Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg Review
Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg is a remake of the very first Atelier game released way back in 1997. Being a big Atelier fan myself, I was very eager to give this remake a try to see how it compares to the original versions. The Remake seems to be based upon the ‘plus’ version of the original and features all of the additional features offered there along with a ton of quality-of-life improvements and a lovely art style that builds upon the original game without overly changing the feel of the game.
Story
Unlike Atelier Ryza or Sophie, the Story of Atelier Marie is pretty simple, Marie is a failing student of Alchemy at the Royal Academy of Magic. She’s given one last chance at graduation by her instructor Ingrid in which she has 5 years to synthesize a high-quality item. To aid in this, she is given her very own Atelier which acts as Marie’s home and workshop throughout the game. Marie is generally seen as somewhat of a failure by the townsfolk of Salburg apart from her best friend Schea.
Starting, Atelier Marie Remake is a little tutorial heavy but you’ll soon pretty much be left to your own devices on how you want to spend your days. You can stay at the Atelier and craft items, visit the tavern to pick up rumours and requests or go exploring nearby forests and caves, it’s left up to you to decide what you want to do, however, Ingrid will give you an assignment to complete every 6 months or so to keep you on track and almost every activity will cost you a set number of days.
In the town of Salburg, you’ll find a weapons shop, the Academy and The Sky Tavern among a few other locations. Leaving the Atelier and returning will cost you 1 in-game day, so it’s wise to plan out what you want to achieve each day.
Gameplay
The general gameplay loop of Atelier Marie is heading to the tavern to pick up any requests or hear rumours, these usually involve delivery of a certain item by a certain date. Once you’ve accepted your request you’ll need to hire one of the game’s various mercenaries that hang around town to accompany you looking for these items.
Once you have hired a couple of party members and equipped some healing items, it’s time to go exploring and gather some alchemy ingredients. Atelier Marie handles this via a map that Marie and Co. travel. The various locations on that map are unlocked gradually. Travelling to each one will take you a set amount of days and you find items and even get ambushed by enemies en route to your destination.
Battles are turn-based with Marie and up to two other party members fighting off hoards of monsters and punis, the slime-like series staple enemy. Battles now take place on a full 3D map instead of the single floating isometric slab that the original version of Atelier Marie used to take place on. The difficulty is a little on the easy side but there are a few tougher enemies in the game. Each battle can now be sped up and there’s even an option for Auto attack which I must admit is a nice addition, especially when squaring off against weaker enemies.
Each area on the map has a clearly marked recommended level and it’s a great idea to stay within the recommended levels otherwise you and your party may be in trouble. Also clearly displayed is what items are available to gather so it’s worth checking out what’s required for any requests at the Sky Tavern before setting off.
Each location is a collection of 3 – 4 interconnected maps littered with enemies and materials to plunder. Marie can gather up to 60 items from each location and won’t be able to hold any more until you decide to return the Atelier.
The design of each location is true to the original versions of Atelier Marie but now looks beautiful. Each biome has its own distinct look and feel and it makes the world feel much bigger than just a few locations on a map.
At the end of a few of the maps you’ll find a boss enemy which is way stronger than any of the other enemies in the area, so be prepared for battle and perhaps consider coming back when you are at a higher level. Defeating bosses is essential in helping unlock some of Atelier Marie’s 7 endings, you’ll need alchemy materials dropped from them to create some of the game’s ultimate items.
Upon returning back to the Atelier, Marie and her allies will be awarded experience and you’ll have to pay your party members their wages. After exploring and gathering it’s time to turn in some requests, head over to the Sky Tavern to complete some quests and earn some money. You’ll be awarded not only in money but also in REP (Reputation), as the game progresses and you complete more requests Marie will become more well-liked by the inhabitants of Salburg. I’d often get back to the Sky Tavern after questing and already have all the items needed to complete some of the requests which made for a good source of money as all you have to do is turn them in.
With some cash from the completed request Marie can head to the academy where she can purchase books and equipment that will aid in her alchemic pursuits. Each book unlocks new recipes which can be synthesised back at the Atelier. Most common items take a couple of days to put together but some of the late-game items can take as much as 30 days so you’ll have to be mindful of any deadlines you when using alchemy.
