Video Game / Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland

aka: Atelier Meruru

Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland is the thirteenth mainline entry in Gust Corporation's Atelier series and the third in its "Arland" subseries, released in 2011 for the PlayStation 3. It follows up directly one year after the ending of Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland and is the final game in the "Arland trilogy" (but not the final one in the subseries).

The small kingdom of Arls is currently planning a merger with the Arland Republic, and there are tons of development tasks that need to be done before it'll be ready. While all of this is happening, the kingdom's Rebellious Princess Merurulince Rede Arls (who would really prefer it if you called her "Meruru") sneaks out of the castle and meets alchemist Totooria "Totori" Helmold, who had been sent from Arland in order to help with the merger. Meruru is fascinated by alchemy and starts studying under Totori, only to find that her father is vehemently against it and wants her to focus on her royal duties instead. Thus, they strike a compromise: Meruru will need to use her alchemy to develop the kingdom and get it to reach 30,000 people within three years, or else she will be forced to give up on her dreams. Now devoting her alchemy towards helping her subjects, Meruru starts growing into the role of a leader as the end of her kingdom's monarchy draws closer.

The game takes place over five years, with the first three being dedicated to Meruru's goal of increasing the kingdom's population. The general time management flow is a mix between the assignment system used in Rorona with the more flexible global time limit from Totori, and gameplay builds off both games while adding some extra polish, with features that would become staples in later games such as wait time, trait merging, and vocal insert songs. While it was originally planned as the Grand Finale of the Arland subseries (hence its large number of returning characters), director Yoshito Okamura admitted that the ending didn't really come off like a finale and that a future follow-up might be in order; nevertheless, it was still treated as the end of a trilogy with the following game Ayesha moving on to an Alternate Continuity, but the suggested follow-up finally came to fruition with Atelier Lulua eight years later.

An English version of Meruru was released in 2012, with the original version of the game being the final Atelier game to be localized by NIS America prior to the switch to Koei Tecmo taking the reins. An Updated Re-release for the PlayStation Vita, Atelier Meruru Plus, was released in 2013, featuring some balance adjustments, added costumes, an Upgraded Boss system, onboarded DLC, and a new Golden Ending to address one of the most controversial parts of the story. Another release based on Plus, Atelier Meruru DX, was released in 2018 as part of the Atelier Arland Series Deluxe Pack for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Steam, with some minor adjustments and a Sequel Hook serving as an early teaser for Lulua.

A novel containing short stories with the characters titled Atelier Meruru: The 3 Alchemists was released in 2013.

Atelier Lulua contains examples of:

• Absurdly Sharp Blade: A gameplay example, regardless of equipped weapon. Sterk's Gaia Breaker skill copies a slew of action only found in Super Robot Wars' games, and the camera shows him having cut the enemy sky high before the moon behind him is slashed in half, exploding in Hot-Blooded glory.
• Affectionate Parody: Meruru's boss battle theme song, "Alchemy Girl Meruru's Song", is made to resemble a theme that would be dedicated to an early Heisei-era tokusatsu hero (with even a vocal version available if you talk to the right NPC). Totori's "Chim Rangers" ensemble is also a parody of the Sentai genre.
• All Your Powers Combined: The Central Theme of the game. Meruru goes from only wanting to practice alchemy because she thinks it's fun and cool to coming to understand its main goal of "helping people", becoming a leader who can get everyone to chip in with their own abilities to work together.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: Like in the two previous games, the 2D dialogue sprites are flipped horizontally when placed on the left side of the screen. This ends up being even more glaring than it was in Rorona, because Meruru has a very conspicuous rainbow cape that the player will be seeing on the wrong side for much of the game.
• And the Adventure Continues:
  • During the finale of the game, Dessier says that he knows this isn't the end, since Arls, now part of the Arland Republic, has a bright future. Meruru expresses a similar sentiment, and the ending the player had achieved will depict what happened after. Notably, it was because of this that the director admitted the ending wasn't really any different from that of the average Atelier game and that it hadn't fulfilled its originally intended role as a Grand Finale.
