Perhaps Im just spoiled by Gust's exceptional Atelier Ryza series. Perhaps, for the same reason, I have incorrect expectations for what the game should have been. Nonetheless, I find Atelier Marie to be an interesting but awkward expereince.

Unlike the story driven experience of Ryza, Marie is much more like a life sim. The core loop of the game is picking up requests from the nearby tavern, which either asks for materials you can harvest in the world, or crafted items you have to create. This is still in Ryza of course.

The key difference is that you have a time limit for the end of the game, and ~every~ action ticks down the clock. Want to harvest a material? That costs a day. Want to craft an item? Could take 5 days, or even more. The reason this is such a huge departure from Ryza is because you no longer have time for experimentation, and every action you take has to be strategically considered. Time spent crafting consumables that help survive expeditions to dangerous areas is time that could be spent tackling requests to earn money and reputation. Time holed up in the atelier crafting items is time that could be used for harvesting valuable ingredients, and finding rumors around town that provide valuable information.

The strictness of the design means the game's progression has to be equally tight... but I dont think it is. It took me a few restarts to even understand how the game wanted me to play it, and even then the randomness involved in many aspects of the game can leave you in a rut you just have to wait out. And the costly nature of crafting makes me feel like I need to have a calculator on hand to determine how much time a request is going to take, calculations that could be meaningless if the game's rng ends up working against you.

I can see the potential of the experience the game wants to craft, and I do really want it to work, but its implementation is too messy for me to fully enjoy.

This was my first time playing an Atelier game and I was genuinely surprised by how much I liked it! I had a bit of the series beforehand like the Ryza and the Dusk trilogies, but never had an urge to try them. When they announced they were remaking the first game, I thought it would be a great opportunity to finally give the series a chance. After playing it, the game really won me over so much that I might replay the game in the future to get all of the endings. The game has a lot systems, but they all work so cohesively with one another since they were designed to be simple. However, the systems being simple for me is a huge positive. As a newcomer to the series, it never felt too overwhelming trying to contend with the systems that it asks the player to experiment with. It mainly just asks you to collect a series of items to craft a higher tier item without too much trouble (besides for remembering which items are collectible in a particular season, but the game gives you a chart on this anyways). Crafting items, doing battle with turn based rpg mechanics, interacting with characters, managing money, questing, boosting your reputation, and collecting items while exploring new areas was incredibly addicting and never got tiring for me personally. The time limit was a great addition as well as it made me think strategically on how I should plan out the remaining days I had left before the graduation. It reminds me a lot of the time management in Pikmin which I absolutely adore in that series (to be fair though, it is way more lenient in Atelier Marie than in Pikmin). Honestly the only negatives I can say is that the characters are kind of boring and that after a certain point, money becomes kind of useless as you have nothing else to buy with it. However, these are extremely minor in the grand scheme of everything this game accomplsihes. Also wanted to mention, the presentation is stunning with gorgeous character art, pretty good 3d models, and cutesy music. Overall, it was a super charming experience with no glaring flaws. Can't wait to play more of the series in the future, super excited to try the newer entries!