Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland is the third and final game in the Arland trilogy of the Atelier series. If you have played Atelier Rorona and Atelier Totori, then you'll pick up the mechanics easily in no time at all since it hasn't been revamped, if anything, it's more streamlined than ever. The focus of these games is on alchemy (or crafting, using a common term in other games) with story quests on the side to advance the plot. For the full package, you're expected to explore various places to obtain ingredients and keep alchemizing them in order to gain levels. The more you alchemize, the higher your Alchemy Level and the higher your success rate for harder items. Story quests typically ask you to alchemize various specific items. In addition to alchemizing, battling is the other more significant portion of the game. It utilizes a turn-based battle system; it's simple because it is not the focus of the game. Attack order is shown on the right side. Characters other than Meruru are able to use skills, to make up for this, only Meruru, Totori or Rorona will be able to use the items you craft which is crucial for healing and using attack items.
Battling enemies will level up your characters, known as the Adventurer Level, increasing your stats. However, your equipment is more important than your level and you're expected to frequently alchemize new equipment and items to use in battle. You'll get sucked into a spiral of gaining ingredients with specific traits in order to imbue it into your equipment for passive abilities such as increased speed, inflicting status ailments and additional elemental damage. There is a huge number of playable characters, numbering up to ten. Your party only consists of three characters though and one of them has to be Meruru. Each character has a Friendship Level which is leveled up by fulfilling their requests (aka handing over a specific item) and including them into your party while travelling.
The story is simple and doesn't ever have any higher stakes or get any deeper. Meruru, the princess of Arls, is preparing her kingdom to merge with the Arland Republic in a few years time. Until that point though, she decides to become an Alchemist to develop Arls (which is a small rural part of Arland up until this point) and becomes a pupil of Totori. There is a slightly more emotional plot point towards the end of the game but that is only accessible on New Game Plus which is a shame as otherwise the story is quite flat. Despite that, there are a high number of story events to the point where you will alchemize one item and it will trigger an event. Quick travel to a shop to quickly buy something and you'll trigger another event. It breaks the flow of the gameplay when you just want to focus on creating some items, even worse are the situations where you end up triggering multiple cutscenes back to back.
The game uses cel-shaded graphics and is exceedingly cute. From time to time, you'll get artwork stills which look fantastic. You also get the option of either English or Japanese voiceovers. As a trademark of the series, there are multiple endings that require a minimum of two playthroughs in order to view all and even then, you will need to follow a guide as there are many conditions that are difficult to figure out yourself. Time management is key to the game since you have to juggle between grinding to level up, alchemizing to improve the range of items you can create, raise friendship levels, make money or explore the world (environments are small and enemies roam the field but everything takes time whether it is travelling or picking ingredients). There are various items to make the game play easier such as shorter travel time and bigger bags to hold more items. Plus, the game is very lenient in its deadlines, making it much easier to progress all the way to the end of the game.
Once you get into the rhythm of things, it is an addictive mix as you have various things you'd want to alchemize but need to prioritize as you only have limited time. In Atelier Meruru, you get Development Points for finishing quests in order to build facilities to build your kingdom. These provide bonuses to the game such as passive income, extra experience points and better traits in items when alchemizing. All these little things add up to a deep interconnecting system. Bosses can be tough if you haven't bothered to level up or alchemize equipment. At these points, you will be forced to spend time alchemizing new and better equipment, as well as consumables to use during battle. There is also one boss that is required for an ending who is cheap, where you need to use specific characters for a specific strategy, near perfect traits for your ultimate weapons and specific items.
Bosses can end up being frustrating, annoying and using up a lot of your time to prepare for them. However, once you come into the battle fully prepared and realized you've overkilled your preparation, it's a good feeling. The "True Ending" doesn't feel like a fitting end to the game, let alone the trilogy, since it lacks the same emotional impact that Atelier Totori had. Overall though, Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland is still a great game and the more lenient requirements means it is a less stressful game that you can take at your own pace. It presents more of the same addictive mix of alchemizing, battling and exploration that the series is known for.
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