Welcome to Cloud Country
Ar Tonelico takes place in Sol Ciel, a shattered planet with two floating continents arrayed around a centralized tower. A deadly sea of clouds surrounds the ground and tower, while the upper reaches of sky are blocked by some mysterious floating debris known as the Blastline. While there's no information as to whether the world of Sol Ciel was ever completely fused together, it is known that it has been destroyed and completely rebuilt twice thanks to cataclysmic circumstances. While the first occasion was easily the fault of human stupidity, the second event threatened all life in the world because of malevolent computer viruses. Fortunately, a group of magical singers known as the Legendary Maidens utilized magical songs and items known as Hymn Crystals to repel these monstrous creatures. As the humans attempted to rebuild their shattered world, the descendents of the Maidens (a race of female "beings" known as Reyvateils) and the humans that fought alongside them (who would become known as Knights of Elemia) pledged to protect the world in case the viruses ever returned.
This group of defenders built a city near the top of the tower (which became known as the Upper World), and spent their days warding off the random viral creatures that were spawned from the spire. However, one day, a new strain of monster appeared that shrugged off the weapons that the Knights and Reyvateils had, threatening the entire world of Sol Ciel. As Lyner Barset, a young Knight of Elemia, players are sent down to the Lower World in search of the Purger, one of the Hymn Crystals used by the Legendary Maidens to destroy these beasts and save humanity once again. Over the course of the 40+ hour adventure, Lyner will repeatedly visit various locations in the Lower World.
Now, there are a few tricks with the exploration system to the game. First, whereas other RPGs have worlds that are easily traversable from one side to the other (even if it takes a long time), due to the nature of Sol Ciel, very few locations connect to each other. As a result, Ar Tonelico features a destination map that allows you to warp around towns or world areas without having to physically walk there. While this allows you to quickly move around the lands of Sol Ciel, there's definitely a handicap in place with this system because it makes exploration extremely linear: depending on the plot trigger that the game is waiting for, you're restricted from going to different areas on the map until you've performed the one action that will move the story along. What's more, the game will sometimes exploit this feature, making you warp from one area to another for a detail that literally takes 30 seconds or less to develop. When you're doing this in town and need to backtrack between, say, an inn and a shop, this isn't that big a deal. When you have to do it for world locations, it's somewhat annoying.
Another twist to the exploration system once you get into the dungeons or wilderness is the automap that the game provides, which gives you an idea of where you happen to be at any time, as well as stairs, doorways and other landmarks. Although some of these spaces are small, some can comprise 20 or 30 rooms with various puzzle elements that you'll need to trigger to advance. Of course, you'll wind up facing a variety of monsters in these locations, but Ar Tonelico features an "encounter bar" that alerts you to danger. While the game doesn't show you where monsters are so you can choose to avoid them in combat, it doesn't do away with random encounters either. Instead, the encounter bar changes color from blue to red to indicate just how much of a chance you have to get into a fight.
Get Ready To Rumble
Each map has a set number of battles associated to its encounter bar, and the more fights you take on, the more the bar depletes until it's empty. Once this happens, no other monsters will attack you unless you go back out to the world map or to a new section of the dungeon. This can be useful because it gives you additional time to explore these stages without worrying about continually being assaulted. Players may wind up finding extra items in hidden areas or treasure chests without feeling like they have to smash their way through hordes of creatures. On the other hand, the limited number of monsters in each area can enforce a need to level grind just so you're capable of facing down upcoming threats.
Battles are turn-based affairs, where players select whether or not they want to use attacks, skills or items, amongst other options. Battles start getting a bit more creative when it comes to Reyvateils, who are constantly relegated to the rear of a party's formation. These characters cannot fight, and rely upon the other party members to protect them. In fact, there are many enemies that will specifically target a Reyvateil in battle with attacks. To save them, your characters will need to guard the singer, throwing their own body in the way of the incoming blow. Once this is done, the victim has an opportunity to launch a counter attack.
However, Reyvateils aren't useless when it comes to battle, because they can use their song magic to regenerate lost hit points, provide resistance to spells, or launch powerful attacks. At any point in battle, players can command their Reyvateils to start singing either a blue protective song or red attack song, which they'll power with their magic points. As the other members of the party protect the songstress through the fight, her harmony with the party will grow, and further charge up the spell, making it much more powerful. Thanks to the Harmonics system, players can get songs that are hundreds or even thousands of times more effective than regular spells. Attacking characters will also gain a bonus in the form of being able to trigger skill attacks. There is a catch though; if her MP runs out when she's singing, she'll automatically trigger the song, firing off the attack spell or cancelling the protection until she regains her strength. Once battle is resolved, the party receives items as well as grades on how well the fight went, which is totaled up into currency known as Dive Points, which I'll go into later.
Even though there are a couple of subtle facets with the battle system, such as the circuitous nature of powering up your attackers by defending your singers, the battle system leaves a few things to be desired. For one, your skilled attacks are limited and specifically tied to the Harmonics gauge, so if you happen to be stronger than the monsters you're facing (which can easily happen) you'll never trigger them. What's more, it takes very specific situations to continually fill and refill the gauge to earn the various HarmoCrystals that will allow you to use these abilities. During one fight, I let a powerful spell grow to more than 50,000% of its maximum damage while protecting my reyvateil and still only acquired two crystals. In fact, I managed to beat the game without knowing what some abilities look like.
