The Atelier series has been around for decades and is still a widely popular game as of recently. Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg is one of the older titles that brings the series back to its roots with enhanced graphics and quality-of-life improvements for a more modern experience. 

The story follows a lazy airhead alchemist named Marie who somehow makes it into the royal academy. Marie is given an Atelier and tasked with making an item that will impress her professor. Long-time Atelier fans may find the story to be a bit bland and basic with not very engaging story as Marie only seems to care about crafting and making money instead of helping out the townspeople with their problems. Additionally, bits of the story can be uncovered through rumors learned from interacting with the townspeople or they can also be purchased at the tavern for a small price. Occasionally Marie will have small interactions with the characters you adventure with adding a bit more depth to the story. 

Atelier Marie’s game loop has you fulfilling quests, crafting items, and battling enemies while attempting to graduate within five years. Starting out can be a bit overwhelming at first as the days and months will just melt away in just a matter of minutes. Doing something as simple as crafting an item or even traveling to an area to gather items can eat up quite a few days. For players who want a more relaxed experience, Gust has included an Infinite mode that will remove the five-year time limit on the game adding more time to relax and manage time at a more steady pace. 

Combat is pretty easy to pick up and learn, with battles that are non-boss encounters, only lasting a few minutes. I never found battles to be overly challenging to where I needed to take time to level up my characters. Thankfully, there is an auto-battle option available for longer grinding sessions. Additionally, to help break up combat, occasionally you will encounter various mini-games throughout your exploration with various tasks. One mini-game I played, had me defeat falling puni enemies while avoiding bombs. 

Alchemy has been another staple of the Atelier series and while it may not be as in-depth as one of the mainline titles, it still has plenty to offer. While crafting, there are still elements and qualities to be concerned about when crafting and the time management system adds a nice layer of strategy for managing your time. Later on, you can hire faires to craft items or gather materials for Marie significantly lightening the load on all the tasks you will need to perform at a time. 

Regarding visuals and performance, Atelier Marire Remake has some absolutely beautiful hand-drawn illustrations, and the chibi character's designs give the game a more modern feel. However, exploring the main town there is a bokeh-like effect in the background which is pretty blurry and unpleasant to look at. Playing both docked and handheld modes showed no difference in performance with minimal frame drops and some occasionally long loading screens. Quality and performance modes were available however there seemed to be no difference between the two from what I noticed. 

Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg is a short but cozy RPG adventure for new and old Atelier fans to enjoy. The characters are cute and charming and the combat and alchemy are fun and straightforward to learn. Overall, the added features definitely help enhance the entire gameplay experience and I am excited to see what other older Atelier games will get the same remake treatment in the future. 

SCORE: 8.0

Review copy courtesy of Koei Tecmo