Cleared: Ar Tonelico
nekosasu | August 3, 2009 | 4:42 pm
One year and a half after buying this game, I started playing it. And right now, I realize how stupid of a person I was not to have played it immediately.
I love those JRPGs a la Final Fantasy flavor, and if mixed with anime-style characters, I’m totally sold. I can’t say I’ve played many of those yet – Etrian Odyssey, Disgaea, FFTA, Luminous Arc, mostly Tactical RPGs – but when I bought Ar Tonelico, I thought, this is it. It has everything to please me. And yet, it took me so long to start playing the game, I don’t know why.
But when I did… oh boy. Forget about anime, blog, e-peen, internet, everything. Just… focus. Focus on this brilliant game.
Mind you, this game is not perfect. Actually, there are many things that I find fault with. For one, it’s the relatively small world map with few interesting destinations. Karulu, Nemo, Firefly, Em Pheyna and Platina, that’s all. And in these, the only options you have are: – one small public square with four/five NPCs, – a shop which rarely changes its lineup, – the dive center, – the inn, – and the event square. I wish there was more explorable space in the cities.
Another issue (to me) is the relatively easy level of difficulty. Already in Phase 2, the last battle was less challenging than the one preceding it, and in Phase 3, the end boss was really easy to beat. Either I ground my lv 84 people too high, or I had the strongest weapons, or so, but it was really too easy. I found the enemies in the Plasma Bell a lot more challenging – one of them even managed to kill Lyner (which was the only casualty of the whole game… Though I think it was an instant death effect rather than running out of HP.)
Finally, I hoped there was some kind of a hidden boss. You know, like Ozma/Yadis in FF IX, Penance in FF X, and the dozens of bosses in Disgaea. You know, some kind of CHALLENGE. Something that gives you some kind of gratification for having spent so much time into the game.
Yes, I still use CRT televisions. This one is slowly going mental, though.
But even so, I am massively satisfied. Not so much for the lacking but passable gameplay, but for the outstanding story and characters. Actually, I think I liked this game more for its “dating sim” elements than for its RPG element. I found the whole diving and discussing with the Reyvateils simply great. It went much beyond the usual premise of just getting friendly with a girl and knowing her better in a superficial kind of way; it went right towards the core of the human psyche.
Helping the Reyvateils face their fears and moods, their vices and wishes, reaching epiphanies until the final peace of mind, was a great experience. Each feeling, each memory was symbolized by a person, a monster, a toy, and it all made sense. I was massively impressed by each characters’ subconscious feelings, and those might be more real than one would imagine.
Heck, this game is the prime example for a successful character development, and an introduction course on (reverse) psychology.
Of course, I liked Aurica the best. Surprisingly so, because I usually go for the DFCs and lolis – Krusche, young Misha, Shurelia, even Lyra – but I simply couldn’t connect to their stories as much as I did with Aurica. Perhaps because I liked her story the best, or I thought her Cosmosphere to be the most realistic, but I really loved all of her. This may be the first time I prefered oppai over chippai, huh. But it was well worth it.
Misha was simply too weird. Probably the fact that she didn’t seem as helpless as Aurica did, but then again I did not take her route. Shurelia was much better, but her “Cosmosphere” visual novel was a little too impersonal. I did struggle though in the end for the very last decision.
Yep. This game wouldn’t have been any fun without these girls. And of course the other people of my party, who were a little too simplistic every once in a while. But they all completed each other pretty well.
Other fun aspects of the game were grathmelding, and the crystals. There is a myriad of stuff to combine and toy around with. Yeah, most of it was completely over the top, but I liked the fact that Lyner didn’t take it seriously and didn’t try to explain how he could meld a complicated chainsaw out of completely unrelated components. The naming of most items by the Reyvateils was also hilarious, oh lawds. Aurica’s names were the funniest, and Shurelia’s the fittest. (Goes to show how little I’ve played with Misha…)
The crystals were fun, to a certain extent. I liked finally getting heaps of Lv. 4 crystals and happily equipped them, but I very rarely went out of my way to waste the high quality crystals on melding items only to recrystallize them. Too much of a bother to get any of the Seals and stuff, especially since I don’t know what effect they all have. I might look up on the internet to see which crystals are the strongest. (The “Origin: α, β, γ” crystals were pretty much useless, glad I saved before recrystallizing those important items.)
I laughed so much. But gawd, Aurica is so cute here x3 I’d hug her all day long.
