Video Game / Atelier Lulua: The Scion of Arland

aka: Atelier Lulua

Atelier Lulua: The Scion of Arland is the twentieth mainline entry in Gust Corporation's Atelier series and the third in its "Arland" subseries, released in 2019 for the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Steam. The fourth game in its "Arland" subseries, it was released partially in observance of Rorona's 10th anniversary and is a direct chronological sequel to Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland, taking place two years after its ending. Production lineup-wise, it serves as a gap between the directly preceding Mysterious subseries and the following Ryza games.

A young girl named Lulua (short for "Elmerulia") lives in a frontier town called Arklys in the recently-expanded Arland Republic, studying alchemy in the hopes of following her mother's legacy — something that's not an easy task when her mother is none other than the famous alchemist Rorolina "Rorona" Frixell herself. One day, Lulua encounters a strange book called the "Alchemyriddle" that only she can read, which mysteriously reveals a hint whenever she needs to use alchemy to solve a problem. Shortly after, Lulua receives a letter informing her that her mother's atelier is about to be shut down due to its license expiring. In order to save the workshop, Lulua heads towards Arland, beginning a great adventure where bonds with her mother's old friends, makes her own new friends, and comes to understand her place in the world and what her "purpose in life" is.

After a teaser in Meruru's 2018 Updated Re-release Meruru DX had hinted at a follow-up, Lulua was announced to much surprise among fans, since it was unprecedented for the Atelier series to suddenly follow up on an older subseries it had already moved on from.^note Although in actuality, while Meruru had the aura of a Grand Finale and had been originally planned as one, its director admitted shortly after its release that the ending wasn't all that conclusive and that he would be interested in doing a follow-up at some point, so the idea of doing something like this wasn't completely without precedent. As it was produced and released a whole eight years after Meruru, Lulua reflects many of the changes that had happened with the Atelier series during that time, and the game is not a Time Management Game like previous Arland entries were, instead sporting a mix of Arland series-style crafting with some subsystems from Lydie & Suelle (the game's direct predecessor in terms of production). In addition, its writing style reflects many of the changes the series had gone through since Meruru, in particular being noticeably Tamer and Chaster.

The English version was handled by Koei Tecmo and, unlike the previous Arland games, does not feature an English voice dub due to the series having dropped the practice since Lydie & Suelle.

Atelier Lulua contains examples of:

• Agony of the Feet: Night's Domain turns out to be much too dark to explore when the party gets there, resulting in everyone accidentally stepping on Ficus' feet. When they later return with some night-vision goggles, Ficus still ends up getting stepped on.
• Alternate Timeline: The Alchemyriddle was entrusted to Lulua by an alternate version of her who failed to save Stia. If the player-controlled Lulua successfully saves the Stia of this world, then she will venture to this parallel world to help its Lulua save its Stia. Otherwise, the player's Lulua will continue the cycle by passing on the Alchemyriddle to another world's Lulua in hopes that she can do what she couldn't — even repeating, word for word, the Opening Monologue at the beginning of the game.
• The Artifact: The game's time mechanics are an artifact of the way older installments were Time Management Games. Even the time limits for optional sidequests have now been removed; time beyond the day-night cycle is used only for two minor recurring yearly events, but since the player has no constraints on their time, you can theoretically trigger them whenever (and as often) as you want.
• Bad Present: It's not so much "bad" as "rather depressing", but in the Alternate Timeline where Lulua failed to save Stia, the party members seem to have lost their motivation to do their jobs, and the residents of Arklys don't seem to be very happy.
• Background Music Override: Using an Ultimate Attack causes the battle music to stop while a picture of the character using the move shows up on screen, followed by a specific jingle playing during the attack's animation.
• Bigger on the Inside: The interior of the Wagon Atelier is much bigger than what its exterior indicates. This is even discussed in-game by Lulua and Piana, where it's revealed that the interior is actually inside some sort of Pocket Dimension created by alchemy. Piana warns Lulua not to add too many windows, or else the entire wagon will collapse in on itself.
