Japan's Yoshinori Fujimoto birdied the final hole on Thursday to card a six-under 66 and break a deadlock at the top.
Marchesani had an eagle, five birdies and two bogeys in his opening round of five-under 67 at the revamped Royal Auckland and Grange GC.
That score was matched by countryman Gale, New Zealand's DP World Tour regular Kazuma Kobori and Japanese duo Aguri Iwasaki and Taichi Nabetani.
With a prize pool of $A1.2 million, the new co-sanctioned tournament is the fourth biggest on the Australasian Tour and will go a long way to deciding the 2025-26 Order of Merit.
If the winner is a member of the Australasian PGA Tour, they will pick up a large number of points and shoot right up the OOM rankings with only two smaller events still to play.
Fujimoto, a two-time winner on the Japan Golf Tour, set a new composite course record after draining the birdie putt on 18 to sign for a 66 late in the day.
Marchesani is currently third on the OOM, behind only countrymen Cameron John and Chris Wood.
All three missed the cut at last week's NZ Open, with Marchesani the big mover on Thursday.
"It's pretty important obviously to play well given what's on the line," Marchesani said.
"I've still got a little bit of work to do to catch up, but with the points on offer it's not all that far away.
"Obviously given the standings it obviously helped that they didn't get any further ahead (last week).
"I'm pretty friendly with both of the boys so you don't want to death ride them, but it is a nice feeling when they're not getting further ahead."
The highlight of Gale's round came at the par-4 3rd hole where he holed out for eagle from the greenside bunker.
Kobori won the Australasian Tour OOM title two years ago, catapulting him onto the DP World Tour.
He was always keen to return home to play last weekend's NZ Open at Millbrook Resort and this new event.
"We had a lot of people out there today, so it's nice to play in front of them and then give them something that they came to watch," the 24-year-old said.
"Putting on a good performance for them, that's all that matters here."