Ahh, I talked so much about this game. It’s justified though, I spent something close to 60 hours playing it (clock shows 64 but I left it idling at least 4-5 hours…). I know I could have done it in 40, were I not a completionist and had I not traveled hundreds of times to all the destinations to find the last convo topic/treasure chest/boss. But I guess in the end I was a little too worried about abandoning my internet presence, so I quickly cleared the game today. There are a couple of things that were left unsolved:
- I wonder about Kanade, Mei Mei’s sister. I hoped to see her again in the Plasma Bell, but never found her again. I dunno.
- The elevator on the same floor (A3 – 187F) never worked. I am curious as to where it leads, although I have a hunch that it would lead to the Floating Wharf (A2 – 91F) where there is another dysfunctional elevator as well.
- The Dragon island (forgot its name) under the Blast Plate gave me the final recipe cards (I think), but I am still missing one ingredient to finish the King’s Crown: the “Star Tiara”. Couldn’t find it anywhere.
- I never received any Person Cards, I wonder why. I am also missing tons of Secret Cards too.
- I cleared 91% of Aurica’s, 78% of Shurelia’s and 72% of Misha’s convo topics, and I am missing one song for Shurelia. Gah, I wonder what I need to do in order to get 100% with Aurica…
- I could only choose between Shurelia’s civilian dress and the Linkage, but the Extra section says I unlocked all 10 dresses. I wanted her to see her fight in her swimsuit though…
- The last few Secret Cards of the list state that there is a secret stash of pictures of Aurica and Shurelia, are those the 2-3 pictures in the Extra section at the start screen? Meh.
- WHERE IS MY OFFICIAL KISS WITH AURICA FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
Do I need to play the game from the start, with the clear data loaded? In any case I need to look it all up on the internet, but once I know, will I play this game again to complete it all then?
…I think not. At least, not immediately. Because, look at what I’ve got here…
Bittersweet.
That’s right. Today, I found Ar Tonelico 2 in my mailbox (next to Odin Sphere). Coincidence? In any case, I am quite surprised of myself. I’ve owned a PS2 for 7 years, yet I only managed to purchase 10 games during all these years, mostly sequels. (GT, GTA, FF (of which I never played X-2, lol)). But suddenly, in one single week, I get 4 new games. Ar Tonelico 2, Odin Sphere, Persona 3 FES, and Persona 4. I’m in for weeks of gaming yet. More power to NIS, Atlus and Square Enix. You guys are horribly good at stealing my time, and keeping me away from my blog. (And proving that I might not have chosen the right writers to fill in for me after all…)
…that is, if I manage to get a new Memory Card. Mine just ran out of space, too many FF savegames. Until then, I think you can expect a couple of anime-related posts here fairly soon. Lucky! Got a lot to catch up to.
Actually no. I can’t wait to play Ar Tonelico 2, and I can’t wait for the new memory card. Just deleted some FF savegames (I don’t need 15 FF X saves) so, there goes. Will play after dinner, for great justice.
(I will try to improve my multitasking though. Watching anime and so… I shall blog a little more regularly.)
TIME WARP! Man, I have a PS2 somewhere, but… the influence would probably be overwhelming and possibly confusing if I tried to play it. Still, this game looks and sounds incredibly engaging. DAMMIT! XD
Well, play on, play on. It’s best to enjoy when it’s enjoyable, right… right?
Ahh, Ar Tonelico, a great game indeed. Play the 2 and report back. I loved Jaqli (Mir) and once i got her i discarded the girl i was going form, Croche.
To combine some of your questions…
You CAN find Kanade again in the Plasma Bell (just retrace your steps where you first found and fought her and got Ayatane). She also serves as the game’s semi-secret boss AND Shurelia-sama’s last song magic. Although, you need to fight her (yes, repeat that boss fight) up to 10 times, then she’ll cough up the last song. She drops rather good XP and Crystals for the trouble though.
About Shurelia-sama’s costumes, yes, you can only equip the Normal and Linkage ones ingame, but you can view her other costumes (the ones you’ve seen her wear in the Cosmosphere events) in the Gallery. Completing Shurelia-sama’s Cosmosphere nets you her secret/final costume from a certain Atelier Iris game.
But enough of this tl;dr. I love the 3rd Choice girls in both this game and the sequel… for my own reasons. :D
Congratz on beating the game. I really should fly over and kick you for taking so long to start, but I’ll let it pass since you found it satisfying.
