awoolcott's Full Review: AR Tonelico: Melody of Elemia for PlayStation 2
Inevitably, as you work your way through the huge PS2 role-playing game library, you get to the really weird stuff. Gust has become a big player in the niche RPG scene of late, mostly for their Atelier Iris franchise which recently spawned into Mana Khemia. However, it's their previous title on display here, in Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia. On the surface it's your standard RPG, with turn-based battles and a “save the world” plot, but stick with the game long enough and the weirdness takes center stage; if you find a dating simulator to be weird, anyway. The result of the mix of RPG and “dating” is a solid game, rife with humor and enough double entendre's to create your own comedy act. As such, this is one of those RPGs that has a very limited audience; either you're heavily into the anime stylings and want to check out a different take on the genre, or you're just a really curious kind of person and want to see an RPG that's equal parts epic and strange.
Lyner Barsett: Knight of Elemia and two-timing pimp daddy
The hero of the story is Lyner Barsett, a young Knight of Elemia, protecting the holy city of Platina at the top of the Tower of Ar tonelico, which serves as the world map of the game. At the beginning of the game, the city is overtaken by viruses, which delete their hard drives and becomes a vessel for penis enlargement spam. Wait...that's not right. Actually, these “viruses” are more monster than data, attacking the city in an attempt to take it over. The why isn't revealed until halfway through the game, but it might have something to do with not being happy over Platina installing Norton Anti-Virus. Anyway, Lyner is tasked with the mission of going to the Wings of Horus, a “lower world” on the tower structure where a Hymn Crystal is needed to neutralize these viruses. Naturally, Lyner gets caught up in other things along the way making his quest longer than anticipated. The plot is pretty interesting, but the characters steal the show with their little nuances and secrets. Plus it features like half the Persona 3 voice cast so it's like an alternate universe reunion.
On one hand, Ar tonelico progresses like any other RPG. Lyner and his ragtag party traverse the world map, visiting cities, dungeons, and the like in typical fashion. The battle system is interesting enough, though it's turn-based and there's a fair amount of random battles, as you keep three party members and one “Reyvateil” in the back who serves as your typical magic user. These ladies are songstresses effectively, belting hymns that can heal, launch vicious attacks, or provide defensive support. They're rarely attacked, because they stay behind the main party, but occasionally they'll get a special attack charged up toward them, and the party must defend the much weaker teammate. Aside from that, the combat is familiar, and in Ar tonelico, it's easy to adjust to it because the challenge level is quite low. Most fights are pretty simple; get your Reyvateil to charge a spell to a huge level, chip away at the HP of enemies, and when the time is right, unleash the song/spell which should do some huge damage.
The other half of the game is the crazy part of Ar tonelico, involving Lyner's relationship with his Reyvateil party members. In this universe, Reyvateil's can't create their song magic without a partner they trust and rely on, and thus half the game is developing a relationship with your three possible Reyvateil partners. This is where the “dating sim” stuff comes in; while you don't technically do this to “score” with the girls, there's a familiar tone. In order to get closer, Lyner has to “dive” into the minds of Reyvateils, into their Cosmosphere where he meets the various consciousnesses of the lady, and ultimately settle affairs there if they get a bit awkward (and hoo boy, they do). It plays out like a visual novel, traveling from place to place and talking, and that's really about it; long as you have enough Dive Points from using a specific Reyvateil in combat, you can progress quickly. Advancing levels requires spending time with them in the real world though, as when you rest at Inns, you can speak to the Reyvateils on specific topics that you can find in the world or based upon costumes, using special moves, or story events. Which Reyvateil you favor actually affects the plot as well, as events are altered depending on specific story choices.
Reyvateil's also come in handy for the standard Gust synthesizing system for creating items. Dubbed Grathmelding, Lyner can find recipe cards and ingredients all over the game, which can be used to create items for healing and support, weapons & armor, and items needed to progress the story, or in at least one case, it's necessary to get through a Cosmosphere level. While it initially sounds complicated, it's very simple; long as you have the ingredients, just pick the right recipe card and it'll automatically be made, and then the Reyvateils will help you name, or rename, items. Because there's not a lot of items available in shops other than ingredients and healing items, making new stuff is vital to progress; most of the new armor and weapons I got were from item creation and not from the few shops scattered around the game world, which seem to never actually get any new stuff unless it's something you've created.
Choose your own...adventure...heh
Though Ar tonelico is a fairly linear game, there's actually quite a few branching paths based upon decisions you make in the game. Naturally they involve your preference of Reyvateil; certain story events have you choosing one option over another, which is tied to either Aurica or Misha, the two heroines of the story, which takes you in completely different directions for a good while until everything reunites. There's even a sneaky Symphony of the Night-esque trick 2/3ds of the way through the game where you either can end the story right there, or continue on to the true climax. Whether or not someone is patient enough to actually replay the game is another story – in addition to the linear plot, most dungeons are equally linear, and when they're not straightfoward they're confusing with areas that all look the same, so even remembering vital locations within dungeons are challenging. Also, some might be put off by the extreme ease of difficulty already mentioned; though the battle system is fun and could emphasize a lot of strategic choices, it's really not because fighting requires little skill at all. There are some occasional battles that bring a different direction, but they're not frequent enough. Here's to hoping Ar tonelico II improves on this, whenever it comes out.
Anime meets the PlayStation...1
If you're looking for a visual masterpiece in the vein of Square Enix or Namco RPGs, this isn't the place to be. Ar tonelico looks fine, but it's a high-res PS1 game most of the time, with basic sprites for characters and enemies, and the aforementioned repetitive dungeons. It's all in a ¾ isometric view, with no ability to flip the camera around, making traversing some dungeons a constant battle with the R2 button to open the mini-map. On the other hand, many spell effects are pretty impressive, if not a bit low-res when they're shown off with anime cutscenes. Speaking of, there's quite a few animated scenes littered through the game at climactic points, and it's pretty nice. The audio is balanced between a fun, eclectic soundtrack spanning rock to j-pop to weird, almost Monty Python-like strangeness and solid voice acting, with a few exceptions where the actors are trying too hard. The issue is there's so little of the voice acting, and many vital scenes are merely text. If you're not into the English dub though, the option is there to use the original Japanese voices.
The Closing Argument
If you're looking for something that is pretty traditional yet quite different all the same, Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia is a good bet. It's been recently reprinted (hopefully in lieu of the release of the sequel) so finding a copy shouldn't be awfully hard if you know where to look, and it's pretty inexpensive. Is it a great, genre-changing game? Well...no. At its heart it's very basic in design, using the dating simulation side to add some spice, and it accomplishes that in terms of the branching paths it offers. If you can get past the random battles, ease of combat, and linearity of the progression, Ar tonelico is an RPG worth checking out just to see something different.
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