Review: Atelier Resleriana Looks Bad on the Switch

When you’re playing a great Atelier series game, things all seem to fall into place. It’s cohesive. There’s fantastic character development, with relationships that naturally develop between characters as they work alongside each other or the protagonist helps allies out. Environments can look good, with gathering spots feeling like natural outcroppings and points. You can easily find a good sense of flow. Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian doesn’t offer much of that, especially after excellent entries like the Ryza trilogy, and it looks both cheap and dated on the Switch. 

Like installments such as Atelier Escha & Logy, Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian features dual protagonists. One is the more action-oriented male avatar Slade, while the other is the alchemist heroine Rias. Both routes result in them meeting up near immediately, and the nature of the story means there isn’t too much divergence in the plot. This isn’t like Atelier Shallie where there’s a big difference in the introductory lead-up. Both of them want to investigate what happened to Hallfien and their family members 12 years ago, while restoring the town to its former glory. However, choosing Rias doesn’t mean less alchemy or shop management and picking Slade doesn’t result in more exploration and combat. In both cases, you’ll be looking into the Legend of Kerschal’s alchemist and Baptism of Ruin. 

I’m not the biggest fan of Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian’s story, mainly due to the pacing feeling off. It is one of those games that “tells” you, rather than “shows” you when things happen. The moment Rias and Slade meet, they’re determined to be behaving similar enough that they seem like they’ve “known each other forever” and there are already hints they are a canon couple and have feelings for each other in a matter of days. We’re told El is a remarkable and intelligent researcher, but it takes time for that to be seen and established. Considering what we know about characters like Ayesha from her past games, I felt it a bit odd for her right away to know about Wanderers and dimensional paths and be our first introduction to it. (It isn’t bad, but her immediately explanation made me go, “Huh.”) In games like the Atelier Ryza trilogy and the more recent Atelier Yumia, there’s some great character and plot development, and I feel like this entry is a step back from that. Especially with existing characters, as I sometimes felt like the developers took advantage of the fact that we, the players, already knew them and didn’t feel the need to add as much narrative backing to develop them here.

Things feeling rather perfunctory and rushed come up with the gameplay loop as well. I came away with the distinct impression that there was too little focus on each one, leading to none feeling really satisfying. When you unlock a Dimensional Path, you go into a dungeon with multiple floors and can end up winding a new location in Lantarna. There are some progression elements tied to characters, such as Rias swinging with a sort of grappling hook over gaps or to a higher ledge or Slade busting through a wall. They feel more gimmicky than the natural exploration elements of Ryza climbing, crawling through gaps, and swimming or Yumia shooting a gun to drop a ladder. The scattering and gathering of materials around this area makes them feel haphazard too. While in other games, finding items feels like collecting them in natural environments, here there are these flashing, incredibly obvious outcroppings. In Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian on the Switch, the lighting effects and textures used are so bad that it makes it seem like even more egregious and obvious “drops” that ruin any sense of immersion. When Rias or Slade move around an area, the execution and lighting made me feel like it looked more like they were running slightly above the ground. Not to mention when it suddenly “transforms” from day to night, there’s no gradual change. There’s an abrupt animation that goes from full-on daytime to sudden pitch-black evening. 

Screenshots by Siliconera

Speaking of lighting and texture, every location in Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian on the Switch looks bad and dated. The only exceptions are a few indoor spaces such as the shop in Hallfien and atelier. Textures don’t look right and are blurry. Lighting is weird, so shadows don’t fall naturally or where you’d expect. Character models look incredibly blurry for allies, NPCs, and enemies, and they move awkwardly as well. Nothing looks fluid. I played on a Switch OLED primarily in handheld mode, and it did not look like 720p. Atelier Ryza and even Yumia looked better and clearer.

While in the field, it’s possible to happen upon enemies. This leads to turn-based battles. Three allies can be in the party, with three in the rear row. A timeline on the left shows who will attack and when, with possible advantageous effects around to be “stolen” away from enemies by strategically attacking in such a way that action order shifts so an ally gets it instead. It’s also possible, with larger enemies, to break them in such a way that combo attacks can be executed. While I did prefer combat systems from Atelier Ryza and Yumia, this isn’t bad. It can feel a bit simplistic at times, again. Also, I do suspect the fights would be speedier and combos would be more impressive on a platform other than the Switch.

Screenshots by Siliconera

However, yet again, I did experience issues in Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian on the Switch with these fights. One involved enemies not reacting with an animation after being hit immediately, so there’s this odd pause before the clip plays that leads into the fight. Another seemed like an odd glitch where, when I only had access to Rias, Slade, and Raze and put all three in the front row to be active, I might enter a fight and find only one of them was there and the other two somehow got relegated to the back. The first two times this happened, it was in the initial ruins and first dimensional path. I swapped characters for actions, and then when I went into a fight only that active person was in the front row. I needed to go into the menu after the fact to put people back in the right positions. As an aside, the menu for Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian on the Switch has its own issues, with there being a delay as you move between tabs after bringing up the main menu. 

The alchemy and shop management systems also feel rather rudimentary compared to past games. In games like Atelier Ryza, it feels like there’s a lot of thought that goes into it and like we needed to consider placement of materials. This goes for many other mainline installments. Here, there’s a domino effect. Every ingredient has a consists of colors on either side, and you match each end to another of the same color for optimization purposes when you complete a synthesis. You can also add extra items for effects. It is fine, but I feel like it involves lower effort than in the past. Likewise, when placing things in the shop, you are encouraged to use that same domino effect element to boost sales. You also set the three fairies found on a first Dimension Path excursion as managing different areas. So it isn’t as involved as a true shopkeeping simulation like, say, Recettear. The town development is similarly bland. It’s okay and does offer an excuse to keep exploring and experimenting, since you get new synthesis recipes and progress as a result, but I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I did managing my Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma villages. It is good to get item level buffs, quests, and shops as things rank up, and I liked seeing visitors from past games, but I wish there’d been more to it.

Screenshot by Siliconera

Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian feels like a simpler, stripped back take on the series and looks bad on the Switch. It might be more tolerable and entertaining on the PS5 or PC? I didn’t feel the same connections to characters, even though I loved some of them in other games. It feels especially cheap after going through more robust entries like Atelier Ryza 3 and Atelier Yumia. If you really love the series, you might still enjoy it due to the cameos, combat, or its relatively simple nature, but I strongly recommend avoiding the Switch release. 

Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian will come to the Switch, PS5, and PC on September 26, 2025.

The post Review: Atelier Resleriana Looks Bad on the Switch appeared first on Siliconera.