As you create new items Marie’s Knowledge stat will increase, however, each item created will cost Marie a chunk of her MP and fill up her Fatigue meter. This will need to be restored by resting for a few days which can be done over at the bed.
Objectives can be accessed at any time by tapping the L button and act as a sort of in-game achievement system. Objectives have various conditions from being victorious in battle several times to raising your friendship level with a character etc. These reward Marie with permanent stat boosts, so they are well worth pursuing. You’ll naturally unlock a ton of them as your progress through Marie’s 5-year stint.
The more expeditions you take with your party members the more their friendship level will increase, this will make hiring them again much cheaper but will also unlock story segments where you get to learn more about their backstories. You’ll know if you have a character event by pressing the Minus button, this will give you a list of the town’s locations along with little icons for where each character is. A red exclamation mark indicates there’s an event at that location and will allow Marie to fast travel there.
As Marie and her party fulfil more requests new enemies will appear at certain locations as you progress through the game adding tougher enemies and new bosses to beat for rare items. New Weapons will become available at the weapon shop after selling the blacksmith enough Ores, some of these weapons can give access to special abilities for Marie and Co. and are worth pursuing if you have the spare ore.
To help Marie time manage a little more efficiently Fairies are available for higher each working at a speed that depends on how much you are willing to pay them. Like party members, they will expect to be paid upon returning to the atelier from adventuring and you can have a maximum of 7 fairies working for you at any time. You can assign the fairies jobs, such as venturing out and gathering alchemy materials for you or crafting items for you saving you some precious time otherwise wasted making common items.
I would like to mention that Atelier Marie Remake has some excellent presentation, the developers have really captured the essence of the original while making it visually appealing for the modern era. Characters have a very cute Chibi style to them and the game just looks charming overall.
The remade music is also wonderful, however, you do have the option to change to the original soundtrack if you want to. It’s a nice inclusion but I’d definitely recommend sticking to the Remake’s music.
In the options you’ll find two different modes, a quality mode and performance mode, playing on the Switch I opted to play through the game in performance mode and I had a consistent framerate with still visually appealing graphics, the PS5 and Steam versions do look much sharper in comparison, but this is the price we pay for portability I’m afraid.
Although I loved my time with Atelier Marie Remake, there were a few things I did not enjoy as much. Although you’ll be working with the 5-year time limit, Atelier Marie Remake gives you a lot of freedom with how you spend your days. You can choose to explore and gather items for alchemy, take on quests at the tavern or spend the day reading at the Academy to unlock more recipes.
While this is great, and you do feel a great sense of freedom, I did find I ended up with Marie maxing out certain things like the reputation score you get from taking on quests at the tavern.
By the 3rd year, I had completely maxed it out at 999 only to receive an assignment from Ingrid saying I need to achieve over 300 reputation points which completed automatically. While this is fine, it left me feeling like the game was a little unbalanced. I also managed to reach level 50 with Marie and cap out her knowledge stat all around the same time. I do wish the game was a little harder and offered a little more in terms of challenge.
Another annoyance is the inclusion of the ‘simple gathering’ button mapped to the plus button. This may be more of a ‘me’ type problem, but I’d often press this button while out exploring to pull up the menu, only to activate auto gathering with grabs a couple of items from the area but costs a full in-game day. I did this numerous times during my play-through and wasted so many in-game days, each time fully well knowing it was my fault. Annoying, but also more a case of user error rather than anything the game itself did wrong.
My last gripe with Atelier Marie Remake is the quite aggressive depth of field effect applied to the screen at all times. The effect is applied to the top and bottom of screens while exploring and in town. It’s very similar to the one used in Link’s Awakening but It’s quite aggressive and I could not find a way to turn it off. You can remove it while in Atelier Maries photo mode, so it seems very odd that we cannot disable this in the settings. Perhaps this is something that could be addressed in a patch? Hopefully.
Conclusion
Atelier Marie Remake is a great example of a remake done right. It adds quality-of-life features, modernizing the graphics without interfering with the core gameplay. The cast of characters is lovingly recreated and I really enjoyed my time in Salburg, although it was a little on the easy side. I would highly recommend picking up a copy of Atelier Marie Remake and I hope Atelier Elie is on the card to get the same kind of Remake treatment soon.
8
Nintendo Switch review code kindly provided by Koei Tecmo