In the sequel, your 3rd Reyvateil will get more than 2 usable costumes, so rejoice. Some are quite nice, but you’ll just have to find out. But a forewarning, this time around there’s a limit to how much you can dive into a Reyvateil. You’ll know what I mean when you get there.
As for the Cosmospheres for AT1, I only managed to complete Aurica’s. I stayed away from the latter half of Misha’s Cosmosphere simply because I AM NOT RORIKON, and I just didn’t like her. Shurelia, on the other hand, … eh-heh. Shush.
Anyways, again.. congratz, blahblah, get to playing #2. <3~
Ah, Ar Tonelico. I always wanted to try that, it’s very interesting. I have it of course, but haven’t tried it yet; I’ll have to wait to October with that (when my brother finally leaves to study in Japan, and finally gets off the PS2… I couldn’t play on it for half a year (or maybe more), because he’s glued to it).
As for Odin Sphere, you’ll get your Challenge fix. Because it’s a touhouzingly hard motherf*cker. And also, it’ll become a little too repetitive in the second half (I still haven’t beaten it yet, thanks to my brother, of course -.-). But at least, the graphics is beautiful.
(BTW, sometimes it’s really interesting when western people talk about how CRT is something old, and stuff. Where I live CRT TVs and monitors is the normal, if you have LCD, you’re considered to be filthy rich.)
AT2 will definitely be more of a challenge than AT1, especially with the new battle system. And yes, there is a limit as to how much you can dive. You will be informed about it when the time comes though. AT2 is definitely a massive improvement over the first, so I’m sure you’ll enjoy playing it. It’s definitely more difficult, which is good considering I had major issues with the first game since it was too easy.
As for Odin Sphere, it does get repetitive, since you have to do a bit of grinding to power up your HP and weapons, and fight the same bosses over and over again, but the graphics are great, story is very well thought of, and the game itself will provide a bit of a challenge.
P3 and P4 will also be quite entertaining, and they’re definitely harder than your average JRPG. Although I encourage you to try out the other Shin Megami Tensei games. On the difficulty scale, they don’t really compare to games like Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga, but then again people say my definition of “challenging” is kinda distorted…
Anyway, have fun and enjoy the ride. You’ve got a lot of great games there.
The only thing that really bothered me about Ar Tonelico was how STUPID Lyner could be at times.
[...] there comes my usually belated Catching up to series. Well, this time I have to admit I was pretty much distracted, so perhaps I have a more viable excuse this time… Ahem. Let’s proceed [...]
Just when you thought you were done with Ar Tonelico, it has 7 endings.
Well I went back to the Plasma Bell quite a few times (almost every time I made progress in the story after that, because the Plasma Bell was the only place where grinding was fun) and I couldn’t find her anywhere in the Little Girl’s Room or whatever it was called. Perhaps I should have gone after the last fight, but what good would that have been…
The gallery didn’t really show me many costumes either. (I kind of implied that I completed all of the cosmospheres, too. I just didn’t manage to fill all the song uses yet… still need roughly 300k DP.)
I am a little curious as to what you meant with “secret” ending last time, but I suppose that’s in relation with Misha’s route right? I couldn’t tell in this case. All was well with my dear Aurica <3
Funnily enough, her latter half is not for lolikons… you should have known that. :P You’re such a lolikon in denial, Rinne. :3c
Claim your PS2 back, get thee to a nunnery, and play that freakin’ game. I could slap myself silly for not having touched it for so long.
Hmm, I did hear about Odin Sphere being repetitive, but the hand-drawn graphics and stuff apparently fully compensate for that. That’ll have to wait a little though. AT2 first, then I’ll need to toss a coin to decide which game to play next.
(Thing is, you almost can’t get CRTs anywhere now here, that’s why they have that vintage, deprecated feel. I really don’t know many people around me who still have one either.)
Ohoho, Mir? Interesting. Can’t wait to play her.
Thanks for the info. Reassures me a little to hear that AT2 will be more challenging ;) Not saying I was bored of AT1 though.
Yeah, amazon suggested me to buy Nocturne but only second-hand and/or pretty expensive. I shall try and hope to find a cheap one somewhere, but I think I’m still very well endowed for the time being, games-wise. ;)
Really? Let’s see… counting the two endings of Episode 2, then the three of Episode 3…? That’s five.
Although then again I don’t know if there is a way, like in AT2, to get an ending without heroines. Would then make 3+4, err… 7? Quite a lot indeed, but even so, I’m more than happy with Aurica. :3