Intro

Iris and Edge are out on a quest where they have to find some plants. After looking for a while they find the plants, only to be surrounded by monsters, fighting their way trough the first wave they are immediatly attacked by a second wave.

Luckily for them their time is up, so they are teleported to safety. Continuing to do quests for their Guild they stumble upon one quest where there´s a mystical glow and upon approaching the glow a monster appears, defeating it Iris touches the glow and faints, in her mind she hears a voice that calls out to her.

The fragment they found was one of eight parts of the mystical tome that when assembled can grant the wielder any wish.

Iris and Edge are up to the task of finding the rest of the fragments and helping everyone around them.

Characters

Edge: Our typical hero, wielding a sword, liking to fix mechanical things and having not a single clue when it comes to females. And has trouble with expressing feelings as he tends to appear tough on the outside but he is actually really caring on the inside, espacially when it comes to Iris.

Iris: Our typical heroine, comming from an alchemy line of great alchemists she´s an alchemist in training, wanting to prove to the world that alchemy is something good. She has a heirloom which is a book that she can´t open.

From what I see she´s also very found of Edge, since they are childhood friends…

Nell: The busy cutelooking sidekick, well, she isn´t really a sidekick but she tends to act like one. She´s got large breasts, a kinda revealing costume and not to bright but she´s got her feelings at the right spot.

Along with these three who are the main characters we will find dwarves, elfes and Mana wanting help from Iris, Edge and Nell, with delivering love letters or making a cake.

Graphics

Sweet 2d made graphics that has come to be the trademark of any Gust game, totally great graphics, nice enviroments and everything is glorious 2d without being hard on the eye. As with Ar Tonelico the only setback is that some routes are really hard to spot.

Otherwise great.

Music

Best soundtrack in any Gust game yet(except for Ar Tonelico), op theme Schwazweiss is great. Giving even more emotion to the characters than ever.

Gameplay

Maybe Atelier Iris 3 worst subject. If I counted right there are 7 areas which you visit, revisit and revisit again throughout the whole game. Which is boring.

The battles also tend to become boring after a while, you see the enemies onscreen and if you´re strong enough you can kill them with an actioncommand where Edge swings his sword down.

But the battles themself are like a mix of the two earlier AI games with a new add on: Burst mode in which the enemy get´s dumbfounded and all hits are critical, atleast the first time you attack them.
To be able to use special moves you need APs which you create by striking the enemy or being hit. When you have enough AP then you can unleash special attacks.

And since you only have three characters to play with this can get very irritating, they have tried to make it more intresting by giving Edge and Nell the ability to change their weapon and their apperance when wearing this weapon. But after getting these and using them you stick to one of the weapons and you´re back to square one.

You have to accept quests from the guildboard at one place in town, where it can be killing a monster or finding some lunch. When you succeed at these quests you get quest points, after getting a certain amount of them you get a “rank up” and start a special mission which brings the chapter to an end. Rince and repeat for the whole game…

Grade

8/10 – the graphic is nice, the music as well, but only having 3 characters and 7 places to go it tends to get boring after a while. That along with the battles are to damn easy well it isn´t fun to play when you don´t know where to go. When I´m writing this I have one quest where I have to walk all over all areas, and I have only one area left and I´ve been everywhere in it, but the game tells me I haven´t. And I don´t have a clue where to go.
If you liked the earlier AI games or Ar Tonelico I can really recomend this game, but otherwise I think you´ll dislike it. I love the characters and all, but it´s the gameplay that get´s boring after a while.