[Long-er post warning, opinions are (and can only be lol) my own]
Alrighty, Ryza 2 done, and yes, I will in fact now rant about it at length, and HERE.
Never have I succumbed to sunk cost fallacy more than I have for this game. For starters, obviously, and I mean obviously, the game is competently done. It works, it looks and sounds nice, and, in this direct sequel to what is a semi-annualized looong-running series, they sure made an effort to switch things up... but Christ, it is massively flawed, and I'm honestly surprised people don't seem to care that much?
I feel like the game has three main problems: the first (and by far the biggest one), its narrative, and by narrative I mean everything relating to its writing, not just the main story. Second, its exploration, somehow often praised. And third, its tutorials.
When it comes to the narrative department Atelier, at least in my limited experience (I had only played the first Ryza before 2), goes for a moderately slice-of-life approach with a
worldendingclassicjrpgstakes side dish. Unfortunately, I must say, it's hard to parse what exactly the writers wanted to do with 2, or rather, I'd say they tried to do both (once) again but this time failed spectacularly at both.
First thing's first, the plot is non-existent. I'll try to keep it decently spoiler free (not that there's anything to spoil,
and re-reading my post this is basically it), but the gang goes from ruin to ruin
a la Indiana Jones looking for Crystals to drain their energy. At first this happens by pure chance, while later on voluntarily (to "save" Fi). After the 4th/5th ruin they realize they've fucked up and unleashed danger upon their world, they then kill the baddy and save the day. Ah yes, there's a deus ex machina too at the end. Not that anybody cares anyways.
Now, in a way the main climax of the story is Ryza's relationship with Fi, I get it. And that in itself would be fine, I wasn't even particularly annoyed by the mascot-cute pet character as others were! Problems arise though when the story's pacing proves itself to be absolutely abysmal, and as boring and predictable as can be, given that nothing of note happens BETWEEN or TO the characters during said story.
The thing is, it feels like the writers didn't care about the game's actual story, they likely felt that having a lore backdrop play out as a mystery the player pieces together (i.e. having the ruins tell the past of an ancient civilization's fall to demise) was interesting. It is not. Not only it kills the pacing of the exploration, meaning, "now please backtrack and pick up the sparkling thingies as you try to dodge/face the enemy encounters", but the dialogue delivered by said thingies, either in universe by floating ghosts, or by annoyingly having to match in your exploration diary option "A" to "2", C to 8, etc. (putting together an extremely simple puzzle, which is nothing but tedium*), feels needlessly oblique (probably? I stopped caring incredibly quickly) and of NO weight whatsoever. Why on earth would I care about some random ancient civilization that has pretty much no bearing on the ACTUAL characters of the story, please. Not only that, it pretty much has no bearing on the world itself either.
After the second ruin I was kinda done, though I didn't drop the game, as I'd imagine anybody who has any semblance of self-love would do.
Now then, why did I say narrative and not just story? Because not only the main plot is awful and poorly paced, but the slice of life moments/quests of the main cast (add to that a couple of "main" extras) are incredibly average too. All as basic as it gets, with terribly dry dialogue most of the time. The unexpected offender though? They are all voiced! So you can have fun either mashing through the characters' half delivered lines/grunts or sit back and enjoy the insanely mid anime playing out in front of you. As if that wasn't enough I can't help but wonder how on earth do you have so many scenes and STILL manage do the bare minimum for your characters. Did I mention how you could remove two out of the three new playable characters (synonym with main characters here) and the entire narrative department would be unaffected? Yeah, 'cause that's a thing too. Clifford and Serri might as well not have been a part of the game for all they do with them, heck, maybe they could have used their screen time to do more with the rest of the cast.
Oh yeah, one other thing that bothered me quite a bit: why are half of the systems in the game absolutely useless for an average playthrough? And more importantly, why is the game so bad at tutorials? How come I have to pick up on half of the mechanics of the combat system through a YouTube video? Why do I learn of new things (on my own) literally in the final dungeon of the game?
A smaller nuisance to conclude, Gust, could you lovely folks tone down the bloom**?! When it's too much it can feel sooo garish, and amplify rather than diminish the (understandable) cheapness of the game.
Yeah there's more to say, both positive and negative, but the game doesn't really deserve it either way.
Side note: I'm in awe of peeps like @xghost777 who manage to write so many long posts with their impressions and insights, it's kind of a draining activity ahahah, though to be fair useful and rewarding in and of itself
* though maybe it's the epitome of the RPG. Do nothing of note and watch the numbers increase! Marvel at that completion bar filling up!
** I played the game on PS4 so maybe visuals being paired back on Switch might actually help