  • The DX version, which was released to promote Lulua, adds a Sequel Hook that says this almost word-for-word.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Compared to previous games, the menus have quality-of-life updates that enable players to check for ongoing requests and where to find certain kinds of materials and enemies, making schedule-balancing much more convenient. In particular, the event system will also let events run if the area you're headed to would pass through the area where the event triggers, making it much easier to not accidentally miss them.
• Artistic Age:
  • The game takes place over five in-universe years, but none of the characters will show any signs of aging. This is par for the course with time-limit Atelier games requiring Gameplay and Story Segregation, but it's notable in the case of Meruru because of how many events center around the Potion of Youth subplot that's supposed to be messing with everyone's physical ages, and art portraying Meruru after the finale of her game was inconsistent on what she should look like until Lulua finally gave her an updated design.
  • Character designer Mel Kishida admitted that he struggled with designing the characters across the series in a way that would show them aging at the right pace, so Esty (despite all her Old Maid concerns) could still pass for a 20-year-old despite being 40, and the similarly-aged Sterk still looks like a Pretty Boy, whereas Gio looks a lot more grizzled than you'd think relative to what he looked like in Rorona. With all this in mind, Kishida joked that people in Arland probably go through Rapid Aging somewhere around their fifties.
• Bishie Sparkle: Some characters will sport this after a fight, but the most notable mention goes to Mimi, since hers is accompanied by an offscreen breeze of rose petals. Rufus has his own version with blue petals.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: While it's generally not a problem for the game's dialogue, the gameplay text has a noticeably high number of typos and errors throughout the English versions of Plus and DX. Some of the item effects still reference percentages from the original game when those numbers were rebalanced for Plus, and some are just inconsistently translated versions of the same thing. This can cause problems with development, because the game will ask for items with traits that don't exist; for example, in Plus, one item will apparently need the "Well-Crafted" trait, but the actual trait necessary will be what was called "Hand-Crafted" in the original, and another task will ask for an item with "the ultimate trait" that's actually referring to the "Finest Goods" trait from the original version, which absolutely nobody would think of as "the ultimate trait" without some real Insane Troll Logic.
• The Cameo: Since Meruru was originally conceived of as a Grand Finale, on top of including more returning characters than new ones, it also crams in some cameos in the opening movie and some CGs just to give them a nod to their role in the subseries.
• Call-Back: Mimi's character event climax directly references Cordelia's in Rorona, right down to the handmade necklace and recipient crying in gratitude.
• Call-Forward: DX includes an extra scene taking place right after the "About Time" ending depicting Astrid making a Dragon Hourglass that Totori and Meruru accidentally drop, resulting in them getting thrown into the past. The scene is there to lead into the previously-released Overtime section of Rorona Plus, which had involved a time-traveling Totori and Meruru meeting Rorona after a mishap with Astrid's Dragon Hourglass.
• Childhood Friends: Meruru, Keina, and Lias. Filly takes the opportunity to imagine a Love Triangle between them, but they're actually completely neutral with each other.
• Combatant Cooldown System: This was the first game to properly introduce this to the battle system, with "wait time" being applied to items as well. Taking wait time into account when crafting and using items can make or break a battle.
• Combination Attack: After Meruru uses an attack item, her companions can follow-up with attacks, followed by her unleashing the thrown item's hidden power, then followed by one normal combination attack before channeling the thrown item's real hidden power, maxing such items' use up to three.
• Cuteness Proximity:
  • Other than the fact that there's not really anything anyone can do about it until Astrid comes up with something, this is the reason Rorona getting stuck as an 8-year-old is considered a low priority for everyone, because they think she's so cute they want to dote on her.
