An experience between easy-going vibes and serious business (read: gameplay). It's interesting.

  - I didn't quite understand how "Quality" works until like half game. And by that I meant that I didn't even notice "Quality" was a trait.
  Knowing which material has special properties at a glance, and having them sorted automatically would have been a nice QoL feature at times. Like, with an icon next to a material's name, and having them automatically at the top of the list.

  - Honestly nice for a management game. Good amount of complexity while not overwhelming.
  The trait-enhancing (Glowing 1 + Glowing 2) feels out of place as it's utilized only once at the very start... It's a minor nitpick though.

   - Loving the paper notes-like presentation! The background and the custom sprites are lovely too.

  - The requests and dialogues are so interesting. so Gensokyo-like. Wanna kick Chimata in the butt though lol - Marisa does not deserve the over-exploitation. :(  (Just to be clear, I'm not deducing points for making a corporate-like antagonist out of Chimata)
  My favorite part is Koishi's. I feel like she may have misunderstood something, but I like to think it's possible that it's not the case.

 - Game's made with save-scumming in mind, huh?
  It also handwaves A LOT at the player with the list of *potential future items* in the recipe menu. Even Mizuchi explicitly does that, which is so funny. All the information handed to the player is usefuln't is such a funny way!

Overall pretty good once I got a bit familiar with the interface, which happened quick enough.

Mood.

I have never played any of the Atelier games this is based off of, so I am coming in for a fresh experience. The game is a time and material management simulator. The primary way to gain efficiency is with batches that combine effects and contract construction time. The trouble is, in order to complete the game you need to craft batches of items with certain properties or in certain quantities before you know you need them. The only way to do that is to restart or save scum. The developer suggests the save scumming route, so that is what I did. I also was able to guess a couple of middle tier ingredients with certain properties I would need later, avoiding a couple of otherwise forced save loads. I guess this kind of gameplay appeals to some, but to me it feels really wrong when save scumming is a mechanic and not the crutch it usually is.

 If that kind of gameplay is what a player wants, this game delivers it well. The music is lively and sets a nice mood. The character portraits are imports, but serve well. The UI is clean and well presented, which is great as its what you will be primarily interacting with. There are a few minor trouble spots. The dates follow a Japanese format, which fits the setting but is a bit disorienting in an otherwise English game. The buttons to change quantity are nearly on top of the button to confirm a synthesize. I misclicked one for the other about 2 dozen times over my playthrough. And it would be really appreciated if materials with a special property showed that in the list rather than needing to mouse through them to see which have what. Don't let these quibbles fool you though, the rest of the UI is quite nice and I saw no bugs or typos.

There is some serious social commentary here, but it isn't actually related to pride month. Let's just say I don't think this interpretation of Chimata is going to make many friends.