REVIEW: Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg


Title	Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg
Developer	Koei Tecmo, Gust
Publisher	Koei Tecmo
Release Date	July 13th, 2023
Genre	RPG
Platform	Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 \| 5, PC
Age Rating	Everyone 10+
Official Website

Ever since I finished the original Atelier Ryza game I’ve really been getting into the overall Atelier franchise. I’ve never played anything older than the first Mana Khemia though. So I was looking forward to trying out Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg. I knew it’d be a dated entry, but I adored the new art/graphical style and Koei Tecmo mentioned in their promotional info that it had a new Unlimited Mode, so I knew I wouldn’t have to worry about the time limit. Originally, I didn’t think I’d be the one doing this review but fortunately, it landed in my lap and I was lucky enough to check it out.

Atelier Marie Remake revolves around Marie, of course, who is the worst student at the Royal Academy of Magic in Salburg. She’s given an atelier and five years to create a high enough quality item to pass a special graduation exam. And that’s it, that’s the basic plot of the game. You’ll find that Atelier Marie, being the very first Atelier game, is super simple and basic. You have five years in game to raise your alchemy skill and make something decent. This game’s calendar pretty much resembles a real calendar, each year has January through December and each month is a full month, they’re not some sort of fictional shortened versions. To gather stuff, you’ll leave Salburg and go to one of a select handful of areas to gather materials. Each time you gather something, a day passes by. These gathering areas have monsters to battle as well. To form your party, you’ll hire a couple of characters out of a number of people in town. These characters require payment, so you’ll have to pay them every time you get back to town. But as you become friends, the cost slowly goes down. Also, battles are a super basic turn-based affair as well. There’s nothing fancy or any advanced mechanics here. In between alchemy and adventuring, you’ll also be able to fulfill requests in town to make money and you’ll occasionally happen across rumors in town or at the local bar, which will raise your knowledge and possibly unlock stuff, such as new places to gather. And as you finish quests, your reputation will go up. Your reputation goes down if you miss a deadline for a request or cancel one.

Now, I did play the game in the new Unlimited Mode. Nonetheless, you’ll find the game isn’t necessarily completely chill on Unlimited. Various events still happen on certain dates and when you take on a request, you will still have to finish it in a specific number of days. Thus, despite having extra time after the five year deadline to complete what you need to, you’ll still be relying on the calendar and trying not to waste any time. It’s just not as relaxing and carefree as a later title, like Atelier Ryza, which lacks a calendar system altogether. Still, it’s nice they give you that extra time to complete the important stuff, it’s not as strict as Atelier Ayesha for example. Also, the game is really short; I finished my first playthrough in a little over 10 hours. However, there is a bit of replay value. There are a handful of endings to unlock, there was one character I never even met who required something I clearly didn’t do correctly or at all, and you might find yourself with not enough time before the graduation exam to befriend every single party member and see all of their events. Plus, when I checked the event requirements list, which shows you some vague requirements for unlocking different events, I saw some characters had one scene you don’t get to unlock in Unlimited Mode. Based on the requirements, I thought these might be some sort of bad ends/relationship results or something of that sort. Therefore, even though this is a really short Atelier title, you might just find yourself playing it quite a few times, especially if you’re a completionist.

Overall, I thought Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg was a super cute and charming little entry. It’s super basic, being the very first Atelier, but the brand new modern chibi character designs and all the various art screens throughout the game were all extremely charming. The soundtrack was just okay. Having played this before launch, I missed out on the ability to play with Atelier Sophie’s bar theme as the relaxing tune I set in my atelier. I always like to have a chill tune set for the hours I spend on alchemy. Oh and something I forgot to mention earlier, the alchemy system is also super basic. You merely need to have the required ingredients, there’s no little minigame or advanced mechanics behind crafting. There are some occasional minigames though. When I crafted or collected specific items, a minigame would pop-up where I’d have to go around a maze on a time limit, collecting something while avoiding these enemies of a sort, to keep that item or even get extra. Also, eventually you’ll be able to unlock different designs for your atelier, which have specific bonuses for different gameplay aspects.

In the end, I’m very happy to have had the chance to play Atelier Marie. I was really looking forward to it as I said before and it turned out to be quite the fun and cute little adventure like I hoped it would be. Well, maybe it was a bit shorter than I realized, I’m not sure I would pay full price for this one, much less the Digital Deluxe price. Regardless, the fact that the Digital Deluxe Edition lets you play the Plus version of the game, which as far as I know is much more like the original with just a few extras – not a modern remake – is a nice little bonus. I may have to get myself the Digital Deluxe someday in the future. Anyway, if you like Atelier games, or you’re a fan of really basic and short little slice-of-life type RPGs, then I would highly recommend Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg. But if you prefer a much longer game, or specifically a more in-depth Atelier title, then this one might not be for you. Or, perhaps it’s something you’ll wanna snag on sale.