  • People also tend to have this reaction to the Chims and Homs, although Totori is still the strongest about it.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: As with Atelier standard, getting a Total Party Kill in battle just sends you back to the atelier with some lost items, but by itself, that would still usually be enough to get the player to reload the game so they can get back their lost time. Meruru adds a decoration that will let you start over at the exact same location anyway, only leaving everyone at 1 health, making it practically trivial.
• Denser and Wackier: Not that the previous games weren't already dense and wacky, but Meruru is noticeably more comedic in tone than any of the other Arland games and arguably most Atelier games as a whole. Even Rorona, probably the only competitor as to how much Black Comedy there could be, was noticeably less aggressive about Comedic Sociopathy and was usually more laid-back or even somber at times. In contrast, much of Meruru's story devotes itself to putting its cast in absurd situations and watching them bounce off each other, with the Rorona characters being subject to significant Flanderization to match the tone, and the closest thing to a particularly dramatic plotline would be the subplot about Sofra and Airshatter, which is still treated more lightly than what one would find in Totori or Lulua.
• Downloadable Content: In the original version, Rufus, Hanna, and Pamela are paid DLC party members, with a few extra scenes added if you take them to certain map locations. A post-game Bonus Dungeon, Makina Domain, was also added as free DLC. These were all included by default in the Plus and DX versions.
• Failed a Spot Check: It was already one thing that most people besides Sterk couldn't recognize "Masked G" as Gio back in Rorona, but Meruru takes it even further by having even Meruru herself not recognize her own "Uncle Gio" despite him even popping up suspiciously right after "Masked G" had just scolded her.
• Fanservice: While the Atelier series (especially the Arland subseries) was no stranger to throwing in a few infamous events here and there or being outlandish about its merch, Meruru was the game that kicked it up a heavy notch with its events and especially its CGs, including one where Hanna's breasts are only barely covered by her arm and two hot springs events where everyone is depicted naked with minimal amounts of Censor Steam. It was significant enough for the CERO ratings board to force Gust to suspend shipments while it upped its rating from A (all-ages) to B (12+), and in the West, the two hot springs CGs became so conflated with the reputation of the series that an infamous image calling it "steamy" circulated around for several years to play up how supposedly suggestive Atelier games were, despite the fact that the Hot Springs Episode isn't exactly a common occurence in it.
• Flanderization: The game exaggerates the Rorona characters' most well-known traits to the point Sterk is obsessed with knighthood to Hot-Blooded degrees (compared to his previous characterization treating him as Not So Above It All at most), Esty is perpetually fixated on escaping her Old Maid status, and Astrid is constantly a Jerkass Troll to her disciples with fewer Hidden Depths compared to what she showed in Rorona. While some of it can be chalked up to circumstance, most of it is probably due to Meruru having a Denser and Wackier tone than its predecessors, since Lulua giving Sterk a significant Character Check results in Meruru coming off as an outlier.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: Rorona gives both Meruru and Keina a "Switching Pie" that swaps their bodies for a time. Meruru takes it in stride. Keina... not so much.
• Hot Springs Episode: One of the ending routes has Meruru stumble upon a hot spring near the volcano and expanding it into a resort that turns into Arls' biggest attraction. A rather Fanservice-laden scene shows the girls bathing together, while the actual ending of the route instead focuses on the guys taking a dip... much to the dismay of Peter, who had been pushing for the springs' development in the hopes of getting to ogle women, only to be condemned to the role of being the men's grunt worker.
• Improbable Weapon User: Lias fits this trope for the main reason of being an Expy of Super Robot Wars' character Kyosuke Nanbu, as his weapon of choice is a gauntlet-equipped revolver stake. Keina uses a basket carrying sleeping drugs and healing potions, though that fits into Improvised Weapon. The basket’s impracticality is commented on by Hagel when the player crafts the Almighty Basket for the first time.
