When comparing Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings vs Mario Tennis Aces, the Slant community recommends Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings for most people. In the question“What are the best games for the Nintendo Switch?” Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings is ranked 24th while Mario Tennis Aces is ranked 81st. The most important reason people chose Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings is:
Atelier Lydie & Suelle's combat is simple enough for beginners who want to try out a turn-based JRPG. The interface is clean with basic commands for attacking and using skills, magic, and items. It's easy to get the hang of when to go on offense while your health is high, and when to switch to healing when your health starts to get low. The combat doesn't overwhelm you with complicated tutorials or mechanics, staying at a beginner's level with some room to grow down the line. This is a really good choice to start with if you want to get into turn-based combat before moving onto other games.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Solid turn-based combat that's welcoming to beginners
Atelier Lydie & Suelle's combat is simple enough for beginners who want to try out a turn-based JRPG. The interface is clean with basic commands for attacking and using skills, magic, and items. It's easy to get the hang of when to go on offense while your health is high, and when to switch to healing when your health starts to get low. The combat doesn't overwhelm you with complicated tutorials or mechanics, staying at a beginner's level with some room to grow down the line. This is a really good choice to start with if you want to get into turn-based combat before moving onto other games.
Pro Engaging gathering and crafting system with alchemy as the game's main focus
Atelier Lydie & Suelle focuses on gathering materials and synthesizing them into alchemy formulas as the main mechanics. You can lose yourself in the game for hours as you explore the fantasy-like levels, picking up resources from bushes, hacking away at trees, or mining them from rocks. You can take as long you want to gather the stuff you need before going back home to your alchemy lab, or your atelier.
The puzzle-like 4x4 crafting grid has a neat strategy in how you can make the most out of your ingredients. If you just put your ingredients wherever on the grid, you'll end up with a bad product. Arranging your ingredients together in certain ways on the grid boosts the end product's effects, like putting them near green squares to improve your product's healing effect, which improves the item's overall quality. Going for quality gives you more experience points to level up and more money from the jobs you take on.
Taking your time to gather the materials you need and synthesizing them into the best possible items pays off in the end.
Pro Slice-of-life story and gameplay that's relaxing and laid-back
There's a sweet simplicity to the story and gameplay that focuses more on everyday life. Playing as the two twins, Lydie and Suelle, you're mainly trying to make ends meet and become the best possible alchemists you can be. You pass the days at your own pace as you take on jobs from the townspeople, leading you to explore the worlds inside of paintings, gather materials, and craft those materials into items through alchemy. It's nice that this game lets you kick back and relax with a more low-stakes story and simplistic gameplay.
Pro Charming and colorful anime art style
The art style is has many bright colors and well-drawn characters. Everyone has all sorts of colorful hairstyles, eyes, and outfits like pink, blue, and crimson that aren't too over-the-top. Their eyes have cool swirls for pupils, their skin tones are radiant, and every character has a bright and lovely smile. This is a beautiful anime style that looks good in the 3D cel-shaded graphics and the 2D cutscenes with still art that are more like a visual novel.
Pro Creative concept of entering paintings to explore new worlds
The many fantasy-like worlds you explore through the mysterious paintings are very pretty and whimsical. Going into the paintings themselves is fascinating since it's something you don't get to do in real life, and you get to learn more about Lydie and Suelle as you go along. Gathering resources and fighting monsters while surrounded by waterfalls and flowery forests helps keep the gameplay from getting too repetitive or stale. All of this adds a more magical feel to the game's more ordinary slice-of-life sections.
Pro Couch co-op with a friend is tons of fun
Playing with a friend right beside you makes the game much more enjoyable. Reacting to each other in real-time is just better than playing against a computer opponent. There's no online co-op -- only multiplayer matches against random people -- meaning you'll have to be in the same room together to play.
Pro Solid roster of Nintendo characters to play as
There's a good variety of characters you can play as. If you're familiar with first party Nintendo games, then you'll see a lot of familiar faces here, like Yoshi, Bowser, Donkey Kong, Luigi, Peach, and of course Mario. Everyone has their own playing styles, with bigger characters like Bowser and Donkey Kong favoring hard-hitting power shots, and others like Yoshi and Mario that have a more balanced approach. You can go with whichever style or character you prefer, practicing with them until you master everything. Getting to see all of these characters together in one game is great for fanservice as well.
