Atelier Ryza Series Gets Graphical Options In-Game and Steam Deck Fixes, But GPU Fix Still Needed

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The Atelier games are some of my favorites to play on the Steam Deck, especially the newest trilogy. The Ryza series is awesome, and if you are looking for a more cozy JRPG to play, this is definitely the series to check out. There were a couple of issues with it, though, with a big one being graphical options in a launcher outside of the first two games. But out of nowhere, we have a special 5th-anniversary update that focuses on optimizing each game in the series and makes some fantastic changes!

Each of the three Ryza games has had some changes implemented to make them more playable and enjoyable. All three games got some specific Steam Deck fixes, an option to fast forward Fatal Drive, added a Very Easy difficulty, and the third game got a new landmark and changed some completion requirements for a quest. As for the first two games, we have the option to auto-play text during event scenes and fast forward through them, and finally, we have the graphical settings in the Options menu in-game! This is by far my favorite change and makes optimizing the game significantly easier.

One of the things I was really hoping they would do with this update was actually fix up a GPU utilization bug. For some reason, the Ryza games don't fully utilize the GPU, and because of that, performance suffers significantly when it doesn't have to. We can fix this with a workaround, but I was hoping that this update would fix it. Sadly, this wasn't the case.

With the game running on the highest setting, I decided to go into the game with the newest update, both with and without the GPU fix, and there were still some massive gains from the fix. Inside, we can see gains of almost 20 FPS, while outside, we can see gains of over 30 FPS. Again, this is the highest settings possible, and there are ways to lower and optimize it if you don't use the fix, but being able to possibly play at the highest quality setting isn't possible without the fix.

I do hope this is something that has been fixed for the next game in the series, Atelier Yumia, but I am super happy to see this update. Even if it isn't perfect, it does have the graphical settings in-game now, and that is a massive move for me!

You can see the full changelog and announcement via their Steam Community Post.

All three Atelier Ryza games can be purchased on Steam for $59.99

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