I had no prior experience with the Atelier series, but I bought Ryza 1 on sale a year or so ago. I didn't finish it, but I easily got 20 hours of enjoyment out of it.

It's a light story just to keep things moving along. The meat is exploration and gathering to make cool items. Combat is a pretty standard issue turn based JRPG experience, but it provides one of the avenues to use items you might make - like bombs and such. It's a low stakes genuinely fun expression of the traits above. I'd recommend it to people who like those things.

It's super "anime", which isn't a knock, just something to be aware of if you like or dislike that style.