Recent reviews by TheHorseNamedPlague

I recommend getting this game on sale. It's main flaw is that it's very pricey for what this game is, but otherwise I have had a great time with Atelier Marie Remake.


Atelier Marie Remake is a full remake the first game in the Atelier franchise and thus is closer to the older type of Atelier games rather than the open world design of the modern ones. Crafting, gathering, and socialising with characters is the heart of the game. Though a combat system and boss battles do exist, you can easily get to the basic ending by avoiding enemies. Atelier Marie is short and simple, good for providing a relaxing wholesome experience, but I don't think the price would be worth it for those looking to have a meaningful, in-depth, playthrough.

My first playthrough was on Normal Mode (timelimit) and I honestly recommend for others to try playing game in that way as well. As long as you don't accept quests you would not be able to finish, you are going to be absolutely fine and progressing forwards towards an ending. In fact, I would say this game is MORE fun with a deadline in place to trigger all of the social events when the Exam is marching closer and closer. Don't worry too much about missing out on something either, as Atelier Marie's story is relatively short (10 -14 hrs) and has New Game+, meaning a second playthrough would flyby very fast if you only read the events that you have missed.

This a short dungeon crawling roguelike like Rogue, but very simplified. There were times the button key to interact (k) didn't work but clicking on screen fixes that. Otherwise, it is a pretty polished experience for a game at this low of a price.

I recommend this game for anyone who enjoys dungeon crawling, but don't have the energy to spend on the their usual daunting labyrinth of choice.

This is my first Atelier game and I made it through semi-blind (only googled what to do twice when I felt stuck on a quest). It was a wonderful experience and I even played it again with New Game+ to find the stuff I missed on my first playthrough.

My recommendation for new comers is that you don't need to worry about the time limit as long as you are doing a * quest every other month and you don't even need all the flowers to beat the game. The difficulty can ramp up a bit near the end as the Boss Battle are a lot more difficult than the comparatively chill regular battles. Fighting all the monsters in each zone as I travel to a new location seem to closed the gap quite a bit in my experience.

The Crafting system is very deep but I didn't appreciate it as much on my first playthrough. In my first save I basically brute forced it by focusing on increasing the element bars to their best abillity and leave it at that. On my second playthrough I actually started to get a grasp of just how good items can be if you use synthesising techniques to put more traits on the items. In my defense, the game doesn't tell what the traits actually do and because I didn't know how strict the time limit was, I wasn't comfortable wasting days experimenting.

The English voice acting is a bit dry but not intolerable. The story is basically like a Slice-of-Life Fantasy Adventure where the main character tries to save her sister and becomes a greater Alchemist in the process. Occasionally, darker themes do prop up but is kept as background world building whilst the main story remains focused on Ayesha and her friends.

I am about 13 hours into my first Spiderweb Software game and I am definitely hooked.
So far the story has been great, the factions I have met so far are the Awakened and Obeyers, and the characters I have been interesting and clearly have their own motivations and goals.
Switching between menus has been a bit finicky (especially inventory management) but it hasn't been that much of a bother.
I am playing as a Guardian without following any build guides or strategies and so far combat has been challenging but not overwhelming. However, since I haven't completed the game, I don't know how optimised your built has to be to survive endgame.
What I really liked so far is that each zone has a purpose even when you don't have a quest to do in that area and that you get rewarded for general exploration (via Lore, Skill/Spells from Canisters, Loot, etc.)

I would recommend this game to people who like reading, crpgs, and don't mind some old school graphics.