Title: Alchemist: The Potion Monger
Developer: Art Games Studio S.A.
Publisher: Art Games Studio S.A.
Release Date: October 17th, 2024 (Switch)
Platforms: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch
Reviewed on: Nintendo Switch
Price: $17.99 (USD)
When I was a kid playing outside, there were many times I would concoct “potions” by gathering what random plants I could find around my house; I was greatly influenced by many fantastical novels that I could find in my school’s library. It was honestly no wonder that when given the chance, I jumped at the opportunity to review a game that was all about creating mythical concoctions while also having fun and enjoying an RPG that held relatively cozy themes.
Alchemist: The Potion Monger is that game.
Plot Synopsis:
A cozy little RPG, you essentially play the game as an anthropomorphic animal of your choosing – making friends and connections while you attempt to grow your own potions business. With your faithful dog by your side to help you find ingredients and discover new ones, every step in the game feels like a different adventure, especially as you build your social connections with the local townsfolk. This is something I enjoyed as I am always a sucker for games that require you to build social connections. These interactions help further along your journey in becoming a potioneering master as each friend you make and every business partner you collaborate with builds your business in such a fun way.
Analysis:
When first booting up the game, one of the main things to greet you is a selection screen – story focus or combat focus. By offering players the choice of whether they would want an adventure that allows them to go either relatively peaceful through the world or fight enemies as they come across their paths, the game allows the player to have some more control over their gameplay styles as well.
Another aspect that the game does well with this is the character selection. While not an in-depth customizer, Alchemist: The Potion Monger helps the player understand that choices have consequences early on, as different characters have different aspects. One might be better at making potions but have worse charisma with townsfolk, while another might be better with people but loses money quicker.This was partially what led me to just doing the default character while playing.
Graphics:
With graphics that offer that early PS2 atmosphere, Alchemist: The Potion Monger gives a bit of a nostalgic vibe when being played, and even with some of the complicated game controls, it felt somewhat like a new experience regardless.
I am a big fan of retro-looking games and old looking games itself. I like to replay Pokémon Blue whenever I have the chance, same with Persona 3 and it’s (now) beloved chunky appearance compared to its Persona 3: Reload successor. Alchemist: The Potion Monger has these nicely chunky graphics and bright saturated colors that really bring me a special kind of joy as it made the game feel like something I would have played when I was younger without giving the illusion of being overtly simple. I love the somewhat rough designs to certain environmental details and yet the smoothness of the character designs.
Are our characters anthropomorphic animals? Yes, but each design is both very simple and also one of a kind in their own ways as the characters you bond with just have their own aesthetic that helps you see them as something separate from the common folk of the town itself. Besides, while the 3D models are relatively chunky and slightly jerky- again in a nostalgic way for myself, the 2D art that is implemented in the game is beautiful. From the main menu screen to the character designs themselves, the art is whimsical and definitely fits the fantasy genre the game sits in.
Gameplay:
The gameplay and mechanics behind the game itself are extremely immersive. The controls tie directly to how you explore the world; understanding which alchemic element your material is tied to (from earth, air, fire, water) to what aspect those very elements are tied to (healing, damage, strength, etc.).
When you might be confused about what element the item correlates with, your faithful animal companion is there to save the day. Letting your dog smell the item acts like a sort of ‘detection’ element to discover unknown items while your little pop-up descriptor will give you the correlating symbol to which element or its aspect.
The studio also goes in depth with this, as Alchemist: The Potion Monger changes the aspects and elements of different ingredients when you change their form. It was actually something I really liked about it, as that changed up the way the potion worked and sometimes led to me making new potions or discovering new aspects.
As you go around this mythical world, some of the best fun that I had was being a little loot gremlin in the wild and figuring out which items from nature could boost my potion production and make me more money as this was also my capitalist simulator.
Something that I also enjoyed with this game is that when making the potions themselves, you had to complete this sort of minigame in order to make sure your potion was of high caliber. The better you did on this minigame, the better quality of your potion and the more it was worth for said quality.
Overall, the game controls made me sometimes feel like a kid trying to learn a combo, in a good way. With that said, they were a little difficult for me to get a hang of first, but it works well in the favor of the game to better immerse the player in this fantasy world.
Final Score:
You can obviously tell that a lot of creativity went into the game and that many of the developers had an attention to detail that went beyond just the initial conceptual idea of the game. Of course, in my run, I did find a few bugs that caused my game to have to be reset or some tasks that frustrated me. Unfortunately, some of these games really did take me out of the game as a whole with how much they broke my game. One such example was when I explored the beach in my first run and it crashed my game, leaving me frozen and unable to do anything as my UI, my Element Menu, and my Settings Menu all overlaid, and I had to hard reset my Switch. Regardless, I had plenty of fun playing the game and definitely recommend it.
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Featured Image Source: Art Games Studio S.A. (via Art Games Studio S.A.)
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