Unlike other RPGs, where magic points need to be replenished with supplementary potions or rest, your reyvateils will regenerate lost MP as soon as they stop singing. In fact, the only reason that you'll need to use MP restoration is if you want to power your spells up to incredible levels, like the one I mentioned above. Plus, even though there are a limited number of times that you can cast some spells, you always have a fallback basic attack spell that you can use infinitely. This can make battle extremely lopsided. Finally, you wind up receiving so many items whenever you defeat monsters that stores are somewhat downgraded in importance. This is a bummer considering the potent Grathmelding system included in the game.
Grathmelding is a system that lets you make new items, weapons and other objects out of pre-existing materials. To do so, you need a recipe card that gives you instructions on how many ingredients you need. Some items will require magical Grathnode crystals, which will strengthen its power or effects once they've been created. Players will either obtain these crystals from stores, battles, or by finding them in chests in various locations around the world. As long as you have the right materials, you can make as many items as you want. Once you've finished, the reyvateils in your party will offer to name your creation if you'd like. It's a strange glimpse into that character's mind, because it takes a special personality to come up with titles like Boltapolta and Twinkly Sword for your equipment.
Mr. Freud, Step This Way
Speaking of the personalities of your reyvateils, Ar Tonelico features an interesting way of unlocking their abilities within the game. Lyner will dive into their fractured Cosmosphere (or psyche), resolving their personal issues and crises. Each level of the Cosmosphere is themed with some particular scenario, such as being ridiculed, fearing rejection, or feeling inadequate. Now, each girl's mind is protected by a guardian, and you'll take the various Dive Points that you've acquired during battle and you pay these figments of imagination to access virtual areas within the mind, which are rated in terms of their importance. Zero or one star locations are not very significant, while three star places often result in some soul searching revelation and new songs being crafted. Once every issue has been explored, a special event known as a paradigm shift takes place which signals a new state of mental health. It also results in new costumes that the character can wear. However, don't think that you can continually dive into these girls and fix them. To progress in mental states, you need to talk to the ladies at save points or inns and find out what they're thinking.
While being an impromptu shrink is a creative concept, the system is flawed. In the first place, you're rarely in danger of not having enough dive points if you've been clearing out areas or power leveling your characters. For another thing, you don't really have to think when it comes to traveling through the Cosmosphere. Discussions in the character's minds are pre-planned, and as long as you find the most important star locations, you can disregard everything else that's on a particular level. As a result, you really won't care about why these girls are so screwed up when you can practically bypass all of their feelings just to get to the next stage of their psyche. Unfortunately, talking to them at save points or inns feels exactly the same. While there are numerous topics of conversation that are available to you, you only need to unlock the subjects that will make them open up the next level of the Cosmosphere. You have the opportunity to discuss every topic on a specific level for these girls, but there's no advantage to tracking down these subjects either. It would be great if you received an additional boost to their spells because they felt like Lyner cared more for them, but there's nothing that comes of tracking down some of these obscure conversations.
Now, there are some date sim-like elements within the game the further you go, such as promising to buy the girls gifts, travel to specific locations just so that you can be alone, and even promising to never leave them alone. However, in typical date sim fantasy fashion, Lyner is very much like a teenage boy with both girls, and will literally promise the same things to both reyvateils without suffering any consequences. While it's not cheating per say, it's definitely not faithful. That aside, Ar Tonelico stretches the bounds of suggestive dialog to its very limits. With lines like, "I hear it hurts when you stick it in," "You can do anything you want to me," and continual references to Lyner being a pervert, this is a pretty sexually charged game. Add in spells that summon cats with vacuum penises and outfits that range from G-strings and demon wings to only a bath towel, and you might be surprised with what you run into during the adventure.
Finally, it's disappointing that Misha and Aurica, the two reyvateils in the party, practically play the same. While Misha is supposed to be a pureblood with access to incredible power and Aurica is a minor talented reyvateil, both have practically the same mental issues in their cosmosphere as well as the same spells they develop from diving. While it's a little interesting to see how each character's personality comes to life across the entire game, it's unfortunate that the overall game comes across a bit shallow.
When Sprites Ruled the World
Ar Tonelico has a visual flair that would definitely appeal to classic RPG fans. Large 2D sprites run around casting spells and launching attacks. Some of the environments can be particularly bland, especially some of the forest stages or technological areas that simply show off bland backgrounds. However, the anime influence of the game is undeniable, from the character models to the minor cutscenes. In fact, that's one thing that's painfully missing within the game. Cutscenes are literally snippets of action, regardless of whether they're stage transitions or magical spells. Only a few sections have scenes that last longer than five or ten seconds, and those are very few and far between. That's a little disappointing.
While the voice acting is decent, but nothing that's completely incredible, it's great to see that NIS, Gust and Banpresto allowed the original Japanese dialogue track to be selectable as an option. Way too few RPGs offer this option, and considering the large amount of dialogue in the game, it's a nice bonus for fans. The music for the game is good as well, with interesting scores for each location that you find yourself in. Nothing that will make you think it's the best song you've ever heard, but engaging enough.
Verdict
Ar Tonelico is probably going to be one of those guilty pleasure titles for some players. It's got an interesting story, some creative characters, and very unique ways of bending standard RPG clich¿s on their heads. Unfortunately, it doesn't go nearly far enough with them. The battle system is too easy and the exploration system is too limited. Plus, the dive system comes with a host of issues that complicate the entire reason behind the feature in the first place. It's not even so much that the game can come off as a surprising date sim-lite turn-based adventure. It's that a couple of less defined game features weaken a title that would've otherwise been impressive.
