Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key

Atelier Ryza 3 was provided by Koei Tecmo and OnePR for review. Thank you!

Join Ryza in her third and final adventure as she uncovers the mystery behind the Kark isles. In Atelier Ryza 3, you and your team will have to find the Code of the Universe and discover the meaning behind the isles that will take you all the way to the roots of Alchemy. Travel over maps with seemless transitions while discovering landmarks, getting ingredients, and battling monsters with 11 different party members to choose from. You can also utilize the new Key system to give yourself new abilities in combat, exploration, and even synthesis! Now gather your tools, synthesize your items, and save Ryza's home in this expansive finale.

If you have played the other Atelier Ryza games, you will have a good idea on what to expect from this one. Thankfully, that's not really a bad thing in this case! The world is vibrant, movement feels much more fluid thanks to the seemless transitioning, the action-oriented combat feels great, and the keys system is an interesting spin on the game! I honestly don't have any gripes regarding the content. It feels great and plays well, especially if you enjoyed the past games in the series.

The game does take place after Ryza 1 and 2, so I highly recommend playing those first to fully understand the characters and the full story. We also reviewed Ryza 1 and Ryza 2 on the website, so you can see how best to run them! And just like the other two games, Atelier Ryza 3 definitely needs a little bit of configuring to run well.

Atelier Ryza 3 - The Necessary GPU Fix

So, just like the past 2 games, Ryza 3 needs the GPU fix to run well. Without any changes, the game can launch and run, but locks to about 13W - 14W battery drain and regularly dips under 30 FPS without changing settings. Now, we can put all the settings on the lowest and the game can hit above 40, with some minor dips to 35, BUT there is a massive stuttering problem that completely impedes enjoyment of the game. I noticed this more when capping the framerate lower than 60, making it near impossible to play:

Luckily, this can be completely fixed with the GPU fix that is used for both of the other games.

Fixing GPU Utilization Issue

We need to utilize the fix made by doitsujin. This fix actually works for most Atelier games that have this problem and they are all fixed in the same way!

1. Go into Desktop mode and Download the atfix.zip from Github
2. Put the d3d11.dll file in the main install directory of Atelier Ryza 2. You can find this in Desktop mode by right clicking the game, hovering over "Manage", and then clicking "Browse Local Files".
3. Either in Desktop mode or going back into Game mode, go into properties and put in this launch option:

WINEDLLOVERRIDES="d3d11=n,b" %command%

You will also need to force compatibility with Proton GE. To do this, you can follow our guide which explains what it is and how to get and update it!

Once this is done, the game will start behaving well and gameplay will be smooth as butter...for the most part. Before we go more into that though, let's check out the settings we use.

The Key to Optimization

After the GPU fix, a plethora of the glaring issues with Atelier Ryza 3 was gone, but it still takes a bit to run well. The game is very GPU heavy, so to run it well, we have to bring the settings down. Thankfully, there is a solid group of settings that keep the game around 40 FPS with around 12W - 14W with a max of 16W drain. There are a couple issues that persist throughout, which I will detail a bit more below, but for the majority of the time, it is fantastic.

The biggest setting that helps performance in this game, like the predecessors, is the Shadow Quality. While it doesn't get rid of any shadows, lowering it reduces the sharp quality of them. This is actually quite nice since it keeps the overall feel of the game while saving a significant amount of processing power to increase performance while lowering battery drain.

Next, we have the quality build. I wanted to create as close to max settings as humanly possible, and I feel this build achieves just that with a nice battery drain similar to the recommended build above. With everything on high, except for shadows which need to be turned to "Standard", we can achieve a solid 30 FPS build that sticks to it for most of the time.

I also wanted to make a framerate focused build for those who want the smoothest possible game. At 50 FPS, it feels absolutely fantastic with a mix of low and medium settings. It does drain a bit more, getting upwards of 17W drain, but it feels fantastic and rarely dips.

While all of these builds work, there are some issues that persist throughout all of the setting groups regardless...

Selective Stutters, Slowdowns, and Freezing

Do you remember the video above that shows the massive stuttering that happens if you don't use the GPU fix? Well...it doesn't fully go away. If you go into your guide, your game will start to appear to be vibrating, while going into "Help" will trigger the same stutters in the video demonstrations that play. This includes when they pop up during gameplay, the videos will still stutter. It is very odd and we are still investigating the issue, but since it doesn't affect the actual gameplay, it isn't a dealbreaker.

Ryza 3 also tends to suffer from slowdowns at certain points in the game. This happens generally when you are running a bit too fast (could be shader cache issues), when in a cutscene or dialogue, or when the time of day is changing. We will monitor and see if this gets fixed, but it is a little weird seeing the framerate start to dip for no reason and just know that it was becoming night time.

The big dealbreaker currently is the freezing. The game has a wonderful fast travel system where loading times are usually completely erased and when it works, it is fantastic. But I have come across a couple of times where I would have Ryza enter a house and the game would freeze instead of loading the inside of the house. There was also one time where just running around the area caused a freeze, which I had to restart. The game does autosave and I didn't lose any progress, but it was still obnoxious.

Atelier Ryza 3 also suffers from one other obnoxious issue that has plagued all the other Ryza games...it doesn't save the setting changes. So every time you exit the game, you will have to change the settings again. I am still not sure why this keeps happening, but it does and it is quite annoying to say the least.

Conclusion

Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key has some wonderful new ideas in it that I love. The key system is interesting, but I love how seemless movement is here. Fast travel is as fast as ever and has made completing missions, especially ones I had to go to a certain area and collect ingredients, significantly easier. This works about 90% of the time though, so I am quite happy. And once the GPU fix is implemented, which is definitely necessary, Ryza 3 is a fantastic experience on the Steam Deck. It still has some issues here and there, and those crashes and lack of saving setting changes are a bit annoying, but overall, it can be a game to enjoy on the mobile device and a fantastic way to finish out the trilogy!

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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