Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg

As the origin point for Gust's Atelier series, Atelier Marie (Playstation/Saturn, 1997) is a pleasantly simple expression of the alchemy-based game mechanics that has grown and evolved across its more complicated sequels. This game stands apart from its contemporaries for the way it aims to be small and economical against the JRPG trend towards being ever more epic and extravagant. Nobody is going to save the world in flashy 3D, no ancient prophecies are about to be unearthed via lengthy FMVs; there's just a young woman who runs a small business while trying to graduate from alchemy school.

Really, the plot actually is that compact and ambitiously unambitious. Within the first 45 seconds of starting the game, it's explained that Marie's grades are the worst in the history of the academy. Her only shot at graduating is to spend the next five years in a borrowed a workshop (an atelier, as it were) where she can work to hone her alchemy skills. If she is able to  use alchemy to create an item that will impress her instructor within that time, she will earn her graduation. Shortly after this exposition, control is given to the player to figure out how to go about making an impressive item in that time.

First day on the job.  Uh...now what?

Although the game remains refreshingly hands-off in terms of telling the player what exactly to do next and how, there are enough people to talk to and notes to read to keep things comprehensible from the start. After learning how just a few things work, the player ought to be comfortably caught up Marie's routine, which essentially breaks down into these interconnected tasks: gather materials, make items, and sell items.

To gather materials, Marie has to navigate a few menus to leave the castle town of Salburg and enter one of the various gathering spots nearby. Different places have different items, take different amounts of time to reach, and have different monsters lurking around them. Because Marie is not much of a fighter, she can hire adventurers to travel with her to help fight off these monsters, for a fee, of course.

Once these items have been gathered, Marie can return to her workshop to combine these raw materials into new items. She begins the game already knowing a few recipes, but new ones are found in books that can be purchased or found, or through sudden inspiration (i.e., a character asks for an odd item, and she discovers she knew how to make it all along). Most of the items she makes will be sold to people who have specifically requested them, either by asking in person at Atelier Marie, or via the owner of the tavern. The rest can be used in one way or another, healing or attacking in battle, as materials for other items, or even sold at the academy shop from time to time.

Unlike in later games, there are no differences in item quality or characteristics that can change from either the raw materials or the items they produce. The only complication here is that Marie can get weary from working too hard, which makes it increasingly likely that she will botch an item. To reduce her fatigue, it's possible to rest, leave the workshop, or -- bizarrely -- drink a bunch of wine.

Mixing some items to make some new items! Alchemy is actually pretty straightforward

At first, Marie has to do all of the gathering and synthesizing herself, which each activity bringing her deadline a little bit closer (and contributing what what we're left to assume is a growing alcohol problem). The smallest unit of in-game time is one day, one or more of which are consumed while making an item or going out to gather materials. Months are all thirty days each, with twelve months making a year. So, there are exactly 360 days in a year, giving Marie 1800 days to reach her goal.

Not long into the game, Marie has the option of hiring elves to do the work of gathering and synthesizing for her. In exchange, she pays each one a monthly salary, agreed at the time of hiring, and dependent on how fast that particular elf can work. Having these additional workers can greatly increase the efficiency of Marie's workshop, and is where the game truly starts to become an interesting simulation of what it's like to run a business.

Doing a deep dive on work flow, making sure we're running key deliverables efficiently

Each elf can be given one task, which they will repeat endlessly, or until they run out of materials in the case that they are synthesizing items. A smart manager will set a team of elves to work on complimentary tasks, having some out gathering the materials that others will use to make certain items that are then needed to make even more complicated items. This frees up Marie to be doing whatever it is she needs to do, while elves crank out explosive devices to make adventuring easier, expensive items to keep money coming in, and so on.

As for what else there is to do, there actually isn't that much outside of gathering/synthesizing/selling. There are events on certain days of the year where Marie can accompany a friend to a bazaar, or one of the festivals held throughout the year. These take up a little bit of time, and can sometimes open up new items or recipes, or even lead to other new events. I hesitate to call them "story events", because I consider Marie's work to be the actual story of the game, with these events acting as peripheral character moments that keep the player from feeling completely isolated in a world mostly devoid of life.

Turning in some requested items for big silver.

In that way, I appreciated these diversions as momentary breaks from work. The current Atelier series (the Dusk trilogy, consisting of Ateliers Ayesha, Escha & Logy, and Shallie) sometimes feels like the side features are threatening to take over entirely. In many ways, the Atelier series has crept back into JRPG territory, with an increased emphasis on conversations with party members, bigger and more complex battle systems, redirecting the fate of the world, etc. At the same time these sequels have made item synthesis more complex and interesting, they have also made it a less significant part of the game in order to make room for everything else.

I think that's a large part of why I enjoyed Atelier Marie so much: it's just a nice, uncomplicated place to go back to; where a person can put in an honest day's work without much interruption.