0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Atelier Marie The Alchemist of Salburg





     
The Atelier series is a long running series of role playing games developed by Gust Corporation, the series has been a regular on the Playstation system since 1997 and continues to this day with the 19th main line entry in the series releasing in December of 2017 in Japan this year was also the 20th anniversary of the series.

Atelier Marie The Alchemist of Salburg is the first entry in the main series of Atelier games and the first to appear on the original Playstation back in 1997, the game is the first of a trilogy of games as part of the Salburg sub series, over the course of the last 20 years there have been seven sub series in total.

The game would be ported soon after release to the Sega Saturn as well as Windows the game along with the second in the Salburg sub series Atelier Elie would be bundled together and released on the Sega Dreamcast and Playstation 2, the game released for the original Playstation on the 23rd of April 1997, the game has never seen a release outside of Japan.



The game is centred around the gathering of ingredients this is usually done outside of the town, these ingredients are used for creating items, for user while in combat or maybe part of a quest. Marie can synthesize items using the various ingredients she has collected this is one in her workshop.

To make an item in Marie’s workshop, the process is much more simpler that more recent Atelier titles which modern games giving the various items traits and qualities unlike the older titles in the series. With items needing certain ingredients to be made.


When visiting an area outside of two Marie is able to gather ingredients this is done with a three option menu that will be presented to the player. The first option is to search for one day, this will automatically pass one in game day, there will be two outcomes to this either the player will receive materials for Synthesis or they may be attacked by enemies.

The Camp menu this will bring up your status menu from here items can be used however equipment can not be changed, the final option is Go Home this will take Marie straight back to her workshop. In the tavern in town Marie is able to take tasks to earn popularity and money, earning popularity will encourage higher level adventurers to accompany Marie outside of town.


The battle system in Atelier Marie The Alchemist of Salburg Is a turn based system, with an active party consisting of a maximum of three members, these members will have a basic set of commands such as attack, defend, position, special ability, use item and run, these companions can be hired by Marie. Marie gains experience by synthesizing items and by fighting enemies.


Over time with each additional port of the game it saw several additions, the Sega Saturn port saw an internal clock added to the game in addition a number of events and mini games were also added . An enhanced version of the game released on Playstation in 1998 called Atelier Marie Plus had the additional features of the Saturn version with the exception of the clock which the Playstation did not support.



The first game in the series revolves around the character Marie a 19 year old student in Salburg a medieval style city, which houses the Royal School of Sorcery, Marie is a highly talented alchemist student but her lack of concentration has effect her academic performance, to the point where she is the worst performing student in her class.


Her performance has been so bad Maria is facing expulsion from School, however her teachers offer her one last chance, she is given a workshop (French translation Atelier) and given five years to produce something outstanding.



Critic reviews for this Japanese only release are hard to find with just one available which comes from Legendra who scored the game at a 60/100, the French publication praised the games music and called the game unpretentious but very pleasant.

However the game is quite minimalist according to the review with battles that are over far too quickly, with the end game quickly visible. For a fan of Gust games it could be worth checking out this pioneer of the Saga, however other will see an unusual curiosity and far from being essential.

With the lack of critic reviews we head over to GameFAQs for their user ratings where we find this game currently sitting with an average rating of 3.50/5 from a total of eleven user ratings. Where we find a big spread of user rating with a majority around the 3.5/5 or 4/5 range, a couple of users rated this game very highly with a 5/5 while an additional user scored the game at a 4.5/5.

At the other end of the users rating we find one user that I can only assume they had a torrid time with the game scoring it at a 0.5/5, another user the next lowest scoring user rated the game at a 2/5 while the final user rated the game at an above average 3/5.

Moving on to the games difficulty where we find six users rating this category with a majority rating this game as having just the right difficulty level with a total of three users rating it as Just Right. The remaining three users either rated the game as Simple, Easy or Tough, averaging out at an Easy to just right difficulty rating.

Finally we move on to the games lifespan where we find five users rating this category, with all five spending plenty of time with the game, one user each spending either 40 or 60 hours with the game, the remaining three users spent around 80 hours with the gave, averaging out this comes to around a 74 hour lifespan.



This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude who unsurprisingly don’t stock this Japanese only release, same goes for Retrogames.co.uk, while eStarland.com does have other versions listed like the PS2 Atelier Marie & Elie collection as well as the Saturn version of the game but no Playstation 1 copy.

Moving on to Amazon.com we find a handful of used copies available with prices starting from $16.63 for a complete copy, this price is for both a good and very good quality copy, with both coming with free shipping. At the time of writing no like new or new copies of the game are available, prices for a used copy of the game currently peak at around the $24 mark.




Written by


P J Gibbon

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