Atelier Marie Plus: The Alchemist of Salburg（マリーのアトリエ プラス 〜ザールブルグの錬金術士〜）

So in my foolish quest to start yet another series that I will probably never finish, I decided it was fine time to check out Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg, the first of the Atelier series which lately seems to be pumping out new games like clockwork.

First of all, the official title is indeed "Atelier Marie" as shown by the title art. Based on the fact that the Katakana pronunciation is "Mari", the only logical conclusion is that the title is in French, NOT English. Ooh la la, fancy! Though her full name is Marlone, so I have no freakin' clue.

Atelier Marie, très bon!

I did own a physical copy of the "Plus" version when I had the silly idea of owning physical copies of the entire Atelier series. I even went and bought the Atelier Marie & Elie bundle for the Dreamcast. This bundle is especially notable for the fact that it contains nice bonuses such as a phone strap, screen-savers to install on your Win 95/98 PC and even a virus as an extra surprise bonus!

No, I'm not shitting you, the W32/Kriz virus somehow ended up on the CD-ROM for the game published by KOOL KIZZ, putting a stop to further sales. I don't know the details as this version doesn't seem particularly rare (I paid $20) so maybe they fixed it. I don't know if my copy has the bonus feature but I'd rather not find out. I need my Win95 VM to play old games.

KOOL KIZZ, a mix of the words "kids" and "jizz"? Clever!

Anyways, in my futile attempt to make room in my closet of shame™,  I sold my PS1 copy and bought a digital copy like all the kool kizz to play on my Vita. Or more accurately, I decided to put it up for sale after playing it on Vita for a while and finding out just how boring this game is.

It starts off with a nice intro, and then you're on your own with a small bit of change and no idea what to do, and yes, I read the fucking manual. Not only do you have very little money, you have no idea how to make anything and as soon as you step foot outside the town, you get destroyed because you are very, VERY weak at combat.

No in-game guided tutorial for baby gamer?? Score: 1 Awful -IGN

The game does start off very slow as the key to getting any kind of money is scrounging up some Nyuzu in the forest nearby and making some Kurafuto to sell to the Academy. Don't even bother trying to fight anybody for a while. Finally, when you get some money to buy the recipe books at the academy, you can start fulfilling requests from the barkeeper.

There are a few important gameplay elements that are not explained at all. First, you can recruit Shia, your friend, for FREE as long as you want. (After all, what are friends for if not free labor?) Second, you have to pay the barkeeper repeatedly to hear rumors in order to unlock additional areas to explore. Third, once you're able to go to the fairy forest, you can hire fairies to do some tasks for you automatically. Being able to send them off to faraway places saves you LOTS of time in gathering ingredients. If you go yourself, you'll waste a bunch of days to get back and you'll likely get killed anyway.


What the game boils down to is not unlike working as a temp in some corporate office. Gather ingredients, make shit, make some money, buy some equipment, beat up a copier with a bat, and bitch about your job to your buddies at Chotchkie's. Some events pop up throughout the years, some of which I missed I'm sure but it's not like there's much story to speak of even if it is all fully voiced. There are a few mini-games thrown in but they're very, very simple. I thought the characters looked pretty good, certainly a very different style from the recent games but it has its own classic appeal. The music was nothing to write home about.

One of those boring, every day events...

Score: 2 mostly for series legacy and originality for its time (I think) out of 5.

I get that it might have been an original concept for its time and it IS a 20 year-old game. Apparently a lot of people enjoyed it because there's so many ports. But I've played games just as old that was much more fun. I would score this one a 2 as a game barely NOT being a waste of your time.

The moepocalypse creepy hands mobile version

While the actual gameplay was pretty repetitive and boring, you do get a sense of satisfaction when you're finally able to make a rare item for the first time. I was able to make the Philosopher's Stone on my first playthrough to get the best(?) ending mostly by working my fairies all day, every day. I mean that because there is an option to let them play that I NEVER selected. I'm not paying you guys to lounge around, you good-for-nothings!

I also beat a couple bosses by making some Mega Furamu, which by the way takes a ridiculously long time to make. In the end, I feel like I got the full experience and there's no way I'm going to replay this game to get the other 6 endings. You can just watch them on YouTube like all the kool kizz in a few minutes as they're all very short.

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely