Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg Review: A comfy, cozy, and much-needed look at just how far the series has come

I’ve been a fan of the Atelier Series ever since it debuted on the PlayStation 2 with Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana. Sure, I thought that the tonal change from the action-focused Atelier Iris and Mana Khemia (which is still my favorite era, if I’m being honest) to the more cutesy, slice-of-life approach that the series took with Atelier Rorona and everything afterward came absolutely out of nowhere, but, hey, what can I say other than I was already in too deep by that time to care. The series was amazing, and I didn’t care where it went.

Of course, now that I’m older, I realize that my viewpoint was entirely wrong. Not only were Atelier Iris and Mana Khemia the odd ones out, but they weren’t even the actual start of the series! As it turns out, if you lived in Japan in the late 90s, you were lucky enough to witness the true beginning of the Atelier series with 1997’s Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg. While we never saw that release in the West, we finally got the chance to experience it over two decades later with Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg. And, in all honesty, I’d still say it was worth the wait.

In a Class of Her Own

Five whole years? Wow…

It’s fairly common for the Atelier series to feature protagonists who become capable alchemists at the end of their respective titles but aren’t exactly all too good at the beginning. And, wouldn’t you know it, the first-ever Atelier protagonist Marlone, or “Marie” for short, seems to be the prototype for that!

A student attending Salburg’s prestigious academy, Marie isn’t exactly what you’d call a “model student.” Try as she might (or maybe because she’s not trying—the game isn’t actually all that clear), she’s failing as an alchemist-in-training, and she’s failing badly—so badly, in fact, that her teacher has given her one final assignment, the likes of which will dictate whether or not she successfully graduates. All she has to do is use alchemy to create a passable item. On top of this, she has five years to do so, and she gets her own workshop free of charge! What could go wrong? Well, a lot… but it’s all in good fun, right?

While it does have a story in the most technical sense, much of how Atelier Marie Remake‘s plot plays out depends upon what the player does. Everything from interacting with companions, to synthesizing, to exploring, to not cleaning your house enough plays into some kind of event, meaning that you’re almost always working toward something whether you realize it or not. Best of all, there’s an in-game logbook of every event in the game, along with all necessary trigger conditions, meaning that you don’t have to drive yourself crazy looking for specific scenes! Perhaps it does cheapen things a little to have this, but I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t incredibly happy that it wasn’t there.

It’s also worth noting that, 3D re-imagining or no, Atelier Marie Remake is still very much its PS1 counterpart in many ways—story included. While there’s nothing at all wrong with the writing, nor with character interaction, what you get in this game is much shallower compared to the likes of titles Atelier Sophie or Atelier Ryza. This wasn’t a problem for me, as I knew what I was getting myself into. I’d also imagine that it wouldn’t be an issue for most other people interested in this specific title. Still, I figured that I’d at least mention that you’re probably better off playing something else if you’re dying for anything resembling a deep, impactful story.

So Much to do, so Little Time…?

Everything has its uses, so be sure to collect all you can!

The point of Atelier Marie Remake is simple. So simple, in fact, that I already explained it in the last section. All you have to do in order to win meet the basic win requirements is to create a high-ranking item (either Rank 7 or Rank 8) through alchemy. You also have 5 years to do this, which, unlike in later installations, is a very generous amount of time. Because of this, there isn’t a “right” way to go about things, and there’s plenty of room for trial and error. The game does, on occasion, issue challenges to Marie to act as a “progress-checker” of sorts—a mechanic that I don’t believe was in any of the original versions—, but you don’t even technically have to pay attention to those if you aren’t too fussed about which ending you get (which, let’s face it, you probably are). Of course, Atelier Marie Remake did also add an “Unlimited Mode,” which lets you play without the time restriction… so you can kind of just hand-wave all of the challenge away if you really want to.

Much like in games like Atelier Rorona (the first game to hit the West that mimicked these mechanics), there are two primary things that you can do in Atelier Marie Remake—alchemize and explore. Despite being an alchemist-in-training, Marie ironically (or perhaps not, considering how inept she seems to be), doesn’t have much in the way of ingredients, meaning that exploration is probably one of the first things that you’ll be doing. Being an older title, Atelier Marie Remake doesn’t feature an interconnected world, but, instead, allows the player to engage in round trips to one of eight different locations in order to collect ingredients (plus two other non-gathering areas).

Compared to any other Atelier game save, perhaps, Atelier Annie: Alchemists of Sera Island for the Nintendo DS, it’s hard to call these exploration points anything other than “tiny.” Most of these areas are made up of anywhere from 2 – 3 different areas and contain only a handful of enemies and ingredients. On the positive side of things, however, these areas have been entirely revamped from the original version. Rather than being entirely menu-based and having no control over what you would encounter while exploring Atelier Marie Remake has brought each exploration point (as well as Salburg itself) into full, chibi-fied 3D—a quality-of-life update that I’m very thankful for.

Simplistic Slashing

Special skills are super-useful, so, you know… be sure to use them!

Regardless of where it eventually ended up, the Atelier series wasn’t originally intended to be overly focused on combat—and, boy, does this ever shine through in Atelier Marie Remake. Though mechanically sound, the turn-based combat featured in this game is some of the simplest stuff that I’ve seen in a long, long time. Of course, the Atelier combat staple of being able to use items in combat is there, but, outside of your basic “Attack” and “Defend,” there’s little else. Each character, Ellie included, is able to learn up to two unique attacks, which, although useful, can get a bit grindy to obtain. Interestingly enough, the game has over ten different party members that Ellie can take with her during her adventures, but, given how leveling works, it’s hard not to pick a few favorites from the get-go and stick with them.

Alchemizing Made Easy!

If only it were always this easy…

After all of the bonkers synthesis-related stuff that we’ve seen out of the Atelier Ryza trilogy, it’s hard not to feel like Atelier Marie Remake isn’t doing all of the work for you. Literally, all you need to do is have the correct ingredients (and enough time)—things like Traits and Quality don’t exist. The hardest thing you’ll ever have t›o do in this game is compound synthesis (making an item to make another item). Once again, however, this isn’t exactly the game’s fault. Due to it being the first of its kind, going off the wall with synthesis challenges would have been a bad idea. It’s also kind of neat to see just how simple of an approach everything started out with, too.

A Simple-Yet-Satisfying Synthesis

Compared to what we have now, it might be tempting to view this game as being somewhat tiny. And, to be fair, it kind of is. But that’s only looking at part of the picture. In my opinion, you need to look at it for everything that it stands for. Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg offers a relaxing, nostalgic, and enjoyable look into the Atelier series of yesteryear while simultaneously reminding us of just how far it’s managed to come after all of this time. Will we get more Atelier remakes? I have absolutely no idea, but if they’re anything like this, then I sure hope that we do!

Final Verdict: 4/5

Available on: PlayStation 5 (Reviewed), PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, PC; Publisher: Koei Tecmo America; Developer: GUST Co. Ltd.; Players: 1; Released: July 13, 2023; ESRB: E10+ for Everyone Ages 10+; MSRP: $49.99

Full disclosure: An Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg code was provided to Hey Poor Player by the publisher.