• Inconsistent Dub: The game dials back on the Age Lift of three years that had happened in the NISA English version of Rorona, referring to everyone with ages accurate relative to the Japanese version.
• Insert Song: Beyond its opening and ending, the game features "Cloudy", "Little Crown", and "Alchemy Girl Meruru's Song", used in different contexts within the game. This started a trend of Atelier games regularly featuring similar insert songs up until Lydie & Suelle.
• Item Caddy: With both Totori and Rorona being alchemists, the game offers a whole three consecutive protagonist alchemists in a single adventuring party, all of whom can use brought items.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Midway through the game, Totori casually reveals the contents of Totori''s true ending, namely the fact that Astrid saved Gisela's life.
• Micro Monarchy: Arls is a very small country right next to Arland, which had also been a monarchy until very recently. Dessier and Gio had discussed things and decided it would be better for Arls' future if it joined the Arland Republic, but since they know there's a high chance of opposition, they're hoping to develop the country and increase its population so that the people can be assured Arls will still have influence even after it's absorbed.
• The Moving Experience: When Totori is called back to Arland, Meruru takes this to mean that she's leaving Arls for good and gets very upset and runs off to sulk by herself for three days... after which Totori returns, because it was only supposed to be a short visit (in fact, it was only supposed to have been one day, but her sister Ceci wouldn't let her leave that quickly). Meruru complains that she should have told her the truth about the trip, but Totori points out that she never gave her the chance. Rufus couldn't even clarify things to Meruru because she'd been so busy sulking and refusing to come out that nothing would get through to her.
• Multiple Endings: As with the two previous games, the game has a number of different endings, with the one the player gets depending on what factors they've unlocked and an internal ending priority. Compared to previous games being a bit of a Guide Dang It! about this, the game does you a bit of a favor in that anytime you get the requirements for an ending, you get a MeMemo entry with the phrase "I feel like I've uncovered a whole new future for myself!" in Rainbow Speak, making it a little easier to plan your save file around potential ending Save Scumming.
  • Bad Ending: There are two flavors, obtained by either allowing Meruru's popularity to drop to zero at any point or failing to reach 30,000 population by the end of the third year. Dessier will end her alchemy studies immediately and condemn Meruru to a boring life in the castle. In the latter case, Meruru will be left with regrets about her alchemy dreams, but in the first case, she won't feel quite as bad because she did whatever she wanted without worrying about what anyone else thought. Both versions (especially the first one) are ludicrously difficult to get without going out of your way to blow up your run, and you won't even get a trophy or record for it.
  • "Castle Life" (basically the Normal Ending): Obtained if the player succeeds at getting 30,000 population at the end of the third year but doesn't do anything else that would trigger any other endings (something that also probably won't happen unless you've really been wasting time). Meruru is allowed to continue as an alchemist, but she finds that nothing much in her life is changing and she still doesn't really know what to do with her life.
  • "Topsy-Turvy": Obtained by getting to 100,000 population without flagging any other ending requirements. Arls' population gets so big that the administration can't keep up with it, making Meruru so busy she doesn't even have time to do alchemy anymore.
  • "A Rich Nation": Obtained by defeating Airshatter without Gio in the party. Arls starts to prosper thanks to Airshatter no longer threatening its agriculture. While no longer a princess, Meruru continues working alongside her former palace companions in the hopes of making the "Arls apple" more famous throughout the world.
  • "Finally, As Planned": Obtained by following all of Astrid's events and eventually creating an improved Potion of Youth. Totori departs from Arls while Meruru begins her own independent alchemy career for real, becoming famous among the people. One day, when Totori comes to visit, Astrid also arrives with a half-restored 14-year-old Rorona in tow, still with scrambled memories. Astrid considers this to be fine.
  • "Now, Go Bravely": Obtained by defeating the lizards at Modis Ruins but failing to defeat Masked G. Arls continues to be under threat from monsters and foreign invaders, and Meruru leads a battalion with Gino, Lias, and Sterk to defend her country.
