Atelier Rorona ~The Alchemist of Arland~ DX

This is a very nice and chill Atelier title! I didn't think I would like it so much before now. It includes my favorite workshop song, with some of the best character designs, and a time limit that isn't so stressful.
The assignments are really easy. Make a bunch of bombs and barrels? It's a pass! Make tons of food with alchemy, or simply buy it all from your childhood friend who is a chef? Pass! Hunt down eagles at the forest? Another pass!
Once you complete each assignment, you can take the rest of the remaining days to do whatever you want. It's possible to get full stars right away, and then do whatever else for nearly three whole months. That's a lot of time. And it's okay if you can't get it all done straight away! There is a new game plus feature that carries over all of your money and equipment, as long as you have it equipped. No problem with only doing one playthrough either. It's not necessary to get all of the endings unless you're trying to 100% the game. YouTube has everything available if you want to know what happened in every ending. They are all pretty short.
There are two festivals that occur at the end of the first two years out of three. We have the cabbage picking festival, and the martial contest where you may fight against one of your friends. These are mostly fun for the character interactions at the end.
We have a frying pan man (uses frying pan as a weapon) and a girl with a gun and tons of bodyguards that made me laugh the first time I saw them. I guess she needs all the protection she can get, because she's the rich kid! One that you really don't want to mess with.
Lots of pie, lots of friends, lots of bombs, lots of small areas with materials worth collecting for your synthesis obviously. And I must say, both the English and Japanese voice-overs for this game are really nice. I played on English most of the time, but tried the latter for a little bit on my third playthrough and liked it. I think I preferred the shopkeepers being silent whenever you went to pick up something, though. It's only like that in the dub because not absolutely everything is voiced.
It can end up not being as chill of an experience if you want to complete everything, which is what I did. I enjoyed most of it, though! It took a long time to figure out how to craft good weapons and equipment, and to transfer all of the desired traits. It was a good way of learning to understand the alchemy system better in the Atelier series. It also helps that you have such a nice song running in the workshop while you're crafting all of those sweet items.
Now I'd like to talk about the characters:
I have to say that I'm surprised I like more characters in this game than I thought I would. That's because I was mostly expecting everyone to be a horrible person who didn't treat the main character right. And a lot of that does happen for sure, but there are definitely some kind people. My favorites are Sterk and Cordelia. Even though Cordelia still isn't the nicest at times, I can see that she cares about her best friend, who is the main character. She doesn't want Rorona to get taken advantage of, and I like how she looks out for her. And then we have Sterk, who is probably the nicest person to her overall. Very respectful knight for the most part.
There is one thing that I would probably warn anyone I might recommend this game to, and that would be the "humor" that they were easily able to get away with back when they released this game in 2009. We have this really weird alchemy teacher who is often making questionable comments about her teenage student. There are also other things that are wrong with this particular teacher that isn't just about the creepy stuff. You'll find out more about that if you play the game.
That's problem number one with the writing. The worst part is that there's a scene where a drunk woman touches the main character inappropriately, while she's begging for her to get off of her and stop, while another person watches and doesn't do anything to help. Even though they were fully capable of stopping the situation from escalating. What a great friend! (NO)
Normally, this would be a dealbreaker when I'm looking for a game series to get into. But I already was an Atelier fan before discovering this, and I really want to play through the whole series, so I quickly learned to deal with it. After every scene, you really aren't surprised anymore by the time the next one rolls around. It's helping me build a tolerance at least.
There are still some funny moments that made me laugh a little bit. I think there's a line between humor and the not so funny type of humor that they seemed to think people were going to enjoy. I do know that the later games don't have much of that at all, so that is something to look forward to.
Other than that, the whole experience has been a fun one! I really like the music in some of the areas, and of course I already mentioned the workshop song. There is also the opening scene, which is something I love about the older Atelier titles. I stay to watch them almost every time.
I'm surprised by the amount of hours I ended up spending on Atelier Rorona alone. I'm just starting Totori after having played this one for 23 days straight. I'm excited to play through the whole trilogy, and the fourth game as well! That isn't really part of the trilogy, so I'll count it as a separate game. I would love for it continue, though. It may have not sold as well as the new generation Atelier, but I know that there are a lot of loyal fans who would love to see the continuance of Lulua. Okayy, I'm getting off topic there. This is a review about Rorona, not the later titles.
Speaking of later titles, there is an additional story where you get to play as the protagonists from the next two games! It's probably the hardest part that you'll spend the most time on if you want to challenge the secret bosses. It's pretty cool, though!
That's all I have to say about Rorona, I think. Another Atelier that was fully worth the time, and a gameplay loop that I thought was enjoyable.

A game that somehow managed to balance time management, crafting, dating sim style relationship management, JRPG battles and dungeon crawling into one wonderful package. A simple but compelling story that is uplifted by a cast of lovable, well realized and funny characters, each one being given their own time and stages to shine throughout the story.

Illya isekai'd to Arland!? (Rorona has the same voice actor as Illya!)
It's such a cozy slice-of-life game!
The gameplay and Alchemy was fun!
You will be completing assignments before the deadline to ensure your Atelier is not closed down.
The time limit is not too hard as long as you know what you are doing.
You will encounter many great characters throughout your adventure.
There are so many cute and funny moments with Rorona!

Works great on steamdeck!
As much as it has a time limit I feel like as a JRPG it respects my time more

nothing will ever compare to the feeling of lying in bed with this game for nineteen hours straight and knowing i'll never feel that way again is honestly quite devastating

Coming off the Dusk trilogy, I had heard this one was difficult and strict with its time limits. After playing it for myself I don't agree, I found it easy to 10-star most main missions, and the only hard challenges are certain optional bosses, but it should be no problem for most people to get a good ending.
This game is considerably simpler and shorter than the Dusk games. I do enjoy the bingo-board style of rewards for doing side objectives (later reused in Escha and Logy), which makes non-essential activities feel more engaging than they would otherwise.

12/10- cringe rating system everyone uses now days

This game is fun slice of life and has a lot of heart. My only complaint was the near stress inducing timer