Picked up Atelier Totori again. I was playing it just before the start of this academic year, but I only made it a couple of hours in before real life got in the way. Decided just to start from scratch again. Sat down intending to play for a half hour or so, and ended up playing for about seven on the trot. :'D Really addictive. I'm not quite as fond of it as I am the first Mana Khemia just yet, but that one aside it's definitely my favourite Atelier game of the ones I've played. Super cute characters and character designs, lovely music and surprisingly pretty visuals, and a huge bunch of stuff to do, all of it oh-so-fun.

I also think it strikes a really nice balance between the very hands off approach of the earlier Atelier games that sometimes led to them feeling a little directionless, and the strict, almost stressful time limits in Rorona that often got in the way of you just doing your own thing and enjoying the game. There's a large and constantly expanding range of preset tasks to complete, but you're free to pick and choose which ones you want to tackle, with exploration, alchemy, battles and jobs all contributing points toward the same goal. So you can play the game in a wide range of different ways and still be successful, but you rarely feel as if you're just wandering around looking for something to do. I'm not that keen on open-ended sandbox-y games, but I think this one gets the mix just right.

Oh, and the main battle theme is like insanely catchy. Really, really like it.