Are these games all independent?

[EdwardTheMartyr]

Some of the previous games in this series don't look too good and extremely time consuming. This game however peeks my interest. I'm assuming they're all separate stories?

[Helmet_time]

They are all separate stories.  However, the series consists of self-contained trilogies that have recurring characters and reference events from previous games (the connections tend to be very minor though).  That said, Ryza is the first game is a (hypothetical) new trilogy so, it is completely stand alone 

[Cassylvania]

I can only speak for Ryza and the Arland series, but...

 

They're generally standalone games, but the ones that exist as trilogies (which is everything on the PS3 and PS4 except Ryza and Nelke, I think) have characters and storylines from previous games in that series. From screenshots, though, Nelke has at least one character from the Arland series, and I'm pretty sure someone from Arland found a way to sneak into Ryza as well. But generally this is done more as fan service than for any meaningful plot reason.

 

Gameplay-wise, they all function very similarly, so I'm not sure you're going to like this game if the others don't look appealing to you. What don't you like about them? If it's the time component, you don't have to worry about it here. If it's the localization, this only has Japanese voices. (Both of those seem to be new trends to the series, as Lulua was the same way.) If it's the combat and alchemy system...this game still has those, but combat is more automated and alchemy is more streamlined, which takes out a lot of the frustration from the older games.

 

If you're only going to play one Atelier game (either as an entry point or just to try it out), this is probably the best choice.

Edited December 27, 2019 by Cassylvania