Classic Synthesizing with All-Modern Conveniences!
HIGH You can basically turn off combat.
LOW Trying to figure out exactly when events will trigger.
WTF Was not expecting the ‘keep honey away from bears’ minigame!
Get far enough away from the beginning of something and it’s easy to forget just how basic that beginning was. Someone playing Wolfenstein: The New Colossus might be surprised that the progenitor of the series, Wolfenstein 3D, was so primitive that it had a score at the bottom of the screen that went up as players picked up an endless series of golden chalices that had been left lying around a Nazi dungeon — and despite the title, it wasn’t even in 3D!
Atelier Marie offers just this kind of shock to those who’ve only jumped into the series post-Sophie, as it contains the most stripped-down version of the Atelier experience imaginable. Of course, that’s not to say it doesn’t have plenty of charms in store for those who missed it when it was released 26 years ago (only in Japan) on the PS1.
Functioning almost as the ideal version of a franchise launch, Atelier Marie is laser-focused on establishing its world and mechanics, often to the detriment of its character development. If the structure feels retro, at least the graphics have been effectively modernized, with the original’s 2D textures and blocky areas replaced with lush three-dimensional worlds to explore. They’re not particularly expansive, of course – the game’s entire map involves just a handful of locations with between 4-6 rooms in each, but they’re lovingly rendered and a joy to explore.
Set in the standard ersatz-medieval fantasy town of Salburg, things kick off rather simply. The player’s character, Marie, wants to become an alchemist, but the teachers at the academy don’t believe she can manage it. She’s given a five-year deadline in which to make something absolutely exceptional, and that’s as complex as the main story gets. There are side characters who will come to Marie with quests as they grow closer to her, but don’t expect any world-ending threats or shocking plot twists. At its core, Atelier Marie is about exactly what it says it’s about – a girl getting good at Alchemy.
The getting shouldn’t be too difficult for anyone familiar with later games in the series. Compared to the puzzle elements and myriad gathering techniques that later installments require, things here are incredibly simple.
For example, players don’t have to worry about the quality of their ingredients or filling up spaces on a puzzle-game chart to maximize results – it’s just a question of gathering the right items and spending long enough at the cauldron. That, of course, is the biggest signifier of Marie‘s retro origins. Abandoned a generation ago when the developers decided that players should be able to see the proper ending so long as they’re willing to put the time in, Atelier titles used to be built around incredibly strict clocks. Everything from traveling to gathering to synthesizing took a set amount of time, the management of which was consistently more challenging than any of the puzzles or beasts.
It’s not just the time limit (five in-game years) that players have to worry about – the fate of every side character, and whether the player will be able to experience their full stories is also dependent on the clock. Certain events transpire at certain times, and if the player hasn’t reached a high enough relationship with those characters by the time that day rolls around, they risk locking certain cutscenes away forever.
Fortunately, Marie offers a chart listing all of the key dates, but a strange language mismatch can make it difficult to determine exactly what the chart means. The chart starts the player in year 1, but as far as the chart is concerned, ‘year 1’ begins after a year has passed. On the upside, this means that the player has a year longer than they’d assume they would to complete all of their tasks, but since making sure that Marie is not working on specific days is key to unlocking huge segments of the story, knowing exactly what days should be clearer. Luckily, the player can save any time they’re at home, so they’ll be able to hop back and reload if they miss something crucial, such as the flower that can only be picked on one day each year.
With the companion system doing so much of the heavy lifting when it comes to Marie‘s narrative, I was a little surprised to find that, other than a ‘best friend’ character and a school rival, everyone else was a mercenary who had to be hired.
Managing finances hasn’t been a huge part of the franchise for a while, so discovering how much of the early game was spent struggling to get resources caught me off-guard. Even on the easiest combat setting, bringing along additional characters is vital for survival. Add to that the fact that, as mercenaries, they’ll frequently be unavailable to hire because they’re on other jobs means getting friendly enough with them to see their full stories can be something of a chore.
Thankfully, the combat is never frustrating — at least, not if the player doesn’t want to be. I’ve observed that each new Atelier has become less and less interested in fighting and more focused on exploration and crafting elements. This Atelier Marie remake is no exception, going so far as to offer the series’ first ‘story’ difficulty mode. The turn-based combat offers more complicated strategy than current Ateliers, with enemies spread out over a grid and the player asked to employ specific skills to maximize the number of foes struck with each move. However, if players are just here for the cute art and cauldron-stirring, the ‘story’ difficulty turns combat from a grueling task to a chill pastime. It’s so easy, in fact, that it can wind up interfering with the story – at one point I accidentally killed a dragon before meeting the character whose entire storyline is built around someday slaying it!
While it may not offer the gameplay depth or compelling characters of a modern Atelier game, Marie is certainly charming. There’s a simple pleasure to looking back at where the series started, and seeing its faltering first steps towards the mechanics that would later come to define it. One thing is certain, though – this is a series that has always had its heart squarely in the right place. Every Atelier is, at its core, about a young woman desperate to make people’s lives better, and then allowing the player to guide her as she develops her skills to start making a real difference. Even in this most basic version, that’s always a journey worth taking.
Rating: 7 out of 10
Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Tecmo/Koei. It is currently available on PC and PS4/5. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 60 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed.
Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E10 and contains Fantasy Violence, Mild Suggestive Themes, Mild Language, Alcohol Reference. The most shocking thing in the game is an implication that a demon is essentially running a human trafficking ring, although that’s not foregrounded by any means. The language is far from crude, and the alcohol reference is down to the quest board being located in a tavern.
Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: I played most of the game without audio and encountered no difficulties. All dialogue in the game is in Japanese, and there are English subtitles. Text cannot be resized. It’s fully accessible.
Remappable Controls: No, the game’s controls are not remappable.
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