VGRC

You never forget your first...

I have grown increasingly cynical of the entire RPG genre as of late. Why? Because it is all the same. I, for one, am tired of the same 'ol cookie-cutter storylines, the same 'ol battle systems, and the same 'ol everything else. Really, I am quite sick of it. And when it comes down to your average RPG being long enough to ensure you won't be playing anything else for a long time, something needs to really stick out to make me appreciate it. Fuck your cookie-cutter Final Fantasy's loaded with more FMV than actual gameplay. To hell with the same tired JRPG with the same tired premise. I need something to stand out. And, despite its flaws, Ar tonelico has what stands out from the crowd.

Ar tonelico takes place in Sol Ciel; a world that has been visited by apocalypse twice over. All that remains of this world is a massive tower, and the floating continents and islands that surround it, where the remains of civilization now live and prosper. Above these lands, the city of Platina can be found built on the upper levels of the tower. Here resides the Knights of Elemia, who work tirelessly to protect the remains of Sol Ciel from creatures known as the Viruses, who if left untamed will destroy what is left of civilization. One day, the Knights run into a particularly powerful Virus, which is immune to all their weapons and powers. In a last-ditch effort, they send Lyner, a brash young Knight who wants nothing more than to protect Platina and his fellow Knights, down to the lower world to find the mystical Hymn Crystal Purger, which is quite possibly their last resort against this new deadly virus. And thus, Lyner's journey starts out.

OK, I'll admit, the story is pretty cookie-cutter, but once you can get past that, we have a pretty unique game here. Much of Ar tonelico's gameplay and story revolves around the Reyvateils; women with magical powers who can cast powerful magic by singing. It is your job to bond with these Reyvateils throughout the course of the game, helping them to craft new song magic to use in battles and progress through the game.

Ar tonelico progresses quite simply: Something happens, you run through an area fighting random enemies along the way, trigger something, story advances, repeat. Sometimes the random battles don't happen, but that is pretty much the jist of Ar tonelico in terms of story progression. (Until you hit the Dive System, which I'll get into later) You end up with a task to fill, and you complete it while being given something else to do. It's all fairly linear. There are a handful of various modes, depending on the situation. Connecting the various areas of the world is the world map, which allows you to highlight a town/village/forest/ect and enter it. When you open up more areas, they will appear on the map (depending on where you are) basically letting you use the map to warp from town to town without having to traverse through the forests or or dungeon areas in between.

While going through any sort of danger-filled area, there is a gauge in the lower right corner of the screen that slowly changes from blue to red. The closer it gets to red, the higher the chance of you encountering an enemy. Battles are still random, so you can't avoid enemy encounters. After each encounter, the gauge will empty a bit, and once it completely empties out, you won't encounter any enemies in that area again. (Though leaving and joining the area will refill the gauge) Frankly, I hate random battles, but this style of encountering enemies is a fresh change from the normal random battles that plague just about every other RPG out there. Furthermore, when the gauge is empty, you can relax a bit and more freely explore the area you are in, without having to worry about being attacked.

The core of the battle system is traditional turn-based gameplay, with your party on the right and enemies on the left. The order of who goes when is constantly displayed in the top-left of the battle screen, allowing you to see which ally/enemy goes when and plan your moves accordingly. Your three main party members have pretty standard stuff: Attack, use item, use that characters special skill, ect. The thing that sets Ar tonelico apart from every other RPG is the use of the Reyvateils, who occupies the 4th party spot in the very back of the formation. While your 3 other members are doing all the up-front fighting and defending, you can have your Reyvateil do what she does best: Sing. (And don't worry, there is no funky rhythm crap to deal with, if the word 'sing' frightened you for a bit there!) Her songs contain powerful magic that you can choose from, ranging from defensive magic (shielding, health replenishing) to offensive magic. (energy balls, fire, ect) The trick is, while she is singing, she uses up her MP reserves (these replenish while she isn't singing) but the longer she sings, the more powerful her magic can get as it has time to charge up. On top of this, there is also a 'Harmonics' system; as the party defends the Reyvateil and continues to inflict damage on the enemy while your Reyvateil is charging an attack, her harmony will grow with the party, enabling her to charge up her magic that much faster, giving you magic attacks that are thousands of times more powerful than normal. However, when she runs out of MP, she will cast the spell automatically, though you can cut in and manually cast it at any time. Because of the power your Reyvateil provides to you, occasionally an enemy will target her. And because physically, they are pretty weak, you need to step in and protect them by having another party member take the brunt of the attack, though afterwards you can have that member unleash a devastating counter-attack. It is a wonderful combat system, with the only problem being some minor difficulty issues, which I'll touch on later.