• Call-Back:
  • The CG from Atelier Rorona, where Rorona looks upon her atelier accompanied by Astrid and Cordelia, is echoed with one where Lulua has officially inherited her mother's atelier in Arklys, accompanied by Piana and Eva.
  • The Guardian from Totori returns, this time giving the Tentacle Rope treatment to Lulua, Aurel, and Stia. It's played as noticeably Tamer and Chaster compared to the last time around.
  • The Rorona and Sterk ending CG is a recreation of the Normal Ending CG from Rorona, where things hadn't panned out for Rorona as an alchemist and she'd gone off on a journey with Hom to find Astrid. This time, Sterk is in Hom's place, and on top of the picture being much brighter, Rorona's prospects as an alchemist are much more hopeful as she sets off on a new journey with him.
• Cerebus Retcon: Several parts of Arland lore that were previously treated as simple intriguing mysteries are given much deeper and potentially frightening significance here.
  • Orthogalaxen, treated in Rorona and Totori as simply a mysterious facility that Astrid had to get special permission to explore, is explained to be one of many structures supporting the infrastructure of Arland in itself, which are also in danger of collapsing due to machine glitching — and could potentially take all of Arland with it. Moreover, its administrator is none other than the Superboss of Meruru, who at the time had been treated as yet another oddity without much significance. Even the theme music is given a Dark Reprise for its incarnation in Fellsgalaxen, with a much darker and more mysterious atmosphere.
  • While a demon kidnapping and killing young girls was already pretty dark in Totori, this game adds a number of tragic touches to it in that even the demon himself wasn't that enthusiastic about the whole ordeal either, as he himself was being blackmailed into it by an even stronger demon (originally treated as just another superboss) that would threaten to do even worse, to the point he was forced to sacrifice even one of his most beloved friends to him.
  • Back in Rorona, Sterk had shielded Rorona from Suni Sterm and ended up in the hospital for three months, and while it was still a sentimental event between them, it was mostly played with a lighthearted tone as Rorona cried dramatically for him in the hospital while Sterk passed off his injury as an opportunity to act like a real knight. Here, the incident is played with the Surprisingly Realistic Outcome of it having had much worse long-term effects on both of them: Sterk is so fixated on the idea of protecting Rorona at his own expense that he's tormented by it, not because of anything she did but because he keeps thinking about what would have happened if he'd failed back then, all while Rorona does remember that the incident was partially her fault and is absolutely determined to make sure it never happens again.
• Combination Attack: Primal Arts are special buffs triggered when certain combinations of characters are in the frontline.
• Demoted to Extra: Totori and Meruru are not playable without DLC, making Lulua the first Arland game to not have all of its returning protagonists playable by default. Story-wise, their roles in the story are still significant, but they become increasingly more marginal as the story goes on compared to Rorona, who ends up being continuously prominent by virtue of being Lulua's mother.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The scene where Mana transfers her Elite Operator authority to Stia has plenty of dialogue that sounds very... suggestive.
  "We-well... Um, I... This is my first time [...] So, um. You'll be gentle, right?"
  "So warm... All over!"
  "Huh, it's already over? Couldn't it have lasted a little longer..."
• Dying Town: Arklys was founded as a hub for adventurers looking to explore the ancient ruins of Fellsgalaxen, but due to the ruins having an impenetrable door, the adventurers left and the town quickly fell into decline. Lulua hopes that by breaking the door to the ruins, she can help kickstart the revitalization of Arklys.
• Family of Choice:
  • This is what Lulua's friends, especially the ones Rorona had introduced her to, functionally amount to since they serve the role that couldn't be fulfilled by Lulua's lack of a blood family. Eva, who had grown up with her in the same Orphanage of Love, is all but a sister in her eyes, and Lulua still maintains contact with Father Benon even after leaving the orphanage. Rorona is legally her mother and thus the one with the most emotional investment in her, but Piana and Chim Dragon help take care of her on a day-to-day basis, Sterk, Totori, and Meruru give her important life advice and emotional support, and the Arland townspeople are happy to help her with whatever she needs as a way of repaying her mother.
