Ar Tonelico II

[briareos_kerensky]

I had this at home for a while but I wanted to make it the testbed for the XRGB-3, and now that I was able to spend some time with the game, here are the first impressions...which can be summed up with the word "random".

My last playing session just saw the two main heroines taking a bath together to level up while playing with a bomb-turned-toy and swimming in aromatic water.
Now, Gust games aren't exactly know for their coherency and the first Ar Tonelico had its share of "ecchi" moments, but Ar Tonelico II completely passes the whole first game within two hours from the start! The continue reference to sex or "dirty" things quickly becomes too much and really destroys any kind of serious approach the game tries to make...obviously I cannot really comment on the story but it involves a splinter faction of an holy order and protecting the holy maiden from them; oh yes, there's a goddess somewhere and you'll have to bring it down to save the world at the end of the game (wild guess but I bet I'm accurate enough).

As with all Gust series, Ar Tonelico had its number of changes of the combat system which now tries to emulate Paper Mario and similar mechanics; there are no real turn, instead there's an attack and defense phase, each lasting a number of seconds; while attacking you have a limited time to input commands for each of your frontline characters and one for your Reyvateils; frontline commands are inpt by pressing a direction on the analog stick and pressing X or square, depending on what character you want to act; just like a beat'em'up a different combination of stick and button will have the character perform a particular attack, but right now everything is so random, with you pressing whatever button you can to pull off as many attacks as you want; to select a target you have to bring up a menu (triangle) and assign them from here.
Instead of a single Reyvateil (think of them as female-only wizard singing to conjure magic) in Ar Tonelico II you've got two of them. By pressing circle you can chose the song the two will sing together and once you press circle again or one of them completely drains her MPs, the magic will launch. Longer the Reyvateils sing, stronger the magic will be.

In the defense phase, each frontline character will try to defend the Reyvateil they're assigned to by pressing either X or square at the right time, just like a quick time event. A similar system was used in the first game, but you had to protect just one girl and not all attacks were aimed at her, so just like the attack phase, the defense phase feels like a failed attempt to make turn-based fights a bit more enternaining.

There are two Reyvateils in the game which you can stalk...I mean, take interest in and right from the start they follow standard stereotypes: Cloche (the holy maiden) is the classical tsundere that you would gently caress with a sword after having waved a storm of bullets at her and Luca...freaks me out. She's a fine girl (happy on the surface but with a daaaaaark past haunting her and apparently the long lost sister of one of Ar Tonelico's heroines), but the idea of diving into a girl which has my same name just freaks me out, ok?

Diving into a Reyvateil's subconscious (her cosmosphere) plays exactly like in the first game, a pretty plain section where you go around a fantasy world trying to awake a new magic by reading text...in the first game they were funny to read but unfortunately there was only one outcome and you couldn't possibily lose a single magic, which was the biggest disappointment of the game.

The intro sequence is great and music follows the style of the first game (lots of choirs) but everything else is a mix of highs and lows: town backgrounds are great, sprites could defenetively use some more colors and frames and sound effects are ripped off from previous Gust games and some new ones are downright irritating.

I'll play some more until the great flood of February/March...I just hope that the game will stop being so random.

[briareos_kerensky]

Got to six or so hours of play and this game is basically following the same structure as the first Ar Tonelico...it shouldn't be a huge surprise, Gust games always had the tendency to play the same.

There have been a huge change, and it has been for the worst: the alchemy system.
In the first Ar Tonelico you could engage in alchemy at every save point and the system was just as deep as the Atelier series, although item number was more limited and not so central to the story.
In Ar Tonelico II you have to go to specific shops to synthesize specific items, thus limiting its effect on gameplay, but why force the player go to a shop to forge an armor, to an other any random object and a third healing items? It makes no sense, like the choice to cities represented by a static screen and a text menu which sometimes lead to "true" location where you painstakingly have to make your way to the inn or to that shop.

Also, walking around in city locations and dungeons is almost painful, your character does not properly walk over the terrain but floats over it while waving his legs and most of the time it's hard to understand what is blocked and what isn't...again, it's problem common to all Gust games, but it's time they get this right...like deciding on a decent battle system, as I made my choice and dediced that it's rubbish.
Really, button mashing it's not made for RPGs, especially when the game itself isn't clear of what specific characters can pull off by attacking (as one character supports the other with the right -wrong?- button combination). The old attack/break system was good enough, now there are just too many variables to take care of in a limited amount of time: combo meter, Reyvateil MPs and song meter, health of all characters, time left to execute attacks, song harmonics and synch rate between front and rear line characters...it's completely overwhelming and sometimes you are wondering if all those values have an actual meaning.

No happy enough with the Cosmosphere adventures, Gust came up with an other minigame, Dive Theraphy.
In the world of Ar Tonelico II there's this disease called I.P.D. that infects random Reyvateils making them go crazy; Croix (main character) official job is to capture these girls and later in the game Luca can cure my diving into them and asking them questions or administering drugs to make them calmer or edgier. The target is to have enough points after five actions to stay within a certain boundary.
Apparently Gust went through the pain of crafting each character by hand and so each has her set of questions and answers and if soemthing goes wrong, it's just a matter of trial and error before curing said girls.
Then, said girls (which are on the loli-tastic side, so loli-tastic that they hurt when their portrait pops up...guess that tertiary characters cannot afford god charades) can be equipped by front line characters to gain certain effects (more money, fire effects on characters) and also gain level themselves.
Oh, and if Cloche does something right cured girls can join her fan club and help her in battle...it's so complicated to navigate all these menu to set up everything and the interface does not help...it's all dark and blue and it doesn't inspire you to go through all this pain.

