The remake of Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salsburg is set to release July 12, its publisher Koei Tecmo announced Monday, and its digital deluxe edition will come with a version of the original game called Atelier Marie Plus.
The company also debuted an English announcement trailer, confirming that the game will release outside Japan. That’ll be a first for Atelier Marie — all of its ports, from the PlayStation and Saturn to 2000-era Windows, the Dreamcast and mobile phones, have been Japan exclusives.
The announcements came during Koei Tecmo’s livestream commemorating the Atelier series’ 25th anniversary.
Atelier Marie’s remake is expected to release on the Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam. There isn’t a page yet on the Switch’s eShop, but there is a page on the PlayStation Store and on Steam.
A tweet Tuesday from Koei Tecmo’s American account specified that the game will come to those platforms digitally, insinuating that there won’t be a physical release in the West.
The remake appears to be set in a 3D world, as opposed to the original’s 2D isometric environments drawn with pixel art. It retains a chibi art style for the characters in the overworld, though. It was announced two weeks ago, as Shiro reported.
Atelier Marie is the first in developer Gust’s long-running Atelier series of potion-crafting RPGs. It was released on the Sega Saturn in December 1997 as “version 1.3,” having been ported from the PlayStation original that came out seven months prior. It added new minigames, events and endings, plus dialogue that changed based on the time of day and time of year — it used the Saturn’s internal clock and calendar to determine when you were playing it.
The additional elements from the Saturn port were added into a new PlayStation release the following year called “Atelier Marie Plus” — sans the features requiring an internal clock and calendar, of course, as the PlayStation lacks such amenities.
That Atelier Marie Plus release is likely what’s going to be included with the remake’s digital deluxe edition, for which no price has been announced yet. While it’s nice that it’s a version with some additional features that originally appeared in the Saturn port, it’s also disappointing that it’s not the Saturn port to begin with, especially considering it’ll lack those time- and date-specific dialogues. Modern releases of Saturn-emulated games are a reality now, as City Connection has showed.
It’s unclear whether an English translation will be hacked into Atelier Marie Plus or whether the original Japanese will remain untouched.
Besides Atelier Marie Plus, the remake’s digital deluxe edition will include a set of 33 character costumes as well as some extra background music from other games developed by Gust.
The 25th anniversary livestream also revealed new details about the remake such as Unlimited Mode, which eliminates the original game’s time limit to allow players a more casual playthrough.
Gust is adding new social events that weren’t present in the original game, too, which “will show fresh personality aspects and charm of the characters.”
The official website now features information on Atelier Marie’s characters and gameplay systems, so check it out for more information on the game.
Danthrax is a contributor to the Shiro Media Group, writing stories for the website when Saturn news breaks. While he was a Sega Genesis kid in the ’90s, he didn’t get a Saturn until 2018. It didn’t take him long to fall in love with the console’s library as well as the fan translation and homebrew scene. He contributed heavily to the Bulk Slash and Stellar Assault SS fan localizations, and has helped as an editor on several other Saturn and Dreamcast fan projects such as Cotton 2, Rainbow Cotton and Sakura Wars Columns 2.
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