I’m rarely one to replay a game, so with how often new entries in the Atelier series come out, I usually only manage a single playthrough before it’s time to move on to the next. I’ll happily make an exception to that trend for the Atelier Ryza trilogy, though. I’m a huge fan of Ryza as an Atelier protagonist, and getting to watch her grow and mature across a full trilogy was a beautiful shake up to the usual Atelier formula of new protagonists in each game. I also loved what this trilogy did with combat, turning it into a unique hybrid of turn-based battles and fast-paced real time action. Needless to say, I was beyond excited to hop into the new Atelier Ryza Secret Trilogy Deluxe Pack re-release.
These aren’t big remasters or major makeovers for the original games – those games being Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout, Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy, and Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key. Instead, they’re re-releases that pack in all of the paid, free, and time-exclusive DLC originally released for each title. There’s also a mix of new content in each game, ranging from new playable characters to bonus story scenarios, quality-of-life improvements, and even a new standalone battle-simulator mode.
These “DX” repackagings have been a staple of the Atelier franchise for a while now. They usually came with the excitement of bringing slightly inaccessible older entries to more current or portable platforms, like when the Arland and Dusk trilogies from the PlayStation 3 were brought to PS Vita, or when those and the more modern PlayStation 4 Mystery trilogy were ported to the Nintendo Switch and PC. The Atelier Ryza Secret Trilogy Deluxe Pack is slightly less exciting in that regard. These games have already been available across PC, PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch, but their older version are being delisted for these new editions, and they are debuting on the Nintendo Switch 2.
As someone coming into each of these for a second playthrough, Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout DX was the one I was most excited to dig into – almost entirely because of the bonus playable characters in this entry. The DX re-release lets you add Agatha Harmon, Kilo Shiness, and Romy Vogel to your party, and they’re all incredibly charming supporting NPCs from the main story. I’ve been a fan of Agatha and Romy for ages, specifically. Agatha’s whole thing of being a stern woman with a cool purple outfit and a mean face hits a major weak spot for me, and Romy is a hilarious shopkeeper NPC who only cares about profit – equally as deranged yet charming as Anna from the Fire Emblem series. Each of them have unique animations and special attacks that suit their personalities and fighting styles (or lack of fighting style, in Romy’s case) so perfectly. While I didn’t stick it through for an entire playthrough of the main campaign with them, I did spend some time messing around with them in my party for the new bonus stories. The Kilo & Bos story fills in a gap from the main story in a really satisfying and natural way. Meanwhile, the Ryza-led epilogue story is nice for getting some more time with her, but ultimately feels more like a filler episode than anything truly important.
Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy DX adds just two bonus playable characters, but they’re not nearly as exciting as the ones for the first game. Empel Vollmer and Lila Decyrus make their playable debut in this DX edition of the second game, and I’m a big fan of both characters. They were already fully playable party members in the first game, though, so their inclusion here feels a bit more basic by comparison, though the bonus story is more exciting. This sees you playing entirely as Lila as her and Empel explore a new mysterious locale related to their research into the Underworld. It’s a fun adventure, and getting an extended story with an entirely different protagonist to follow for this entry is a nice change-up.
This edition of the game also adds some quality-of-life improvements to exploration via a new companion character, Fi – a floating fairy who will expand your Sensor Map and provide bonus healing after battles. They were helpful features for making another playthrough go by smoothly, but didn’t break the balance of the game in any way.
Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key DX adds three new playable characters as well. Two of them are also returners from the previous game – Clifford Diswell and Serri Glaus – and the third is Kilo once again, though she already played a big role in this game as a supporting story character. Seeing her made playable here is pretty exciting, but it’s also really fun to compare her appearance and attack abilities from the first game’s DX release to how she is here at the end of the trilogy. Clifford & Serri get a bonus story in this release focused on their adventures outside of the main story, but they aren’t really as exciting to be the focus of an entire chapter compared to Empel and Lila. It’s still a fun change of pace, but they probably aren’t the characters I would have chosen to do a dedicated bonus story for.
Finally, all three games in the Atelier Ryza Secret Trilogy Deluxe Pack feature a new Custom Combat mode that’s basically a big combat sandbox. Pick any enemies to fight, adjust their levels, choose your party, and even customise modifiers to make the battle harder or easier. It’s a fun little excuse to check out the new playable characters for a bit, but my problem is that it’s basically just a combat-only distraction. There’s no ties to the main story or progression mechanics or unlockables, so this isn’t really something worth spending a lot of time in when you can find the same battles in the main game and have your victories actually mean something.
Overall, these new DX editions of the trilogy aren’t mind-blowing reinventions of these games, but they are a really convenient repackaging that is hands down the best way to experience each entry. The loads of bundled-in DLC are nice, and the bonus characters and stories are great for returning players sucked into replaying them, but at the end of the day each of these games is still just as fun and memorable of a JRPG as they were when they originally came out.
