Accidental Innuendo: The Dusk series has a type of artificial monster known as Slags. Whoever came up with that name apparently didn't know that in British English, "slag" is a synonym of "slut" or "whore".
The Arland games have a tendency cause this. Certain fandom sections often describe the Arland games (and thus the wider franchise) as Ecchi and are mostly in it for the cute girls. This makes many older Atelier fans bristle with rage, as the games have never been intended to be erotic; 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 Barbie Doll Anatomy scene of Lita in a tank in Iris 1. The actual Arland games don't help at all, either; on the one hand, there's the occasional scene with, uh, what can only be called "overtones"◊ (possibly NSFW), but on the other hand, Arland games are nowhere near close to actual H Games, 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 rages on even today.
Are time limits a good or bad thing? One part of the fan base feels that the timer adds to the challenge, discourages grinding in favor of encouraging making better items, adds a sense of consequence to each of the player's actions, and just paces the game better in general. 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 forces them to replay the game multiple times. This leads to one part of the fanbase loving the time-limited games and considering them their favorites, while another part refuses to even touch them.
Koei Tecmo's decision to stop dubbing the games altogether has also split the fanbase. Some fans who were fond of the English voices are heavily disappointed that 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 prefers the Japanese voices over the English voices anyways (the later statement was confirmed by a PR manager regarding why they stopped dubbing the games altogether).
Captain Obvious Reveal: Some games don't immediately make it clear that Pamela is actually a Cute Ghost Girl, and treat it as if it was a surprise once it gets revealed. But if you've already seen her in another game, you'll probably see it coming from a mile away.
Diagnosed by the Audience: Some fans interpret Tao from the Secret series as autistic due to his social awkwardness, preference for reading over social interaction, and tendency to absolutely geek out whenever his "special interest" (ancient ruins) is brought up.
Ensemble Dark Horse: In a franchise as big as this one, you'd expect this to happen a few times, and it certainly has.
Veola from Atelier Iris 1. There are suspicions that said game might have started life as Atelier Veola and then gotten development shifted partway through into what went to print. The result, though, is that this one shopkeeper, who doesn't seem all that important initially, has as much story content tied to her as the main plot, and many find it more engaging than the actual plot of AI 1. A lot of people don't play the game for Klein or Lita, they play it for Veola, and she's far and away the most popular AI 1 character both in Japan and overseas.
As popular as Veola is, though, the absolute queen of Atelier Darkhorses is, without a doubt, Helmina/Hermina of the original series. Introduced as a kind of pseudo-villain in Atelier Elie, she was so well-written, so engaging, so interesting and so casually evil (she even comes close to killing Elie with a narcotic potion that could stop her heart, and she applies the antidote just in time for Elie to not die; she does this out of curiosity, to test the poison's efficaciousness, and is perfectly confident that the antidote will stop Elie from dying, which Elie has mixed feelings about) that the Japanese fanbase fell in love with her immediately. Her portrayal in supplementary materials, such as various spinoff manga, only cemented her popularity further. She became so popular that she (and Ingrid, from Atelier Marie) were put into Atelier Lilie as the Kid Sidekicks to the heroine of that game, and the popularity of the more innocent Helmina portrayed here compelled Gust to release Hermina & Culus, a product that is essentially an expansion to Lilie and finally features Helmina in a starring role (and portrays what would become Helmina's Start of Darkness... sort of). 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 Viorate Gust began to create continuities separate from the original "Salburg" one. Helmina still held the record for consecutive product appearances, however, all due to fan demand, before just barely being edged out by Pamela Ibis thanks to Mana Khemia 2.
Flay Gunnar (AKA "Gunnar Damm") of Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis certainly qualifies as well. People identified with him quite a bit more than with the main heroes of the first game, and the response to him in both Japan and America was so overwhelmingly positive that he got a spot in Mana Khemia 2 almost by force.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: 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 how long the Mana Khemia page is, and take a guess at which game in the series was among the first to get a dedicated character page on TVT (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 Bugs getting fixed for us, though.)
I Knew It!: Ever since the release of Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings without an English dub, many fans speculated that Koei Tecmo wanted to save money and in the long run and speed up the North American releases by stop dubbing the games altogether since the Atelier series is very niche as a franchise. This is somewhat proven correct, although they cited it's mainly because of the fanbase preferences of the Japanese voices.
I Am Not Shazam: Unlike the other games in the series, "Atelier Elkrone" does not refer to the protagonist. Elkrone is the name of the town. The protagonist's name is Meriela.
It's Easy, So It Sucks!: The Ryza games in general are criticized by long-time fans due to their simplified combat and alchemy. Even on Very Hard difficulty, enemies don't have much health, and if you have some familiarity with the Item Crafting mechanics, it doesn't take much effort to make gear that can carry you all the way to the final boss. The gem system, which lets you duplicate and rebuild items, is also easily exploitable: there are ways to earn unlimited gems very quickly in all three games, making alchemy even easier. However, newcomers tend to be more accepting of this, with the Ryza games being a very popular entry point into the series.