  • "Strongest Princess": Obtained by defeating the lizards at Modis Ruins and Masked G. Meruru becomes famous as both an alchemist and a warrior, defeating monsters left and right alongside Keina, who's now wielding an axe in combat.
  • "Alchemist!" (New Game Plus only): Obtained by defeating Airshatter with Gio in the party. Meruru moves into a much bigger atelier of her own, starting a prosperous business in service of the people of Arls alongside all of her friends. This is generally treated as the first real "Good Ending" in the game.
  • "Boy's Bath": Obtained by finishing Peter's quest to finish building the hot springs. Peter succeeds in getting his hot springs facility made, and it becomes a tourist hit in Arls, but Peter himself doesn't get to enjoy any of it because instead of getting to ogle naked girls, he's made into a grunt worker at the facility scrubbing the men's backs.
  • "Witch's Tea Party": Obtained by making the improved Potion of Youth and the Ice Cascade Bomb (defeating Airshatter isn't necessarily required) and hitting Alchemy Level 50. Astrid uses her "completed" Potion of Youth to set herself, Rorona, Totori, and Meruru all at age 14, and they all have a tea party together enjoying their alchemy exploits as teachers and students at the same age. Astrid considers this to be the best thing ever.
  • "Miss Popular" (New Game Plus only): Obtained by finishing every character event chain. Meruru continues her alchemy career, but her charismatic personality gets everyone to start fighting over her time. The fact it had highest ending priority in the original release, was the closest to an Omega Ending by virtue of having the highest requirements, and tied into the All Your Powers Combined theme of the game suggests it was intended to be seen as the Golden Ending until Plus overrode it.
  • "About Time" (added in Plus and patched back into the Japanese PS3 version): Obtained by fulfilling all of the requirements for the Witch's Tea Party ending, then having Meruru make an even better Potion of Youth based on the Merulixir. Dissatisfied with the suspiciously uncertain tone Astrid has about using the Potion of Youth, Meruru pushes for a more concrete solution and makes a deal with her that if Meruru can make a perfect potion, Astrid will get Rorona back to normal, properly. Meruru works together with Totori and Rorona to make a potion based on the Merulixir, and Astrid fulfills her promise, restoring Rorona back to normal and getting Astrid to comment on the growth of her successors. On top of the ending being given highest priority, DX and Lulua confirm it to be the canon one.
• New Game Plus: Items, levels, money and development don't get carried over in the original version, but equipped items (including development items) do in all versions. Since certain events and endings are locked behind New Game Plus anyway, it's generally recommended to just do your best in your first playthrough without aiming for a specific ending and make sure to synthesize the best equipment possible, then start a New Game Plus with your best equipment equipped to everyone.
• Old Maid: In and out of universe, both related to the Potion of Youth plot:
  • In-universe, Astrid’s concern with both herself and Rorona aging relates to not wanting this to happen to either of them (in a way that isn't hinted at all to be exaggerated joking like she usually does). When Esty hears about the potion, she becomes obsessed with getting some for herself to try and save her self-perceived terrible marriage prospects, since she's now 40 and had been stressing about this since the time of Rorona.
  • In real life, Astrid's belief that nobody would want to see Rorona in her thirties came directly from the devs themselves, extending all the way into the original version not having a single ending where she would be anything but young and cute even with damaged memories and a reversal of her hard-earned Character Development. Needless to say, fans across the world were not amused, and the added Plus ending (now treated as the Golden Ending) puts her back at her proper age.
• Playing House: When Sterk ends up having to entertain the 8-year-old Rorona for a day, he's told that they look like a father and child, something that's really awkward for him since he's implied to have been harboring feelings for her as an adult and would very obviously prefer her that way. Meruru twists the knife in further by offering to go on a shopping trip with them with herself as the mom, Sterk as the dad, and Rorona as the kid, which makes him so uncomfortable that he hastily declines and flees.
