Navigation occurs via two static map illustrations, which depicts the Arland town and its surrounding area in a scaled down view.

Field map areas such as the town and forests are depicted as realistically rendered environments, in which the player can converse with locals, gather items, or encounter enemies.

The main character, Rorolina Frixell, is being forced to work for the master alchemist Astrid Zexis to pay off a debt her parents owe.

One day, Sterkenburg Cranach, a knight of Arland, comes to the alchemy workshop and informs Rorona that the shop will be shut down unless she is able to prove that it can function in the city's economy.

[25] This is because the majority of the stores reserved a limited number of copies for regular sales to meet pre-order demands.

[27] According to public sales information published by Gamasutra, Atelier Rorona was the best-selling PlayStation 3 title on the Japanese Amazon website for the week ending on July 9, 2009.

[28] The game dropped to the second highest the following week ending on July 17, 2009,[29] marking its final appearance in the ranking; overall estimates from this time put Rorona at or near 70,000 copies sold, with low-level sales continuing since.

In December 2009, developer and publisher Gust noted that the company was pleased with Atelier Rorona's sales because of the game selling a total of 121,256 copies in Japan.

Atelier Rorona fared well in the West, increasing its sales to over 200,000 copies worldwide, which the company considered as "good numbers for an HD generation RPG".

"[24] US Gamer gave the remake Atelier Rorona Plus a 5/5 score, claiming that the new edition addresses the issues with the original version in addition to providing adequate amounts of new content.