  • Eva also considers the orphanage and everyone in it in to be her family, to the point she turns down any offer to adopt her because she insists on staying. Since she'd done research into her actual blood family and found that she was abandoned so she wouldn't be an inconvenience in an inheritance dispute, she's presumably disillusioned towards the idea of blood family in the first place.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: Including Chim Dragon and Stia, the main ensemble consists of five boys and five girls.
• Great Big Book of Everything: The Alchemyriddle serves as this, giving Lulua (and the player) goals, recipes, and eerily accurate hints on what she should do next. As the game goes on, however, she starts running into more and more incidents of it suddenly having nothing to offer, forcing her to become less reliant on it. It's because it was only eerily accurate in the first place because it came from Lulua's Alternate Self; any time their timelines diverged, the book wouldn't have anything about it.
• Happily Adopted:
  • Lulua is adopted, but she cheerfully and proudly calls Rorona her mother and herself Rorona's daughter without any hesitation. Rorona had only adopted her very recently; Lulua just adores her mom that much.
  • Totori's family adopted Piana after the events of her home game, and Totori taught her adoptive younger sister alchemy. The two are portrayed as having a strong sibling relationship.
• Hopeless Boss Fight:
  • At the end of Chapter 1, Lulua and Eva encounter a strong monster outside the door to Fellsgalaxen which is too strong for the two to take on. Piana has to come and bail them out.
  • The first battle with Wind Stone in Chapter 7 is meant to be lost by Lulua.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: A large theme surrounding much of the game's major cast is that they're all at the bottom of the many master-apprentice chains in the Arland series, with Aurel following in his uncle Gio's footsteps while accosting Sterk as a rival, Wild being Iksel's disciple, Cole becoming Hagel's apprentice, Jeltje being a Fangirl of all of the adventurers who were Put on a Bus, Chim Dragon growing into a role similar to what Hom used to do, Mana passing her operator rights to Stia, and so on and so forth. Lulua, the titular "scion" of the game, is carrying on the hopes of not only her mother but also the previous Arland protagonists and Piana, and, as it turns out, herself as well, or specifically her Alternate Timeline self who wants her to succeed where she herself couldn't.
• Meaningful Echo: When the party reaches Suni Sterm, after having a flashback to the scene where he and Rorona had confronted it in Rorona, Sterk remarks that "the small talk ends here"^note (translated as "there's no time to chat now" in the original English version of Rorona, but the two sentences had been more recognizably similar in Japanese) before trying to take it on himself. While Rorona had been completely unprepared the first time, this time, she is definitely prepared... and absolutely not up for letting him go up alone.
• Mistaken for Gay: In one event, Lulua decides to make a Komet as a gift for the gemstone-obsessed Refle. Little did she know that in gem language, the Komet means "I want to be with you forever" and is usually given during marriage proposals, leading to a very awkward reaction as Refle thinks Lulua is confessing to her.
• Multiple Endings: As with previous games, the player can pick between any of the endings they'd achieved the requirements for.
  • The lack of a time limit means there's no Non-Standard Game Over-type ending, but there is still a Bad Ending: if Lulua (the player) chooses to allow Stia to sacrifice herself to stop Fellsgalaxen from collapsing and destroying Arklys instead of looking for another option, after some time and a wistful look at the ruins where her friend is now forevermore entombed, Lulua will pass on the Alchemyriddle to another world's Lulua in the hopes that Stia can be saved there.
  • Normal Ending: Obtained by avoiding the Bad Ending but not finishing any character event chains or flagging the curry Ending. Lulua continues running her atelier in Arklys with Stia.
  • Character endings: Obtained by finishing the corresponding character's event chain (Rorona's and Sterk's are linked).
    • Eva takes over the orphanage from Father Benon and has Lulua as support.
