attendant note about, in fact, the "high-impact sexual violence" within. This immediately became memetic.[[/labelnote]]
* SeinfeldIsUnfunny ([=AKA=], Alchemy Is Unoriginal): Quite a few prospective fans and consumers have pooh-poohed the games that have crossed over for being unoriginal in story and for crafting and alchemy being "nothing really special". While the story criticisms for the ''Iris'' games are probably not unwarranted, the early games were the games which introduced robust crafting systems into [=JRPGs=] in the first place and were also the first ones to use alchemy as a world-framing concept in Japanese pop culture. Thanks to [[NoExportForYou the sluggishness of the series]] in crossing the Pacific, however, everything influenced by the series got here first and made ''Atelier'' look like the unoriginal one.
* {{Sequelitis}}: Even the most die-hard Gust fanboy has to admit that, with no less than one release every year, the franchise has ached at times due to all of its sequels; even attempts to legitimately mix up the franchise such as ''Mana Khemia'' or ''Atelier Annie'' (which added a little SimulationGame to the mix, with its focus on helping to develop an island) sometimes came off as a bit stale, and quality assurance took a ''precipitous'' dip in the [[TurnOfTheMillenium late Noughts]], as evidenced by ''Atelier Liese'' and ''Mana Khemia 2'' and their '''evisceration''' in the Japanese gaming press (to say nothing of the ''titanic'' voluntary recall that ''Atelier Liese'' saw at one point). The series was on a roll again up to Shallie, which ended the Dusk trilogy in a disappointing manner, with Sophie selling mostly because of the promises that Atelier is going back to its roots. People then found out that Sophie was anything but that, which led to the low sales of the other two of the Mysterious trilogy. It doesn't help that Firis launched in a horribly buggy state. Lydie & Suelle was more well-received, but it was too late for the trilogy.

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: Good lord, this series has had [[AwesomeMusic/{{Atelier}} a lot of good music]]. Gust Sound Team is only ''slightly'' less well-known than [[VideoGame/{{Ys}} Falcom's JDK Band]] in this regard in Japan.

** [[spoiler:He survives in one of the endings though. And since we don't know which ending is the canon one, it might just be the bad one where Helmina never cared about Culus and she just kept making other homunculus after Culus died. That is pretty in line with her attitude in Elie with how she made and advertised the creations of homunculus to be servants to Eisel and Elie.]]

** Are [[TimedMission time limits]] a good or bad thing? One part of the fan base feels that the timer adds to the challenge, [[AntiGrinding discourages grinding]] in favor of encouraging making better items, and adds a sense of consequence to each of the player's actions. The other part finds the time limit overly stressful (to the point where some players are scared off from trying the games where time is limited), claim it takes away from the player's freedom, or that it [[FakeLongevity forces them to replay the game multiple times]].

** The Arland games have a tendency cause this. Certain fandom sections often describe the Arland games (and thus the wider franchise) as "[[HGame eroge without the actual ero bits]]" and are mostly in it for [[{{Fanservice}} the girls]] and, uh, [[ADateWithRosiePalms what they can do]] [[{{Squick}} with them]]. This makes many older ''Atelier'' fans '''bristle with rage''', as the games have ''never'' been intended to be erotic; [[MsFanservice Marie's odd chest... thing]] aside, the hottest any pre-Iris game got was having Lilie in a nightgown for one scene. [[note]]And really, the hottest any ''post''-Iris, pre-Arland game got was a chest-and-up BarbieDollAnatomy scene of Lita in a tank in ''Iris 1''.[[/note]] The actual Arland games don't help ''at all'', either; on the one hand, there's the occasional scene with, uh, [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/atelier_tentacle_ohdear_5207.jpg what can only be called "overtones"]] (possibly nsfw), but on the other hand, Arland games are nowhere near close to actual eroges, and the actual ''occurrence'' of "fanservice" is less than contemporary [=JRPGs=], to boot. At this point many people aren't quite sure what to think, but the debate [[FlameWar rages on]] even today. What makes it ironic is how the Arland games are nowhere near close to actual eroges.

** The Arland games have a tendency cause this. Certain fandom sections often describe the Arland games (and thus the wider franchise) as "[[HGame eroge without the actual ero bits]]" and are mostly in it for [[{{Fanservice}} the girls]] and, uh, [[ADateWithRosiePalms what they can do]] [[{{Squick}} with them]]. This makes many older ''Atelier'' fans '''bristle with rage''', as the games have ''never'' been intended to be erotic; [[MsFanservice Marie's odd chest... thing]] aside, the hottest any pre-Iris game got was having Lilie in a nightgown for one scene. [[note]]And really, the hottest any ''post''-Iris, pre-Arland game got was a chest-and-up BarbieDollAnatomy scene of Lita in a tank in ''Iris 1''.[[/note]] The actual Arland games don't help ''at all'', either; on the one hand, there's the occasional scene with, uh, [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/atelier_tentacle_ohdear_5207.jpg what can only be called "overtones"]] (possibly nsfw), but on the other hand many scenes seem dedicated to making ''fun'' of this kind of nonsense in the same way ''VideoGame/ArTonelicoMelodyOfElemia'' does, and the actual ''occurrence'' of "fanservice" is less than contemporary [=JRPGs=], to boot. At this point many people aren't quite sure what to think, but the debate [[FlameWar rages on]] even today.

