NIS America has just released Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland in North America and, while it has been six years since the first Atelier adventure was released outside of Japan, the series still is a mystery and unknown force to many gamers. If you haven’t seen it yet, you’re missing out on a rather unique JRPG and life sim experience. The Atelier line of games focus on creation, rather than destruction, and typically revolve around day to day life and activities instead of some grand, save the world scheme. They’re also quite accessible, so if you find yourself interested after learning more about this line after reading, you’ll have no problem leaping in to Atelier Totori, Atelier Rorona or Atelier Annie…

After I first popped this game into my PSP, I played it for about two hours and decided that I was done with it. The major vice that turned me off from continuing this game was the gluttony of loading screens that accompanied early every battle and setting change. The loading screens may feature original artwork of the characters but having to look at them every 5 minutes is a bit too much. Also, it seemed as though one character in my party was constantly ganged up on by enemies causing me to lose my advantage in battles.

I’m not sure what changed but I decided to give this game a second chance and, to my surprise, I haven’t been able to put the darned thing down…