Hi.  I've been bits of pieces of music from the Atelier series here and there mixed into spotify playlists.  I was wondering if anybody knows a good jumping on place soundtrack wise?

Cheers,

David

Honestly, and I say this with love for the series, it's hard to find a bad Atelier OST. That said, it's hard to find one that will blow you away. They all have their great themes (town, shop and battle themes mostly) and they all have their obnoxious filler. They are frighteningly consistent throughout. Even the offshoots (Atelier Lise, Atelier Annie) are pretty good. Rorona is probably the worst one I've come across and even that has some decent tunes on the second disc.

I got in through the three main Atelier Iris soundtracks and I have a special liking for the early PS1 entries (Marie, Lilie, Viorate...If I remember correctly, I have Judie ranked a bit lesser than those three). I would say the first Atelier Iris soundtrack and Atelier Marie would be ideal starting points. Of the newer ones (newer being a relative term, of course), I would recommend Atelier Escha and Logy first.

Lastly, if you don't like lighthearted music, forget it. Just skip this whole series.

If you're a masochist you can try and find https://vgmdb.net/album/50787

Hahaha I was actually going to post the exact same thing jb did!

Hi.  Thanks for the feedback.  I do enjoy light hearted music up to a point - big fan of Natsume's Book of Friends, Mushishi and few others.  I'm going to try and give Atelier Escha and Logy a go.  As for the 44 cd box set,  I did find it but don't have the 1200 USD to drop on something I'm not 100% sold on.  But if people are looking for it they can find it here: https://solarisjapan.com/products/gust- … ary-cd-box.

Cheers,

David

Really? I feel like E&L is too many cooks in the kitchen and doesn't have a very consistent feel to it. If I had to pick a Dusk trilogy album it would be Shallie.

Recommendations that give a good blend:
Atelier Sophie
Atelier Iris 1
Atelier Shallie
Atelier Rorona

Like Goldfish said there are no real bad albums but you may have to feel out which band of composers you prefer as the scoring has changed hands multiple times over the years. I will say it took me awhile to get used to Nakagawa being gone but we got a great replacement in Asano. Nakagawa started to fall into the pattern Kenji Ito has where it all sounds the same.

Probably should go the try before you buy route through Youtube.

My thing was I ended up bingeing hard on the series' soundtracks (particular the post-Atelier Iris: Grand Fantasm ones) in a short amount of time, so maybe I was looking for stuff to stand out more, versus soundtrack consistency. E&L scratched that itch, although it did have a decent amount of throw-away tracks. And probably why we differ on Rorona. But again, personal bias, I didn't feel nearly as attached to the ones that were post-Grand Fantasm overall, E&L included.

Oddly enough, you recommended one that I totally missed (Sophie). And both Firis and Lydie/Suelle have come out since I last looked. So...off I go!

Thanks for all the advice.  I listened to Atelier Shallie and really enjoyed the majority of it.  I listened to Escha & Logy and enjoyed some of it but found that it was all over the place musically.  I was read that it was part two in the Dusk series but didn't find to much musical continuity between games.  There was some but not very much.  I have yet to listen to the first Dusk soundtrack.  As I said I'm not familiar with the series, so maybe musical continuity is not a thing with this series. 

When I have time I'm going to look at some of the other titles you fine folks suggested.  I heard that there is a new  game coming west on the switch.  Do I need to play the others in the series before like Xenosaga, or is each game standalone like Final Fantasy?

Cheers,

David

So far the trend of the newer games has been to come in trilogies (Iris, Arland, Dusk, Mysterious/Fushigi). They usually share common NPCs, worlds, and sometimes characters from the previous games of their respective trilogy. You can enjoy them as completely separate RPGs but you get even more appreciation when you play previous games in the trilogy.

Which new one are you referring to?

Hi.  Thanks for the info.  I'm referring to newly announced Atelier Lulua: The Scion of Arland.

Cheers,

David