Memetic Mutation: 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.ExplanationThe meme originates from the Australian ratings board giving the Updated Re-release 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, as by the standards of most people or even ratings organizations, the title contains nothing remotely justifying that descriptor; in Japan, it even got a CERO A rating (the "all-ages" rating).
One True Pairing: 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 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).
Porting Disaster: Not a disaster on the Dreamcast port of Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg itself, but with the extras that came with the GD-ROM as typical with Dreamcast releases. First-print copies of the game came laced with the Kriz computer virus in the form of an infected screensaver that screwed with certain computer BIOSes and corrupted files on hard drives and network shares. Naturally, the publisher had to issue an apology and a product recall with affected copies returned in exchange for an amended GD-ROM.
Sequelitis: Even the most die-hard Gust fanboy has to admit that, with no less than one release every year for a decades-long stretch, 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 Simulation Game 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 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. The series overall might have been in trouble at that point, had it not been for one girl and her fashion sense.
Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: In theory, you're supposed to balance alchemy, exploration, and combat. In the games where you don't have a time limit, however, it's easy to get absorbed into the alchemy mechanics and end up spending way too long creating the perfect item, chaining and looping syntheses into each other to bump up your quality and get the best traits onto one item. The Mysterious series, where item crafting involves fitting tiles on a grid like a Puzzle Game, can be especially fun yet time-consuming.
Squick: Due to the nature of the alchemy system in some games (especially the Arland set), it's possible to put some very strange things into your food items. Rorona is capable of turning nearly anything into a pie... including stuff like fertilizer. Ayesha can put actual cow droppings into some of her stuff, too.
Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Given how long the series has run it can be expected that the series has had some ups and downs, but there have been a few real leaps in quality.
The first was between the first two games, Marie and Elie. Marie was a very simple game produced on a tiny budget, and it showed in how relatively simple and light the content was. Elie was produced after the money from Marie rolled in, and not only features a ton of engine improvements but features approximately three to four times the story content of the previous game, making it, for a good long while, the fan favorite of the series in Japan (and still a favorite of very old-school fans even today).
Another was Judie to Viorate: 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); Viorate 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 PS2 Atelier Game" alongside Mana Khemia.
Liese to Annie. Liese was infamously buggy, had a somewhat annoying combat system and didn't really have enough story content, leading to it getting ripped to shreds in Japan. Annie, on the other hand, not only launched bug-free but addressed every single gameplay issue in Liese and features a lot more story content, to the point where it's even receiving positive press in the West.
Finally, many fans claim that the Arland series, Atelier Meruru in particular, is this to most of the franchise. As PS3 games which went nearly full-on 3D while still bringing the old alchemy-centric gameplay back to consoles after half a decade out in the cold, a lot of gamers on both sides of the Pacific took a shine to what the games did. The fact that the Arland games were first time since the PS1 era that the franchise sold six-figures consistently has not hurt this perception.
Surprise Difficulty: These games are full of Moe, cute girls, and Slice of Life plots (except for the PS2 games, which are closer to traditional JRPGs). So you'd expect a laid-back, relaxing experience, right? Wrong. It varies from game to game, but usually, 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 Timed Mission, 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 installments. And once you've beaten the game, don't think the challenge is over, because the Superbosses are Nintendo Hard, and will absolutely annihilate you if your equipment isn't optimal.
Tear Jerker: Friggin' everything in Helmina & Culus. It chronicles how Helmina became friends with the first homunculus she ever made, and how it's doomed to live a short life, and how this traumatic experience turns her into the bitter, jaded, sarcastic, and frankly evil woman we see in Atelier Elie and Atelier Judie. And then they do all sorts of cute things together, oh god. How could it not have content that constantly rips at your heartstrings?
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. That makes it even more scary as that means Helmina is already that twisted even as a child.
The earlier "free-form alchemy" games, as well as their most recent successors, can hit you with this out of nowhere, too, given their non-linear nature. A good example is Gillian in Atelier Annie; for most of the game she's a lazy, happy-go-lucky Lethal Chef who is easy to get along with... and then you find out just why she's so obsessed with herbal health drinks.
What Do You Mean, It's Not for Little Girls?: Most of the games have teenage female protagonists in a Slice of Life story with a moe aesthetic. This contrasts greatly with the gameplay, which is that of a hardcore JRPG with a brutal difficulty curve if you fail to master the deep and complex Item Crafting mechanics, which might leave younger players frustrated, bored and/or confused. And that's not getting into the large amount of Fanservice (of both the male and female characters) in the later games DLC which lets you change the characters into bathing suits, and a Beach or Hot Springs Episode in most games, which should be enough to prove that the target audience is much older than you'd think, and surveys held in Japan revealed most of the players are women.
Woolseyism: There have been a few in the games that have crossed the sea so far; the aforementioned ESRB Joke is practically the Clinton Joke of the Noughties at this point.
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.
◊ (possibly NSFW), but on the other hand, Arland games are nowhere near close to actual H Games, 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 rages on even today.
