I've always wondered, do these games play like the "Tales of" series?
Absolutely not. They're both JRPG's with an anime aesthetic and story but that's pretty much all they have in common. Gameplay-wise they're nothing alike.
Atelier Ryza has a turn based combat system, but most of all, a huge focus on gathering materials to make your own weapons and items. Combat isn't a huge part of Ryza, as you can gather most materials from trees, rocks and bushes, and with some experimenting you can create OP as fuck weapons really early in the game, that'll easily last you until the final boss, even without any mob grinding or leveling up.
Meanwhile, the Tales-games' bread and butter is the combat system and stringing huge combo's together.
I personally really like both, but they're very different from eachother.
