Atelier Annie: Alchemists of Sera Island
The game was released in Japan on March 12, 2009 and in North America on October 27, 2009. It is the first to be released in North America to have the gameplay and structure of the "main" Atelier series, having less emphasis on RPG elements and more focus on item creation and resource management. Plot. Annie was just a simple girl who lived in a town located within the mainland. However, all she did was sleep and fantasize about becoming rich and famous someday by marrying up. Worried about their daughter, her parents consulted  Annie's grandfather, a great alchemist, for advice on what to do. After a moment of thought, he decides to send her to Sera Island to take part in a large resort project in order to teach her to overcome her laziness. Thus, in the middle of the night, his homunculi steal Annie away to Sera Island; across land, across river, and across sea. She gets a rude awakening in the form of a fierce whack to the head and Annie wakes up to meet Pepe, a fairy who gives her a letter from her grandfather and tells her that  he'll be the one to instruct her in alchemy, which will be used to facilitate the resort's construction. A disoriented and confused Annie refuses his request until a mysterious man bursts into the room and drags Annie away to a ceremony celebrating the resort project. Later along in the ceremony, the man introduces himself as Hans, the resort supervisor and in extension, Annie's superior, and she also discovers that one of the possible rewards to winning the competition will be marriage to the Prince of Orde along with the title of Meister. True to her dream of  marrying up, Annie resolves to become a great alchemist and win the competition. Along the way, she learns the value of hard work as she manages her own shop and the resort attractions, meets new friends, rivals, and comrades, and through the course of three years, she soon begins to forge her own dream through her newfound strength and will. Gameplay. Described as role-playing-meets-simulation, the game focuses much more heavily on world building and character interactions rather than battling. The battle system is made of a basic turn-based combat featuring front-and-back positions that not  only affect offense and defense, but change a character's special ability - usually from offensive to supportive, respectively. Enemies have elements assigned to them, which can be exploited through their weaknesses by corresponding colored weapons. Battles occur at random as Annie wanders around gathering materials outside town. Atelier Annie: Alchemists of Sera Island has an item synthesis system included. Annie can mix items to make new creations from the recipes and integredients. As the game progresses, Annie learns how give items a certain trait, such as fire affinity in the form of being dyed red. They can be used for  offense or defense boosts. Annie owns a shop of her own; the Atelier Annie. Rather than having Annie control the shop, the game lets the player choose a character to take care of it, each with a certain way of managing. While characters are handling a shop, they cannot be put in the party. Each resort facility has a popularity rating which rises every time Annie fulfills a request from the head caretaker of the facility and decreases over time if the player neglects it. For Annie's own shop, she must complete quests offered by the Adventurer's  Guild in order to garner attention. A quest usually involves Annie searching for materials, synthesizing a requested item, and turning it in; however, in later quests, the item has specific requirements that the player must fulfill. Every month, an assessment is given on how much each facility had earned in that month. With the money, players can choose to build another resort facility or expand an existing one. The latter cannot take place until the facility has earned enough popularity. The game takes place over a 3-year period. During that time span, there is an assignment given every  6 months. Finishing an assignment can earn the player development fund to build or expand resorts. There are seven endings in total, determined by the player's actions. Reception. The game received "average" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. In Japan, "Famitsu" gave it a score of all four sevens for a total of 28 out of 40, over a month before the game was released there. External links.