    • Aurel travels throughout the land with Lulua, with both of them sharpening their combat skills and bickering (but enjoying it) all the way.
    • Piana travels around the land with the Wagon Atelier teaching others alchemy, with Lulua as her assistant.
    • Ficus becomes a traveling street magician entertaining kids with Lulua.
    • Niko leads his exploratory fleet with Lulua joining him on his boat as both of them head to the Eastern Continent.
    • Rorona and Sterk head off together on the Eastern Continent expedition for the better of Arland, taking comfort in each other's presence. Notably, since Lulua doesn't appear in this ending nor do Rorona and Sterk appear in the others, it's possible to assume that the events of this ending are going on during any of the other ones.
  • Curry Ending: Obtained by finishing the curry event chain via making all of the curry recipes at high quality. Lulua opens her own curry restaurant within her atelier, assisted by Piana, Chim Dragon, and Stia, and the curry ends up becoming even more popular than the alchemy.
  • True Ending: Obtained by flagging all of the other ending requirements. Lulua becomes an accomplished alchemist traveling from place to place, helping as many people as she can with Stia at her side.
• Mundane Made Awesome: The arm-wrestling contest against Sterk during the Arland Festival. A simple Button Mashing minigame with only a small Cole prize is turned into an epic spectacle, complete with Battle Auras erupting into a Pillar of Light, and a Distant Reaction Shot of a giant explosion engulfing the town if you win.
• Mundane Utility: Rorona reveals that the Philosopher's Pie (originally translated as the "Ruby Pie" back in Rorona) was the item she canonically turned in as her final assignment item and encourages Lulua to recreate as a way of demonstrating Rorona's own "purpose in life" (not clearly stated, but suggested to be "love for the people around her"). Everyone around her is still mystified that she'd used the ultimate goal of all alchemists to make a pie. Lulua later follows up by making a Philosopher's Curry with the exact same flagrant misapplication of such a vital artifact.
• No Antagonist: The major threat you have to confront in-game is the declining state of the Fellsgalaxen ruins, which isn't anyone's fault. All the major bosses are either on your side and just testing you, or are Stia with her memory temporarily erased.
• Noodle Incident: Apparently, at one point, Rorona tried to change the past and found that it would only be possible to make an Alternate Timeline instead of actually changing anything. One would wonder what exactly got her to try doing that (although knowing Rorona, it's not infeasible to imagine her doing it for something minor or even as just an experiment), and especially how she was able to observe an Alternate Timeline opening up while also knowing her original world still existed.
• Opening Monologue: The game begins with an unnamed girl's monologue (the words of Lulua's Alternate Self after failing to save Stia) as she entrusts a book to Lulua.
  Parallel Universe Lulua: Good... This is it. With this, I'm sure... Everything I've done, everything I've learned, and everything I've experienced... I'm passing it all to you. So please! I'm counting on you, Lulua!
• Orphanage of Love: The Armster Orphanage in Arklys is run by Father Benon, a Friend to All Children who does everything he can to make sure the orphans are happy and safe. Eva currently lives at the orphanage, and Lulua originally hailed from there before Rorona adopted her; while Lulua is undoubtedly living a happier life now that she's been adopted, she still feels heavily indebted to the orphanage and shows up often to help out.
• Put on a Bus: As a result of the production staff choosing to only bring back older characters if they could be relevant to Lulua's story, a handful of characters who were previously treated as having huge amounts of importance in the Arland series are completely absent here. While some of them are at least mentioned or alluded to, special mention goes to Filly and Gino, whom we have absolutely no idea as to what they're up to at all.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: In the English version, "Rock Puni" is misspelled as "Rock Punk".
• Running Gag:
  • The "Barrel!" Running Gag returns as always, but Lulua even lampshades it by Breaking the Fourth Wall and having the Alchemyriddle hint to unlock the recipe for the Barrel item (requiring you to examine the barrel in the atelier) be "running gag".