It's plain and uninteresting, yet I'm playing this...it's all due to the Cosmosphere part: even if interaction is minimum, it's actually the only part that received good writing to expose how the two main Reyvateils really feel and sometimes it's funny to see what happens.

[briareos_kerensky]

Countless times I've tried to write a follow-up to my first impressions but I've always had problems to get the message through...bottom line is that Ar Tonelico II is a game with a few good things but a lot of poorly designed mechanics.

The Cosmospheres, along part of phase 2, are outstanding, fun and well written. The main heroines thoughts and feelings entertwine quite nicely and it's pleasant to follow the on-screen text and you're genuinely waiting for the next thing. Sometimes it's a reaction you're expecting (and I'm not talking about a cliched reaction, but a realistic situation), sometimes it's not and it's a real shame that the main game story ends up to be the usual "let's go against the resident god" things with too many useless and cliched plot twists...these twists have no real purpose on the story, they make things just too complicated for the game's own good.
As an highlight of the story, part of phase 2 sees the player split between a Cosmosphere-like environment and the "real" world where choices in the "virtual" environment affect what you'll see next in the "real" world. Choices are limited, but it's a nice addition and it's a wonderful break from the usual dungeon...which returns with a vengeance, unfortunately.

And that's basically what's good about the game; do not underestimate this, however, as it is the real drive behind the whole thing.
The rest doesn't quite live up to this, with a grossly imbalanced combat system, basic dungeon design and a poor localization.

I still feel that the combat system is more button mashing than anything else and from phase 2 onwards battles become a joke, with the frontline characters dealing so much damage that Reyvateils and their magic songs are needed only to heal them. Boss battles are completely anti-climatic as they usually need one Replakia or strong magic to been taken care of.
Replakia is an other game mechanic linked to the IPDs you rescue. Basically Cloche can activate all IPDs that joined her fan club to sing as a chorus to activate a satellite with a beam cannon...so, first you need to find IPDs on the map, fight and beat them, cure them from their infection (Luca's Dive Theraphy), complete an untold task (like beating up a particular enemy or unlock a particular conversation...but you don't know exactly what to do) with Cloche and then go to a specific part of a town where they will join up.
OK...that's a bit too much work for a secondary weapon, for much powerful it might be, just like going around the whole world in search of shops where to synthesize or buy that object...it's extremely clumsy and completely not funny to go through countless loading screens and menu to have just one item...I guess that some developers can't recognize one good system when they have it. Or simply recognize it and mess it up to have players mad at them.

Now, localization. I always criticized NISA on how they adapt Japanese dialogues to English and that the first Ar Tonelico I and other Atelier games had some descriptions cut off in the middle of a sentence, but here something went completely wrong, with even an handful of sentences left in Japanese. I know that NISA aren't the richest publisher in the world and they are relying on a niche market, but that same niche market is the one who's going to skin you alive if you mess something up, like missing translations or game-breaking bugs.

[abigsmurf]

bumpity bumpabump!

I've finished P3FES now so moved onto this one.

I was actually blown aware at first with the atmosphere. The music is very good and the backgrounds and character portraits are very pretty (the sprites are decently animated but have an oddly anonymous feel to them). Loving it so far.

Characters are slightly cliched, cute loli, tsundere and childhood friend but the dialogue is quite fun.

I'm impressed by how much there is to do, diving, bathing, cooking etc. Looks like this is a game that rewards you for seeking things to do.

Battles are fun and the random encounter rate is refreshingly low. Only problem is the battles are stupidly easy so far. Charge up a song, do a couple of rounds of attacking and you'll do a spell that'll wipe out any enemy you come across. Please tell me it actually presents a challenge as it goes on and it's just easing you in.

[abigsmurf]

Quite a bit into it now and they're still introducing extra things to do. Just reached what I assume is the big, game changing that determines the nature of the ending.

->Open Spoiler<-

Picked Cloche because Luca comes off as a bit of a self centred cow

One thing I've notice is that the localisation is terrible. There are frequent grammatical errors, mixed up genders (for characters with no ambiguity) and a basic lack of knowledge of Japanese culture. There's a sprite that's clearly supposed to be parodying Goemon and they butcher his famous catchphrase (saying 'I've cut something stupid' as opposed to 'Once again I have cut a worthless object'). There are moments where a pun was clearly made in Japanese (because of the reaction) but no attempt is made to make a joke in English so you get odd reactions to random sentences. Usually you can overlook an error or two but they just keep cropping up.

The plot has some major holes (although admittedly this could be a side product of the awful localisation). The bit where

->Open Spoiler<-

Luca tells you she was only using you made zero sense. There was no indication at all up until that point that she was. I thought it was the cliched 'she made that up to distance herself from the hero' thing but she then says to another character it was all true. Awful awful writing although I will admit the "That's the first and last time I'll put something inside you" line was one hell of a ZING! moment.

Still enjoying it despite the writing issues.

[abigsmurf]

Left this for a while and gone back to it.

It's only after leaving it for a while and coming back slightly fresh that I realised that the plot simply is completely and utterly incomprehensible and it gets more complicated and less explained as the game goes on. I'm in phase 4 and I'm completely lost in terms of story. The sheer amount of unexplained technobabble this game piles on you is insane and the number of twists with no foreshadowing is stupid.

I've got to agree with briareos, the enjoyment of this game comes out of the Cosmospheres, dualspheres and crafting. They're funny, creative and just generally better done than the rest of the game (aside from the music which is stunning throughout).