 You guys have been excited to hear what I think about the new Atelier game, the Atelier Marie remake. It is out now for the Nintendo Switch, the PlayStation, the PC, and it was originally the very first Atelier game ever, and it has never before left Japan until now with this remake. It was surprising to see this happening at all. I never saw this one coming. Needless to say it is a remake of a very old game, so does it hold up to today's standards? It is described on Koei Tecmo's website as a carefree, cosy RPG adventure. I never played the original, so I have nothing to compare this to. Review code provided, thank you. The story is very simple. You play as Marie, a student of the academy that's doing poorly. The academy isn't doing poorly, she is doing poorly. So she is given this Atelier and a graduation exam and a deadline of five years to do good. When it comes to the story, there are no other character-related stories worth mentioning. I feel like the NPCs are very generic in this one. There are like 10 potential party members that you can somewhat get to know, and you can hire them to accompany you out on your travels outside of the city. Some are better than others, and some are definitely more expensive to hire than others. So yeah, you actually have to pay wages for your party members to be able to join you. This makes the game much more tactical financially, as there will pretty early on in the game be a graduation assignment, where you are required to spend a lot of money to purchase alchemy books and such. So I found myself at some points needing to fire my party members and maybe re-hiring them at the later point, because I couldn't afford their services. Do you love cats? I know that I do. This video is sponsored by Red Deer Games, and their current huge sale of cat-themed games on the Nintendo Switch and on Steam as a part of their Purr Purr Festival. Like this game that is releasing on the 18th, called Cat's Cosmic Atlas, an incredibly cute and atmospheric cat game with stunning visuals. It is a small and interactive and educational experience, where you can learn about all the constellations, the planets, you can learn about black holes, the history of the earth and the moon, and all the planets in our solar system in a fun way. There are a ton of other cat-themed games for sale right now, if you check out Red Deer Games' Purr Purr Festival at the link down below, and you will surely find a cat game that you will like. And they are all on sale, most of them above 80% off right now. So go on your Nintendo Switch and look up Red Deer Games and find your cat game right now. Thank you so much for sponsoring this video. Now gameplay-wise, you have your Atelier, you can rest, you can save and do synthesis, also known as crafting. Select what you want to craft, have the required materials and requirements, and re-throws the stuff in the cauldron and it is made. And sometimes the synthesis can fail. The town is very small and simple. It is just like a street with a fountain and some branches off to some other areas and facilities of the town, like the tavern, the academy, the armor shop, and even a room for photo mode and so on. At the tavern you can accept and report on side quests, which will be necessary to frequently visit. You can also listen to rumors, and the more rumors that you have heard, the more places outside of town you get to travel to. Outside of town you have this world map where you can select where you want to go, and remember that in-game days will count down towards that five-year deadline constantly for all the actions that you decide to do. Some locations take several days to travel to. Synthesizing can take up several days. Even going in and out of your actual atelier takes up a day. This is in all ways and purposes a highly tactical time management sim. This game can prove to be really, really difficult. However, there is an unlimited mode, which I have chosen to play, but I still get that sense of urgency. Even in this so-called more relaxed game mode, as when, for example, you accept a few side quests at the tavern, they still have a few days until deadline, and you can fail quests when they are overdue. And these things can be experienced as stressful regardless of the unlimited mode. There are four seasons, and they change rather quickly. At the locations outside of town you have small areas connected between a black transition screen, where you simply gather materials and fight monsters. In a turn-based battle style, who wants you to come in contact with one. And it's a very traditional turn-based combat, with attacking, defending and item use. For the most part, items with damage or healing properties. One thing that I really like is that you can hit auto battle, and you can also overall speed up the battles. Good for grinding. Every area also has fun little objectives you can complete for stat boosts. I also like this kind of stuff. You can also hire small house fairies to get extra materials for you. Now the graphics. They are undeniably cute. Let's be real. Although I'm not the biggest fan in the world of the GB look, the colors are gorgeous and I like seeing the changes in the scenery, going from winter to spring and to fall. The locations are varied and it is really pretty. However there is a blur to the upper and bottom part of the screen constantly, which was really bad and I don't like that at all. Kind of how it was in Zelda Link's Awakening remake, had like a blur to the top and the bottom of the screen constantly, but it's much worse here. And the camera always feels too zoomed in to my character for my taste. Even when I have zoomed it out to the max, I still feel that. Marie herself has great animations, not stiff at all. She's looking really good. A lot of the flashy effects looks really nice too. The dialogue 2D portraits are not the best looking portraits, but at least they have some animation to them. I like the ring menu system that they're having and I love how the world map looks and the game has a good attention to smaller details that you will discover. It also runs excellent on the Switch, with no performance issues that I have discovered. So that is something. The music, it can actually be changed in the diary in your Italia to be from the original Italia and Marie, or the remake versions. So if you ever grow tired of some tracks, you have the option to change what you want to have playing in the background. The voice acting is in Japanese. And you all know how I feel about that. Sound effects are excellent and there is simply nothing to complain about there. Some of the tunes and music in this game I grew really tired of. My verdict is that this game is probably the most for the people that are at least a tiny bit familiar already with the Italia series. And also I think you should have in mind that it can present as difficult and tactical if you're playing in the normal game mode. This game is not in the league of the Rises, let me tell you that. Or actually this is not in the league of any other more modern Italia game and it's not trying to be because this is very different in a lot of ways. But I can't get over the blurriness on the top and the bottom of the screen. However beautiful the rest of the game looks. It's not a very big game either, it's a rather small game. And if I were to place this game into my Italia tier list, which is also a video on this channel, it's probably coming in at the end of the sea tier. I'm giving the Italia and Marie remake a 5 out of 10. It's not per se a bad game, it's just that I know there are better games out there from this series, far better ones. This is not where you start if you're new to the series. Now I would appreciate it if you took the time to hit like on my video before you leave and thank you so much for watching today and I will see you later.