• Posthumous Character: Meruru apparently is turning out to be just like her late aunt Sofra (Sofraneis Yeux Arls), Dessier's younger sister. We don't learn a lot about her except that Meruru apparently resembles her a lot in personality and that Sofra was an alchemist who fought alongside Dessier and Gio as a Power Trio against Airshatter some time in the past, with her losing her life in the process. Dessier and Gio both miss her dearly and worry that Meruru will go the same way, but Meruru is able to find Sofra's last recipe and finish the job.
• Production Throwback: In a similar vein to how Rorona and Totori heavily invoked Marie and Elie, Meruru heavily invokes Viorate, being about an alchemist who has to revitalize her area and grow its population in three years.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: The game is basically about a girl who wants to do something so badly she doesn't even want to be royal anymore. She and Rufus manage to strike a deal that she use her alchemy to work on kingdom development during the last few years she still has royal duties, something that works very well for her because it goes well with alchemy's main goal of helping people.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Once every hundred years, Airshatter awakens and reduces Arls to a wasteland, leaving it unable to truly grow past its Micro Monarchy status because it destroys everything that had been done in the meantime. Sofra had managed to put it to sleep again right before Meruru was born, but since the job was incomplete, it's appearing again ahead of schedule at weaker strength.
• Sequel Hook: The DX version adds a scene after the credits with a faint silhouette of a book and "...and the story continues." It serves as a teaser for Lulua, which hadn't been announced yet at the time of DX's release.
• Shout-Out: Sterk's Gaia Breaker cut-in is one to Thrudgelmir from Super Robot Wars.
• True Final Boss: While you technically don't need to fight a Final Boss to get a decent ending, defeating Airshatter with Gio in the party on a New Game Plus is necessary for his character event chain as well as the "A Rich Nation" and "Miss Popular" endings, the latter of which was treated as the Golden Ending before "About Time" took that status instead. While defeating it isn't required for "About Time", Lulua confirms that Meruru defeating Airshatter (with or without Gio) is canonical.
• Unwanted Assistance: Meruru doesn't care for her own role as a princess, so it easily annoys or at least bothers her when other people act like they should be catering to her whim because of her title. This especially gets very bothersome for her when Sterk starts going overboard to the point he hovers over her for everything out of paranoia that there might be an assassin or something.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Airshatter without Gio in the party? Not too difficult as long as you've been keeping up with your crafting. Airshatter with Gio in the party? Let's hope you're prepared.
• When Trees Attack: The Ent Forest is a moving forest that pops up around Arls, and it'll even move around the world map throughout the game. The forest will only stop moving when Meruru fights its guardian spirit and destroys the crystal responsible for it moving.
• With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: A late-game plotline involves Meruru becoming strong enough to declare herself to be the "strongest princess". Sterk and Gio are concerned that this will get her to go on a power trip, resulting in Gio confronting her as "Masked G". Meruru losing will give her a humility check, but even if she wins, Sterk will drop by and give her a talking-to, and Meruru will seek out Masked G to talk about the real meaning of strength.
• Writer on Board: Even for Astrid, the sentiment "being stuck as an eternal child with damaged memory is better than being an Old Maid" is unusually callous for her when she'd previously been portrayed as having a minimum amount of human decency and genuinely caring about Rorona as her Parental Substitute. But while Flanderization had already been par for the course in the game, this particular issue goes above and beyond to the point the ending where Astrid turns Rorona into a 14-year-old and even prepares more of the defective potion for the other two is called "Finally, As Planned", as if she's outright proud of all of this happening. Of course, the actual reason for all of this was that the devs were making her into their mouthpiece... and it was only after fan backlash when the added "About Time" ending hinted that she might care a little more than she pretends she does, retconning events so that her settling for an incomplete potion is portrayed as being at least partially because Meruru didn't push hard enough to have it perfected.