Kirchen Bell is the small town where Sophie lives and she is an alchemist who runs an atelier that she inherited from her late grandmother. Monika Ellmenriech (looks like Linca) is a friend and Horst Basler is the café owner. You can take on side quests from him and he also has rumors from time to time. Marguerite Behlmer is a shop keeper and the mother of Oskar Behlmer. Oskar joins you in fighting right away as he’s been your friend since you were kids. Oskar reminds me very much of Augustus Gloop from
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in his appearance. Elise Phulie is the book store owner and Tess Heitzmann is also a friend and she lets you get items from her. Harol Simens runs the clock shop, when he chooses to work. Meklet and Atomina are researching alchemy, but they aren’t alchemists since they don’t have the natural talent, but they are very interesting characters. Logy is in this one as well. You might remember him from
Atelier Escha & Logy. He’s going to be your blacksmith. Julio Sebald Leidenschaft is a knight of Adalett, who saves you in the forest and then joins you since he needs an alchemist. Leon (a girl) will function as a clothing store for you, eventually, while Fritz Weissberg is a dollmaker, a puppeteer. Several of these people, including Leon and Fritz, will join your party eventually. The townsfolk are quite interesting, probably the most interesting of any of the
Atelier games that I have played. I haven’t even mentioned all of them!
This tale really begins when Sophie finds a reference book of her grandmother’s on a shelf. She decides to add to it her own alchemy recipes, which she is working to learn. When she does, the book starts to talk and she tells Sophie that her name is Plachta. Plachta tells you about a device called the Cauldron of Knowledge that will let you do amazing alchemy things, but as soon as she tells you about it, she forgets where it is. Plachta has forgotten a lot, including what she is. Since she can’t remember where the cauldron is, Plachta offers to teach you alchemy. Of course, to do anything you need to go gather items, with Monika and Oskar to help you fight. As I mentioned, others will join you too. Sophie decides that the best thing she can do would be to help Plachta recover her memories, which isn’t going to be easy.
Your time as Sophie is divided between alchemy and time in the field. You need to go fight monsters in the field to gather items for the alchemy. You will do alchemy at the cauldron and the alchemy is a bit different from the previous games, but Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book does a fairly good job of explaining what to do. You will just need to play around with it. You also have different cauldrons that you can use and you can upgrade those cauldrons. The second one you get has a 5x5 grid, which you will need for larger items. I will tell you that if you decide to upgrade it, make sure you still keep the 5x5 grid. I wasn’t paying attention to that and had to upgrade it again to fix it back! You can save your game at the desk and you can rest in the bed. When you choose to rest, it asks you how much time you want to rest for. While there is no overall time limit, time does pass and you should keep track of it. When you move between areas, explore, synthesize, and more, time will pass. You can find different items and monsters at different times. There are 5 days in a week and two of them are weekends. People will be in different places and do different things, like go to church, on the weekends. A month is 30 days (6 weeks). It will take a lot of time to help Plachta and to figure out what is really going on, but just keep at it and you will get there.