While technically I played the ps2 translated release of this, I have only played Marie so far, and as such wanted to review only Marie, my understanding is this is pretty much the same thing with the ps2 having better graphics.

I had never played any game in the atelier series before, in fact I only recently learned of its existence through a tweet by Koei Tecmo. I always like to try and start a series from its beginnings, and boy am I glad I did on this one.

One very interesting thing about playing a game that never formally made it to the states is that its very hard to find any sort of guide, which I actually enjoyed, normally its too easy to find answers online, and none of my questions here were to bad.

Now for why this game didn't get 5 stars from me. There were some things about it that were a bit obtuse to me, especially the rumor system. I had (incorrectly) assumed that rumors would just be like hints I could buy, but after year 3 and still not finding quite a few materials I eventually found the answer online, I had to buy rumors. The gameplay loop itself was quite addicting I thought, especially how difficult it was to get started, and then how much the game changes once you get your foot holding and know the ins and outs.

I still am unsure what the castle was supposed to be for, or both of them for that matter, I got the ticket for the castle at the very end, went in and could only talk to the king who had nothing to say, and then the outer castle never had anything for me either.

Perhaps this is my own shortcomings as I never finished the tower.

In the end I got the Researcher ending, I think after a short break I will start atelier Ellie. I hope I enjoy it just as much as this one.