Atelier Meruru

I have been a fan of Gust's Atelier series for a long time, so it was only natural for me to shell out my hard earned money for the limited edition of Atelier Meruru.

Since I just started playing I won't review the game (plus, there are already a few reviews of the game online) but I will review the packaging for those who have decided to buy the game but are on the fence regarding limited or standard editions.

The limited edition comes in a nice looking artbox featuring artwork of all three alchemical heroines (Rorona, Totori and Meruru) from the Arland trilogy.  The goodies inside are a soundtrack, and artbook and a T-shirt.

The soundtrack CD has 25 tracks of original music, clocking in at 67 minutes.  Basically, if you liked music from the other two Arland games you'll like the music in Meruru.  The first few tracks are vocal tracks, most of which are peppy J-pop songs, but the music really shines in the instrumental tracks of the game.  Those are often cute and whimsical and are guaranteed to put the listener in a better mood.  "Everyday Me" is my favorite track.  The following is the song from the opening scene.

As for the artbook, it is rather ho-hum.  This is not to say that the art in AM is lackluster; far from it!  However the artbook is a bit on the small side (slightly larger than a CD case) and only has character art.  If the book had included the still scenes or some background art it would be a vast improvement.  As it is, I am a bit disappointed.

Now for the last item: the T-shirt!  It is a black size large shirt with a picture of a barrel on it, with the word "Barrel!" written underneath.  As an obvious nod to the previous Atelier games it made me smile a little, but as an extra it really doesn't add to the collection.  I would have preferred a poster (like the one included with the limited edition of Totori) to a T-shirt, but that's just me.  Oh!  And the shirt is impossible to get back in the box.  *grumble*

In summary, I am happy that I got the limited edition, but would only recommend it to die-hard fans of the series.  The only goodie that really stands out as a "must have" is the soundtrack.  So if you are unsure which edition to get and soundtracks aren't your thing, just get the standard edition.

Thanks, NISA, for localizing the entire trilogy!