Pro You can compete against others online in multiplayer
When you run out of single-player content to enjoy, you can hop online to play against random opponents. The main game mode is the tournaments you can play, which rewards you with special characters if you score well. Online connectivity is good too, especially with the choice to drop out of matches beforehand against players who have bad connections. Playing online is a really great way to test your skills and improve your play, since anyone you get matched with is an actual player who has their own strengths and weaknesses.
Pro Intense and engaging tennis matches
Mario Tennis Aces is incredibly addicting to play. Matches are fast-paced and exciting, with one particular mechanic that keeps things unpredictable. Every time you successfully hit the tennis ball to your opponent's end of the court, you build up a power meter that you can use in a couple of different ways.
When you want to quickly finish off a match, you can slow down time and take aim at a vulnerable corner of your opponent's court for an instant win. Or, if they try to do that to you, you can instead expend some of your power meter to quickly reach the ball and hit it back. Things can get pretty tricky when you both use up your power meters at the same time, leading to some satisfying wins.
Cons
Con Not for people who hate repetitive busywork
If you can't stand doing the same things over and over again in games, then Atelier Lydie & Suelle probably isn't for you. The whole game is about exploring maps to gather materials and then crafting those materials into something useful through alchemy. There are some turn-based battles thrown in, but these more or less take a backseat to the alchemy mechanics. The heavy focus on gathering and crafting can end up feeling like busywork, turning the game into a drag for players who hate that kind of thing.
Con Graphics for environments aren't that great
The visuals for the environments don't hold up to how pretty the cel-shaded graphics are. The textures are low-quality with jaggies sticking out. It's not so bad on the PC version and the PlayStation 4; things are much more obvious on the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation Vita. There are also some invisible walls that cut you off in places like open arches leading to shops, making the maps feel a lot smaller. If you can handle limited maps with so-so graphics, then these problems aren't that big of a deal in the long run.
Con You won't find a sprawling narrative here like in most RPGs
The stories in the Atelier games are more about everyday life mixed in with whimsical fantasy. This isn't the kind of RPG with the type of layered, rich story with dramatic twists and turns that you'd expect from the genre. If you want a heavier narrative with more to say, you won't get that with this game.
Con No English voices even though previous Atelier games included them
For some reason, Atelier Lydie & Suelle doesn't have an English dub and just has the original Japanese voices with English subtitles. There's nothing wrong with only having the Japanese option, but it's really weird considering the other Atelier games in the West have English voice acting. New players don't have much to worry about here unless you can't stand having to read subtitles. If you're a fan of the series and you're used to the English dub, you might be thrown off by the change.
Con Very wide skill gap between experienced and inexperienced players
Mario Tennis Aces can be unwelcoming to new players. While playing co-op or online, it's tough to catch up with everyone else who knows how to time their power shots with the meter. If you don't pick up on this mechanic fairly quickly, you may feel like you're getting left behind. You don't necessarily have to use the mechanic if you and a friend agree not to, but this sadly makes matches pretty dull. Running against computer opponents is a good way to get your feet wet before moving up to other levels of play.
Con Limited gameplay options for solo players
If you're the type who prefers to game alone, then Mario Tennis Aces might not be for you. There's only one single-player mode, while the rest of the game is mostly dedicated to co-op and online play. The solo mode is also extremely short, clocking in at around four hours. Aside from that, there really isn't much else for you to do.
Con Certain characters are locked behind online tournaments
The primary way to unlock new characters is to win tournaments, but this isn't entirely fair. They're only available for a limited amount of time, with the rewards changing from tournament to tournament. Even though some of these characters are in the actual game as opponents in the single-player adventure mode, you can't get access to them unless you unlock them through these tournaments. If you don't like playing online, or if you don't have the means to pay for Nintendo's online service once it's implemented later on in 2018, then you're basically out of luck.
Con Single-player adventure mode is pretty difficult
The game's adventure mode makes up for its short length with some real difficulty. It's a rough introduction to the gameplay, as some of the matches and bosses are really hard. There's plenty of variety to things, like courts that have certain hazards in your way and uneven terrain such as tall grass, as well as inventive boss designs like a giant squid that shoots out tennis ball-shaped blobs of ink. But all of these things can get quite overwhelming, especially if you're using the single-player mode to get better at the game.