Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian PC port and Steam Deck impressions

Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian from Koei Tecmo and Gust launches tomorrow for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC (Steam). Ahead of its release, I've had a chance to check out the Steam version to cover the PC port features, how it scales on handhelds, my Steam Deck recommended settings, ROG Ally impressions, and more based on the opening hours of the full game.

Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian PC port features and graphics options

Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian on PC has full controller support, Steam Cloud support, HDR, keyboard and mouse input options, rebinding options, and a plethora of graphics options. Following the first Ryza game, the Atelier PC versions have been fantastic, and Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian continues that tradition. In the Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian graphics options, you have many options and presets to adjust the overall quality or use dedicated performance and quality options. 

The in-game graphics options let you adjust resolution (720p to 4K with only 16:9 support), window settings (windowed, borderless, fullscreen), toggle FSR (with no additional settings), toggle v-sync, limit the frame rate (30, 60, 120, 144, unlimited), toggle HDR, adjust texture quality, shadow quality, effect quality, terrain quality, rain quality, water quality, anti-aliasing (FXAA, off, MSAA x2, MSAA x4, MSAA x8), grass draw distance, grass density, LOD distance, NPC density, shadow draw distance, field model animation distance, enemy density limit, depth of field, toggle motion blurr, toggle bloom, and toggle light shafts.

Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian Steam Deck impressions

With Atelier games, it is never guaranteed that the Steam Deck will deliver a great experience considering video playback or general engine issues we saw a few years ago. Koei Tecmo and Gust have been improving with patches to improve the Steam Deck experience, but I was still unsure how Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian would feel on Valve's handheld. Thankfully, after a few minutes of playing, it became evident that Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian will be a very good experience on Steam Deck out of the box, and it is easy to tweak it to deliver a great portable version of Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian given how lacking the Switch version feels. 

Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian on Steam Deck only has 16:9 support so you will see black bars on the top and bottom, but there are no issues beyond that playing on Valve's handheld. It also has readable text across the board, fast loading, and no issues with any video playback. One thing to note is that if you play with the fullscreen window settings (display mode) on Deck, you might have freezing when changing graphics or display options. I recommend playing in borderless window mode on Steam Deck.

Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian Steam Deck recommended settings

On Steam Deck, based on the opening hours that I've replayed for any pre-release updates, you should play Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian in borderless window at 720p on Steam Deck. I left the game's other settings on the standard preset, but changed shadow quality to low. This delivered above 60fps in dungeons including combat with particle-heavy animations. This also works in towns with a lot of NPCs. The visuals aren't as good as playing on ROG Ally where you can aim for more, but you do get a solid portable 60fps experience here.

Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian ROG Ally impressions

Given how well Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian runs on Steam Deck out of the box, it is no surprise that it plays and runs even better on ROG Ally. In fact, using the standard settings at 1080p with FSR off, MSAA x2, and shadow quality set to low resulted in a locked 60fps experience that hits 120fps often on ROG Ally in the 25W mode. With VRR, I had no issues playing like this for the few hours I retested on ROG Ally after playing on Steam Deck. If you play at 720p with the same settings, expect 90-120fps on ROG Ally. It feels excellent. 

Stay tuned for our full review of Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian. If you're curious about the console versions and how they compare, read my dedicated Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian console comparison article. 

Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian will release on September 26 for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC (Steam). The PlayStation 4 version will not be released outside Japan.