After battles, besides being rewarded with experience points and items, you will also be given Dive Points, which are used for another aspect of the game: the 'bonding with the Reyvateils' bit I mentioned earlier. Whenever you stop at a camp or inn to rest, you will have the opportunity to just gab with your Reyvateil. As the story progresses, you will be given topics that you two can chat about, but you can also 'find' topics lying about the world like items. These topics span multiple 'levels,' which correspond to levels in the related Dive System. You see, Reyvateils have difficulty crafting new song magic by themselves, so it is up to you to 'dive' into the cosmosphere, which is essentially their psyche, using the Dive Points earned in battle to access areas of your Reyvateils mind. You will work with her subconscious and the figments that her imagination creates to solve personal crises that she may be dealing with. These crises will often manifest themselves into situations inside the cosmosphere, like a monster continually attacking a village, and your Reyvateil unable to do anything because she feels useless, leaving Lyner having to help her through her emotional problems. Once the problems of a particular level have been worked through, your Reyvateil will advance to a new state of mental health, leaving you with new song spells that were created along the way. Of course, you cannot just dive into your Reyvateil's mind all the time, as you will need to fulfill a certain amount of talk topics for a level before you can access that level in the cosmosphere.

Not only do you get to play the role of virtual psychologist, the game (much like last year's equally wonky Steambot Chronicles) has a few Japanese date-sim elements, involving buying the Reyvateils gifts and taking them to places, though much like in Steambot, it doesn't play that massive a role.

With all of that out of the way, I do have my complaints. For one, the game is insanely easy. We're talking, Grandia II-easy, which is a real shame because it weakens what otherwise would have been a great RPG. Battles oftentimes don't provide that much of a challenge. Even boss battles, which pretty much consist of charging up a couple massive magic attacks, with your 3 other party members attacking to bring the Harmonics level up, and healing each other while dumping MP-restores on your Reyvateil so she can continuously charge up her magic. There is a whole system of the game that deals with crystals, allowing you to place crystals on your equipment to power them up, but to be blatently honest, you don't need to pay much attention to it as you can coast through the game without having to touch that. You can also use said crystals to fuse with other materials to create new items (aka 'Grathmelding') but again, you won't even need to use it much except for where the story requires. Furthermore, the whole chatting with your Reyvateil and Dive System thing can come across as a bit shallow, as it isn't very dynamic. Sometimes you will be given an option for what you want Lyner to say in response, but most of the time it is all scripted.

That said, the overall atmosphere of the game holds things up for me. The graphics, though very simplistic, are bold and colorful; an accurate portrayal of what this game is. The art style has a very Japanese anime flair, which will immediately turn on JRPG fans who eat up this kind of stuff. And though the animations are often janky and stiff, the art style and SNES-style level design hold things up. The lightheartedness is boosted even further by a completely off-the-wall script, laced to the brim with sexual innuendos ("OK no holding back! Next time Lyner dive into me hard! Make me feel it!") though never going as far as to be too inappropriate. Some may view it as a bit childish, and really it is, but it just adds to the lighthearted style of the game. Don't come here expecting a deep and dark enthralling epic like Digital Devil Saga, because that is most certainly what you will not get. However, it isn't exactly shallow: Despite the laughable plot, there is still quite a bit of character development; each major character has their own fully fleshed-out personality, often blown to humorous extremes thanks to the goofy script. Despite the cheesiness of some of the dialogue, there are times when you'll find yourself laughing out loud because of it. The character interaction is actually, well... fun, and that says a lot for an RPG game.

Sadly, the same dialogue comes off as being excessively and stereotypically cheesy at points. On top of that, the voice acting is a mixed bag as well, ranging from acceptable to downright nauseating. However, the music is a completely different animal; whether it be the goofy tracks during the comic relief scenes, to some of the overworld themes, right down to the cosmosphere themes, everything is alright. In some cases, even really good, but in all cases, it's fitting to the scenes.

In the end, Ar tonelico stands out as a fresh change from your typical RPG fare, having a lighthearted and goofy atmosphere combined with a fun battle system. And clocking in at a length of well over 40 hours (well beyond that, should you decide to play through the separate story forks) somehow manages to almost overcome the fact the game is a bit on the easy side. If you're looking for the next epic RPG, you will not find it here. However, if you want something fresh in this tired and stale genre, Ar tonelico will most certainly deliver.