is a franchise of role-playing video games developed by Gust Corporation since 1997, primarily for the PlayStation line of consoles (PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4); portable versions for the Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Vita and WonderSwan Color have also been made. Two of the games in the series were ported to the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast.
The series has been primarily released in Japan, though recent titles have been localized for other markets. The franchise centers around the concept of an atelier specialising in alchemy; the gameplay involves finding, collecting, and combining items in recipes to create better items, which allows the player to advance further in the game. A few manga and two anime adaptations of titles from the series have been created so far. As of December 2020, the series has sold more than 5 million units in total.
Common elements
Alchemy is the distinguishing theme of the Atelier series. Players control the game's character, roaming the game world to collect objects to use in alchemy recipes to create new objects, including cooking ingredients, recovery items, tools, weapons, armor, and accessories. Synthesized objects are commonly required in order to create more powerful or potent objects through alchemy. Many of the games feature a method of transferring properties of one item from the recipe to the synthesized item. Recipes also often allow the substitution of items, which can either lend better properties to the final synthesized item, or can lead to the character thinking of a completely new recipe. The games generally feature a turn-based combat system, in which the items made through alchemy come into play, either to boost the character's abilities, or for offensive, defensive, or support items.
The games' stories are typically light-hearted and humorous, often deriving conflict from a source other than an antagonist and the player ends up with a large group of characters to explore the world with. In most games of the series, the player has a limited in-game time to accomplish one or more main objectives and actions like gathering items, traveling or synthesizing spend a portion of that time. Failure to accomplish the game's main tasks in time may cause the game to end abruptly or lead to a bad end, though these time limits tend to be rather lenient. The first entry in the "Mysterious" Atelier series Atelier Sophie does away with the time limit system, but the second entry Atelier Firis has a time limit for completing the game's first story objective, after which players can play at their leisure. There is only a timed mission for the third entry, Atelier Lydie & Suelle but the time limit system was completely removed from following installments of the series.
Games
There have been 24 main games in the Atelier franchise which are subdivided into seven sub-series. There are three games in the Salburg series, two games in Gramnad series, three games in the Iris series, two games in the Mana-Khemia series, four games in the Arland series, three games in the Dusk series, four games in the Mysterious series, and three games in the Secret series.
Side games
In addition to the main games, several side games have been released.
Remakes and ports
Several of the series' titles were remade or ported, mostly for portable devices.
A Gust's official spelling is Viorate, as seen on the manga adaptation's and the original soundtrack's cover.