*** What makes it ironic is how the Arland games are nowhere near close to actual eroges. So this whole controversy is based on literally nothing.

* {{Sequelitis}}: Even the most die-hard Gust fanboy has to admit that, with no less than one release every year, the franchise has ached at times due to all of its sequels; even attempts to legitimately mix up the franchise such as ''Mana Khemia'' or ''Atelier Annie'' (which added a little SimulationGame to the mix, with its focus on helping to develop an island) sometimes came off as a bit stale, and quality assurance took a ''precipitous'' dip in the [[TurnOfTheMillenium late Noughts]], as evidenced by ''Atelier Liese'' and ''Mana Khemia 2'' and their '''evisceration''' in the Japanese gaming press (to say nothing of the ''titanic'' voluntary recall that ''Atelier Liese'' saw at one point). The series was on a roll again up to Sophie, but nosedived again with Firis while Lydie & Suelle became a SleeperHit.

* {{Sequelitis}}: Even the most die-hard Gust fanboy has to admit that, with no less than one release every year, the franchise has ached at times due to all of its sequels; even attempts to legitimately mix up the franchise such as ''Mana Khemia'' or ''Atelier Annie'' (which added a little SimulationGame to the mix, with its focus on helping to develop an island) sometimes came off as a bit stale, and quality assurance took a ''precipitous'' dip in the [[TurnOfTheMillenium late Noughts]], as evidenced by ''Atelier Liese'' and ''Mana Khemia 2'' and their '''evisceration''' in the Japanese gaming press (to say nothing of the ''titanic'' voluntary recall that ''Atelier Liese'' saw at one point). The series was on a roll again up to Sophie, but nosedived again with the later two Mysterious games.

** The time limit system in the earlier games. Some players think it's a good AntiGrinding mechanism, helps keep players motivated, and makes the games more challenging in a fair way. Others find it too stressful, with many claiming that they're interested in the games, but get scared away by the timer, or bemoan that it takes away the player's freedom and [[FakeLongevity forces them to replay the game multiple times]] to experience everything.

** The time limit system in the earlier games. Some players think it's a good AntiGrinding mechanism and helps keep players motivated. Others find it too stressful, with many claiming that they're interested in the games, but get scared away by the timer. The Dusk series made the time limit much more lax before eventually scrapping it altogether, a change which was kept for the Mysterious series and has some fans complaining about the series becoming more casual or leaving players with too much free time where they have nothing to do.

* {{Fanon}}[=/=]FanPreferredCouple: There's a few bits worth noting. The biggest involves Totori and Mimi: it is a ''sniff'', a ''hair's breadth'', from 100% universally-accepted Fanon that Totori and Mimi are in a long-term, monogamous romantic relationship. ''Atelier Totori'' itself gives Totori several fairly-equally-weighted "romantic" options, but all others are virtually nonexistent in fandom, on both sides of the Pacific. In ''Atelier Meruru'', Gust gave these fans [[ArmedWithCanon some additional canon to arm themselves with]], while still not outright saying the two are a couple (partially to ensure the Gino option from Totori wasn't totally invalidated).

*** She ''then'' shows up as a wandering alchemist party member in ''Atelier Judie'', which still takes place some time before she becomes a teacher in ''Atelier Elie''. This would be her last appearance, however, as after ''Atelier Violet'' Gust began to create continuities separate from the original "Salburg" one. Helmina still holds the record for consecutive product appearances, however, all due to fan demand.

* {{Sequelitis}}: Even the most die-hard Gust fanboy has to admit that, with no less than one release every year, the franchise has ached at times due to all of its sequels; even attempts to legitimately mix up the franchise such as ''Mana Khemia'' or ''Atelier Annie'' (which added a little SimulationGame to the mix, with its focus on helping to develop an island) sometimes came off as a bit stale, and quality assurance took a ''precipitous'' dip in the [[TurnOfTheMillenium late Noughts]], as evidenced by ''Atelier Liese'' and ''Mana Khemia 2'' and their '''evisceration''' in the Japanese gaming press (to say nothing of the ''titanic'' voluntary recall that ''Atelier Liese'' saw at one point). The series is currently on a roll again, but there are fears it could burn out again if not given a chance to rest.

** Another was ''Judie'' to ''Violet'': ''Judie'' was a fairly disappointing game that took away some of the elements of previous games in an apparent attempt to broaden franchise appeal (and failed badly); ''Violet'' took the few good things from Judie, wedded them to the systems of the older games, and is generally seen as being in a dead heat for "Best [[UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 PS2]] Atelier Game" alongside ''Mana Khemia''.

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: Gust Sound Team is only ''slightly'' less well-known than [[VideoGame/{{Ys}} Falcom's JDK Band]] in this regard in Japan. For organizational purposes, their work [[AwesomeMusic/NipponIchi gets lumped in with NIS stuff]] on TVT, but good lord, this series has had a ''lot'' of good music, especially from the second game on. The Iris games in particular produced some amazing vocal and boss themes, and ''Atelier Violet'' and ''Atelier Meruru'' are widely considered massive crowners for the entire team.