➤ Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg, the review of the remake of the first chapter 🕹

The review of Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg, the first ever adventure of the franchise, which after twenty-five years has had a new look... but little else.

The Atelier series turns twenty-five years old in 2023. An important milestone that deserves to be properly celebrated. On the one hand, with the arrival on the market of Ryza's third adventure, and on the other, with the return of Marlone, protagonist of Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg, now very distant and lost in the depths of memory, given that It was published on the first PlayStation even in 1997 and only in Japan.

Atelier Marie Remake: The Salburg Alchemist it is to all intents and purposes a remake - as the name itself indicates - of the very first chapter of the series. Interpret the operation as you deem most appropriate: gateway, designed specifically for newcomers, to the franchise? A blast from the past for the use and consumption of enthusiasts? A bit of both? All things considered, the soul of the original episode was not betrayed at any point, since we found ourselves in our hands precisely that Atelier Marie that we remembered well, but with graphics and polygonal models worthily updated to 2023 (and with a stylistic change that decided to fully adopt chibi characters). So let's move on to the verdict in our review.

Plot: that messy Marie

Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg, the review of the remake of the first chapter — The main city of Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg, which is also the only one present

Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg propone a different adventure compared to all the other exponents of the series. This is not about saving the world, but about saving one's academic career: Marlone - according to her friends Marie - is regularly enrolled as a student at the Salburg academy, but she herself is unable to keep up with the exams. She's a mess, she blows everything up, she doesn't memorize the formulas, in short she seems completely in denial about alchemy. She doesn't think the same way, however, her teacher Ingrid, who even decides to opt for an extreme solution. Not only does he not expel Marie, but she gives her a personal workshop, complete with cauldron and materials. If you manage to create an object that will amaze you within the next five years, you will be able to continue your studies. Conversely, she will really be out of the picture.

La plot by Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg is therefore very simple, and follows Marie in her hardships, small and large, as she struggles with her studies. Five years pass quickly, and in fact, just like the original title, the remake also offers an inexorable timer: once all the months and days available have been used up, without reaching the objective assigned by Ingrid the player inexorably runs into game over. And getting lost along the way is easy, because there are many things to do: friends to enlist, dungeons to explore, materials to accumulate and new objects to create. Each of these actions requires the use of a certain number of days, so no action can be improvised: everything, absolutely everything, must be calculated. Imagine the sense of anxiety of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, only a little more contained.

The big news of the remake actually consists in possibility to reset the restrictions of the delivery date, thus practically undermining the central idea behind the game. It is possible, at the beginning of the game, to set the "free" mode, so that you can continue the adventure even at the end of the fifth year, and even without having satisfied Ingrid's request. This makes sense? In our opinion, absolutely not, because Atelier Marie no longer has challenges worthy of the name, and canceling even the main one means completely distorting the product. But it's a free world, and if you want to choose the new path, we certainly won't be the ones to judge you.

Novelty and limitations of the operation.

The updated game mode does not exhaust the news by Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg. It should be noted that most of the menus and context windows have been revised to optimize their use: the title is now very clear about what needs to be done and how to do it, and general optimization should be taken into account, probably the path already marked for the last chapters of Atelier Ryza, too full of contributions and suggestions for the latest arrivals. So it is impossible not to notice how much the original chapter has completely redone its appearance, with a world updated to three dimensions, to high definition and dominated by the total adoption of the chibi style for the characters and homes present. Overall, the new formula works and adapts well to Marlone's specific world, fairy-tale and never overly violent, while somehow announcing his simplistic soul.

Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg is, in fact, in all likelihood, the chapter less challenging of the series, and it is a shame that on the occasion of a remake, no investment was made in enriching some mechanics and adding more interesting challenges. Let's think about the fights: all the same, all immediate, in which strategy is almost never really necessary to defeat the (few) bosses present. No combos or team play, simply each of the three party members performs their move - physical attack, defense, special attack - and then you see what happens to the enemies; but usually they end up KO'd in a couple of hits, unless you rush to face the mountain area straight away, where all the monsters will be at least 30 levels away from you.

The situation is identical also in the heart of the title, alchemy: Of course, it was impossible to expect the level of complexity of the last chapters of the franchise, but a minimal update would have done nothing but good. The only difficulty is to dose the crafting well to avoid "exceeding" the time consumption, but by selecting the new game mode this problem is also literally overcome. The character recruitment system (none of the secondary characters are really memorable, the only one who has a character of her own, however stereotypical, is Marie herself) remains expensive, with costs for each expedition and moderate profits for completing the missions high schools. .

In short, if you are looking for a product that alternates crafting, exploration and fighting, the Atelier franchise is really perfect, no one doubts it: but the complexity and variety of the last chapters are unbeatable compared to this first Atelier Marie, which is updated graphically.

Conclusions

Tested version PlayStation 5 digital delivery Steam, playstation store, Nintendo eShop Price 49,99 € Holygamerz.com 6.5 Readers (9) 8.3 your vote

Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg is the 1:1 remake of the original chapter published on PlayStation in 1997, updated to high definition with the introduction of chibi style and with minimal optimization of the menus and tutorials for newcomers. Everything else remains substantially identical, and sadly, after twenty-five years, it's impossible not to notice problems in the game's variety and complexity: repetitive and unstrategic combat, over-recruitment of side characters, forgettable side quests, and one main quest. plot that, in short, convinces only to a certain point and does not present any sparkle. Of course, historically speaking it is a welcome return, even taking into account that the original chapter never reached the West. But a little more courage, even at the cost of rethinking many underlying aspects of the game, certainly wouldn't have gone amiss.