Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg Cheats and Tips
Time Ticks Away
If you are used to playing the later Atelier games, this might be a bit of an adjustment at first. Atelier Marie Remake is more like a management game, due to the challenge set to you and the way time progresses. You have five years to be able to make an item that will meet Professor Ingrid’s approval, so there are a lot of things to balance. Finding materials, synthesizing items, making enough money to buy the recipes and creating friendships with others in the game through exploring together. Enough to do, but it all costs time.
And you don’t want to run out of time at the end of the five years! I’ll make a note in the chapters below of how much time is spent on these activities. Although I don’t want to spoil the ending for you, I can tell you that Professor Ingrid’s goal is easily achieved, so don’t stress too much about the time used up.
By the way, good to know that when the date changes while you are in the Atelier, the game is automatically saved.
Gathering and Exploring
Time Spent During Gathering
The Sky Tavern, run by Dio, is the hub of Salburg. Here you can find notifications of important events coming up. And you can pick up quests to earn money and REP (reputation). Be aware that if you pick up a quest and you are unable to fulfil it within the time limit, your REP will decrease.
During your gameplay, new locations to explore will open up. The best way to unlock them is to buy rumours at the Sky Tavern from Dio. The different locations each take a set number of days to get there, and back. Keep this in mind before you venture out.
- Nearby Forest 0 days
- Hebel Lake 2 days
- Elfin Cave 3 days
- Meyer Cave 4 days
- Medea Forest 4 days
- Strudel Falls 6 days
- Mount Wieland 6 days
- Belsenburg 9 days
There’s also Fairy Forest/ 4 days but it’s only to hire fairies.
Erfolg Tower/four days is a dungeon that features pure battle.
While you are in an area gathering much-needed materials, be aware that every time Marie picks a material up, it costs one day. Fortunately, you often get more than one of the items, but still. Time can pass pretty quickly this way. Fighting monsters in the area doesn’t cost time, but she always gets material from the battle, which takes one day again.
E.g. this meant that on my first gathering in the Nearby forest, needing to find 6 nuse, it took 10 days. I didn’t spend time travelling to Nearby Forest, which is good. I couldn’t resist picking up some other things in 10 grabs, so 3 for the nuse ( fortunately they came in pairs) and 7 for various other things. But it does cost one day to return to the atelier. Like I said, ten days.
At first, I was very apprehensive to let the days rack up like this, but after I while I realized I need to synthesize a high-rating item at the end, and for this I’ll need loads of materials. So I just went with the flow.
You can also resort to Simple Gathering. Still, every time you give that order, one day is gone, but you can get several random materials in one go.
Area Specifics
Each area has specific enemies and materials to gather. Don’t expect riches in materials as you have in later Atelier games. The materials on offer don’t vary much, although some have things you can only gather in Spring/Summer or Autumn/Winter.
The monsters you face all seem the same, but there is a variance in colours and, because of that, in strength. Some areas also have a boss to fight. Besting them ticks the box for accomplishment and gives some nice materials, but that’s it.
Erfolg Tower is a dungeon that features pure battle, floor after floor to level up and, sometimes, to get good items the monsters drop. On the top floor, you meet the end boss. The second time to go up the tower, once you defeat him (or her), you find a sort of treasure chest maze. And the time after that, an even stronger boss regenerates.
Synthesizing
Of course, a lot of time goes into synthesizing as well.
Going to your synthesis menu, you can see the recipe details by pressing Y. See the stars, in this case, 4 out of a possible 8. This is the rating of an item. Below on the left is the level Marie is (lv 33) and the recommended level (lv 12). If her level is too low, the synthesis success rate will decrease. Another element that can influence success or failure is the utensils that are advised for making something.
Of course, if you make more of the same, the number of days goes up as it’s always rounded up. Look at the picture above, making the Megacraft. Making one costs 1.6 days. If you don’t want to lose too much time by rounding up and you have the materials to do so, you might want to make 5 items, which will cost 8 days precisely.
Making an item costs MP; in the picture above, making Altena Water costs 6 MP. It has a success rate of 100% as Marie’s level fits; I have the mortar and the filter. Making one cost 1.1 days, rounded up to 2 days.
Marie will get Exp, and MP is consumed while making items. Plus, Fatigue accumulates. Fatigue will reduce again by resting, having the days pass ( and you’ll regain HP and MP as well) or taking certain medications. Note that if Fatigue is high, synthesis has a higher chance of failure. In the picture above making the Megacraft, Marie warns us of this!
Otherwise, there are no special things like placing items in the cauldron or choosing high-quality materials or such like in later games.
Recipes
Recipes come in four different elements, fire, water, wind and dark. They are initially unlocked by buying all the books called References at The Royal Academy of Magic. They don’t come cheap, but you need them to progress.
While exploring, fighting, doing alchemy, fulfilling requests, reading References, gossiping with villagers and picking up rumours at the Sky Tavern, you get a lot of benefits like Experience, Skills and such. But you also get REP (reputation) and KNW (knowledge). If your level of KNW is high enough, you will get a keycard for the library from Professor Ingrid. After that, you can check the bookshelves in the Academy library to read new reference books. They unlock in turn after the level of REP and KNW are high enough. You’ll see an exclamation mark at the library door each time you have enough. This is where you will find the recipe for the Sun Pendant, which Mu asks you for pretty early on.
Ingredients for Recipes
Most of the ingredients needed for synthesis are found in the areas you explore. But there are more ways to get what you need. The Academy sells some stuff, and once a year, there’s a discount of 50% to get things much cheaper. The Tavern’s owner’s daughter Flair opens up a stall from time to time, too, once the story progresses (after you have caught the thief Der Himmel). And after you have unlocked the Fairies, they, too, visit your Atelier with items for sale.