  • Following the tradition of someone in an Arland game getting ridiculously drunk and dangerously affectionate, Piana starts affectionately hugging and choking Lulua. Fortunately for Lulua, Piana is a little more gentle than her predecessors, only clutching her a bit too tightly and insisting on giving her a little smooch.
• Saved for the Sequel: Over the last quarter of the game, a large number of characters mention the idea of heading over to the Eastern Continent for entirely separate reasons, leading to fan speculation that all of it was meant to set up for a potential fifth Arland game set there if the following game didn't sell well. Said game turned out to be one of the franchise's biggest breakout hits, so if such a thing was true, it's probably moot now.
• Ship Tease:
  • Beyond Lulua and Stia's story arc, she and Aurel have a Belligerent Sexual Tension relationship (with Aurel's ending outright saying that they seem to somehow enjoy their bickering). Eva is also hinted to be harboring romantic feelings for Lulua, although Lulua remains completely oblivious to them.
  • After previous games had built up Ship Tease between Rorona and Sterk, Lulua pretty much does away with the "tease" part and has Lulua outright suspect that Sterk is harboring feelings for Rorona. Their character event chains become linked together by the end of the game, culminating in them having their own shared Maybe Ever After ending that stands out for not even having Lulua herself in it.
• Shout-Out: If Lulua is put in the back line, she can assist with a "Lulua Kick".
• Stock "Yuck!": In a friendship scene, Lulua brings Aurel coffee, only for him to tell her that he can't drink it, that he can't handle anything bitter. She says he's more child-like than he thought and he tells her that liking and disliking things has nothing to do with maturity. She then tells him she'll get him tea and he asks for extra sugar with it.
• Superboss: The Machina of God can be fought repeatedly at the end of the game, leveling up to Level 200 after each defeat, making it the most powerful enemy in the game.
• Super Move Portrait Attack: When a character uses an Ultimate Attack, a picture of them using their 3D model will appear before the move starts.
• Take a Third Option: At the end of Chapter 9, Lulua is faced with a Sadistic Choice: Fellsgalaxen has become so severely damaged that it could collapse at any moment, which would lead to the total destruction of the Arklys region. The only way to fix it is to use Fellsgalaxen's self-repair system, which would require Stia to sacrifice herself to activate it. The game doesn't give you the choice to allow Lulua's hometown to be destroyed just for Stia's sake, presumably since Lulua would balk at the idea of doing such a thing, but the only way to avoid the Bad Ending is to select "Search for a third option." By creating a Memory Core, Lulua creates a backup of Stia's consciousness, and once the repair process is done, she can forcibly remove Stia from the device and re-upload her mind into her body.
• Tamer and Chaster: Due to the series having toned down on the Fanservice between Meruru and this game, while there are returning Call-Backs and Running Gags like someone getting too touchy-feely when drunk or the Guardian subjecting people to tentacle hell, they're noticeably much tamer and less in-your-face than the equivalent scenes from the original trilogy. The game is also less big on Black Comedy than its predecessors, opting for different ways to invoke situational humor instead.
• Trilogy Creep: While Meruru had been unresolved enough to merit a follow-up, and while the official reason given for the sudden Arland sequel was that it was made to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Rorona, fans suspected that the actual reason was in response to the polarizing reception the Mysterious trilogy had received and uncertainty over whether the next game would do well, especially since there were signs the game might even have been setting up to make a second trilogy centering around Lulua's generation (see Saved for the Sequel above). While Lulua makes a clear attempt at being a more conclusive epilogue for the older characters than Meruru was, it represents such an obvious shift in writing and creative direction from the original trilogy that even now, the Arland series is still officially treated as one trilogy plus one extra.
• World Pillars: Both the Fellsgalaxen and Orthogalaxen ruins are part of a greater infrastructure supporting the world of Arland itself. The plot of the game eventually shifts to Lulua trying to prevent the collapse of the Fellsgalaxen ruins, which would destroy all of the Arklys region if allowed to happen, as well as save its operator, Stia.