Welcome to EXPlay, (Explain & Play) the review series where we care not for scores but tell it how it is when it comes to every game we get our hands on, whilst also taking the time to include some lengthy gameplay, to give you the reader, the chance to shape your own impressions and views whilst watching and reading.
In this explanatory review, we’re covering Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg by joint developer Gust:
Atelier Marie Remake – The Alchemist Of Salburg (The Explanation)
The Atelier series has been going on for 25 years and it all started with its first title on the original PlayStation in 1997. The game was Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg, a cozy RPG that tasked players with aiding the young alchemist in training Marlone (also known as Marie), pass the final exam for the coveted Academy of Alchemy in Salburg.
The game was ported to the Sega Saturn and Microsoft Windows and later was bundled with Atelier Elie for the PlayStation 2 and Sega Dreamcast. Now, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the series and Atelier Marie’s original release, the game has received a remake in the form of Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg.
At the core of the game, the story and gameplay are essentially the same but with the world and visuals being given a major overhaul to make it more appealing to modern audiences. It features a Chibi art style for the character models for the most part with the exception of during dialogue cutscenes between characters, where it then changes to a more traditional anime art style.
To dive into the game’s story a bit more, Marlone is a struggling student who is on the verge of failing in the Academy of Alchemy. Marlone’s teacher gives her one final task to prove herself by setting up shop in an atelier and focusing on mastering her alchemy skills. In five years’ time, Marlone will then have to sit a final exam in a last-ditch effort to successfully pass the academy.
For the most part, players will be embarking to locales outside of the town of Salburg in order to collect ingredients to be used in synthesis. For those who may not be familiar with the Atelier games, synthesis is the process of melding ingredients together to create new materials and items. They can range from health recovery tonics to bombs to be used in combat to hurt enemies. There are plenty of different materials and items to be synthesized but their recipes must be learned first by purchasing reading references in the Academy or by visiting the library as you gain more knowledge in the world of alchemy.
When embarking to the areas outside of town, Marlone can be accompanied by two other characters. These characters are adventurers that can be found in and around the town of Salburg. They are pretty much mercenaries in a way with the exception of Marlone’s friend Schea. Every time they go out on an adventure with you, you will need to pay them in coin upon your return to the Atelier. As you befriend adventurers and continue to go on excursions with them (as well as help them with the occasional favour), your friendship will grow and their hire rates will lower. Hiring adventures is paramount to your success in collecting ingredients as you can come under attack by monsters and bandits and will need to fight them off in turn-based combat.
On the topic of combat, each of your characters take turns to fight enemies in relation to their speed. A timeline can be seen in the bottom righthand side of the screen which indicates the order each character/enemy will attack in. Marlone and her party can either attack, guard, use an item, or execute a special move during their turn. Special moves work differently depending on the character that uses them but by doing so, they may take longer to make a move again in respect to the timeline.
Should the player win the battle, a day will pass and they can acquire items dropped by the enemy. However, if they fail and everyone in the party is defeated, Marlone will wake up back at the atelier and lose some the items she and her party were carrying. Regardless, Marlone and her friends will gain experience that will help them level up and increase their stats like HP, MP, speed, defense, offence, etc.
The main gameplay mechanic of Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg is that pretty much everything takes time. Every ingredient you collect consumes a day. Every item you synthesize will take time depending on how many of the item you wish to make and what type of item it is. Even traveling to and from the surrounding areas of Salburg can take a number of days in relation to their distance from the town.
As the days tick by, you will also find that events take place on certain days of the year, be it the summer festival, market day, or the king’s birthday, to name a few. You can learn about these events from the notice board in the Sky Tavern and by learning of rumors from the townsfolk. Listening to rumors can also open up new locations for Marlone to gather ingredients that she may not be able to find anywhere else.
The Sky Tavern also has quests available that require Marlone to deliver certain items and ingredients. By doing so, Marlone can earn coin and increase her reputation. This in turn will open up more rewarding quests that will shell out more profit. Each quest does have a time limit though and failing to complete the quest in time will mean a lower reward and a decrease in your reputation.
Another place of considerable interest in Salburg is the Weapon shop. Here, players can purchase better weapons and armor for Marlone and her friends. These can come in handy somewhat as venturing further afield will lead to inevitable combat with higher level enemies and just leveling up your party is just not enough. Sometimes a better weapon and armor can make the difference in securing victory.
While Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg is affectionally referred to as a “Cozy RPG” and focuses more on gathering rather than combat, there are several different enemies with variants and four big bad bosses for players to take on. Granted, fighting bosses will require you to level up your party quite a bit. The payoff though is that some of them do possess ingredients that you cannot acquire anywhere else.
As well as the RPG elements, there are also a number of minigames that can occur throughout the game, some of these minigames include bashing Punis with hammers or chasing a mouse that stole your cheese. They are basically there to help break up the monotony of gathering and synthesizing but can also help increase rewards should you be successful.
One last feature I should touch upon which is actually the first thing players will encounter. Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg has two game modes; Normal and Unlimited. Normal mode is the standard mode of the game (as the name suggests) and sets players on the path of beating the game withing the timeframe of five in-game years and will finish upon doing the final exam. As for Unlimited mode, players can continue to play, even after the five-year period is up and they can choose to “finish” the game at any time from year six onwards. Also, as is typical fashion in recent Atelier and Koei Tecmo games, there is a Photo Mode as well for players to take cute screenshots and add different filters and frames to them.
Wrapping up our EXPlay, Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg is a light but entertaining title that is less combat focused and more on resource/time management. It is still rather fun to play though and is not a huge time sink like many other RPGs. Beating the game can take about ten hours or so with 100% completion probably adding a few more hours to that. If you enjoy cozy RPG’s that won’t take you hundreds of hours to play and can come back to time and again, Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg should certainly be one for you to look into.
Atelier Marie Remake – The Alchemist Of Salburg (The Gameplay)
Game Specifications:
Developers: Gust
Publisher: Koei Tecmo
Platform: Nintendo Switch (eShop)
Category: Role-Playing
No. of Players: 1 (Single System)
Release Date: NA|EU: July 13, 2023
Price: $49.99
File Size: 3.2 GB
Nintendo.com Listing
