Zyne
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A Ar Tonelico Review
Well this review took me a very long time to create. First I had to go through the game and that was boring. Then I had to make this review. This review contains some spoilers but these spoilers may or may not hurt your game experience. There was so much to talk about that I needed some help. I got a friend to help me with this. I am the second opinion by the way and my score may be a little surprising. Oh yeah, Here is a key to help you go through the review.
PANESY- Radolf
FOOL- Jack
First off I would like to point out when I first opened up the package, I examined the contents inside. It came in a pink and white box. If a guy at the game store handed me this game after I asked for it, I would’ve instantly let it go and it would’ve been forgotten quickly. Also, I would like to thank the people who made posts about this game. Without them, I would’ve just given up 10 hours after playing the game.
As far as graphics go, I hated them. Lyner would’ve been real cool when he jumped off a ledge to save Aurica but the graphics didn’t allow it. No wind physics no cool cut scene, nothing. The graphics started to creep me out as I started diving cause it didn’t make any sense. I dived into some insecure girl’s mind a couple tomes and I saw her littering the place with herself. The “Frightening” part was when she sees the devil image of herself. She looks like a little girl’s face pasted on a grown woman’s body.
The music was as irritating as combing your Sunday Gospels with horror. I went through this whole game and only found one song I could even try enjoy.
The sounds to this game were real nice though. I liked the arcade and dramatic voice of the English during battle. Unfortunately, they were only good during battle. Some of those people sound sarcastic or not interested in their job. Are they bottom of the barrel voice actors/actresses or something?
Grathmelding was another way of Gust telling us they can’t leave Atelier Iris. It was the same as alchemy and it hurt my feelings to see that a guy can learn to make weapons and craft items in one day but its taking me months to learn how to draw.
Well, I must move on to the game. I haven’t played a game with characters that had this little depth since the Nintendo. You have no real control in this game what-so-ever. No matter which girl you dive, which side you choose, all the characters goes back to a neutral standing. What I mean is after a while; they forget what you did last phase. In fact, it’s like it never happened. I ended up having to make nicknames for some characters because I couldn’t cope with their lack of personality.
Misha was one of the characters you get to dive. She is all clingy and over dramatic for nothing but your main character Lyner makes the situation worst. He doesn’t even remember who she is. *A quick spoiler* You come find out she is the reason why he became a knight in the first place. I don’t care if he was six years old when he said it, that’s something you just don’t forget. He makes her an ocarina and has a disturbingly similar scene like Wein from Growlanser 2. I’m sitting there like, “There aint no way you’re going to get out of this one Lyner.”
Aurica is another character you get to dive into. She is a rank D with unlimited potential. Her depressing atmosphere contradicts with her costume. She wears a bright and eye-catching costume. She starts out as one of those girl’s you think is going to commit suicide ‘cause she need psychological help. Of course, she gets better (no thanks to dive or anything else).
Pansy was a pitiful. He had no real role in the game. He was just some guy you could choose in your roster. Lyner never ask him any personal questions and you get tiny bits of information on him but nothing is really there.
Krusche tried hard to be important but since she wasn’t a Reyvateil, Lyner felt no need to talk to her. I wanted to know where her parents were since she is only 15. Was she an orphan or something?
Lyner, Oh how I longed to talk about your sorry ass. He acts like your typical hero at the beginning but as he progresses through the game, it’s hard to grasp what kind of person he has. Misha gets captured and he suddenly forgets her because of Aurica. In fact, he was leaving to go back home. He always apologizes and accepts them. I despise the words, “I’m sorry” now. He is only interested in protecting and saving Reyvateils. When he dives into one them, it’s like some kind of thrill because he doesn’t learn anything after he dives (either that or story doesn’t allow it). You’d think after they try to kill him or chain him up so they can be together forever, he’d go to them and talk. You can clearly see they are becoming insecure about the relationship but he says nothing and the storyline isn’t even touched by diving. Its like an excuse to learn new magic. Since dive is nothing but text, you just sit there painfully pressing a button reading and listening to mindless dribble. “Oh Lyner, thank you for throwing in your two cents after every level of dive.” Did I forget to mention after a while, Aurica and Misha have similar stories? When you get to the final level of dive, you basically marry the woman in their mind and since they can’t remember, all he does is act like it didn’t happen. If any girls are playing this game, please remember not to consider all guys like Lyner. I can’t stand him either.
Fool… I had high hopes for you. He was a standard guy. Trying to impress the ladies, helping Lyner out ever y way he can but soon after, he shows just how dumb he really is. I had to change his name to, “Piece of ****”. I tried to say, “This game was translated wrong” but he and Lyner as a combination snatched the wool right off of my eyes. In fact, I couldn’t even finish the game. I want to know how the hell can you just up and watch Lyner take advantage of a woman’s love!? He watched as Lyner made… *MAJOR SPOILER*… made Misha do something she didn’t want to. He convinced her that she was being selfish because he wanted to wake up the tower full of virus and put the world in danger again to wake up one, that’s right…ONE REVYATEIL. He needed her to sing for the rest of her life again and her best friend fool had nothing to say out his Got damn mouth!
I’m going to use Shuerailia as my closing statement. She helped destroy this game because when she showed up, everyone became altered…even herself. It was like some twisted harem. I don’t mind harems but when you go from, “Lyner , do you like and trust me” to “We have to fight for you” there is something wrong. I am ashamed for this game. This is the only game I just couldn’t finish. The only game I ever had the urge to sell.
Battle system: I’m not even going to bother. I might start cussing and swearing all day. The other guy will do a better job because will become very unprofessional and I might make it sound worse than it already is.
Rating: I feel as though this game shouldn’t be allowed to exist.
1 out of 10
Last edited by Zyne, 3/13/2007, 3:02 am
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3/13/2007, 2:58 am
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Zyne
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Re: A Ar Tonelico Review
Second Opinion
Story: In this game you are Lyner Barsett your typical clichéd 16 year old hero. Huh? Wait a minute, he’s not 16…. He’s 18, I couldn’t tell honestly. Well anyway he lives Platina (upper world in the tower) where it is their sworn duty to protect the world from viruses. Suddenly there’s a viral outbreak and they can’t seem to classify its type. In extreme desperation Lady Shureilia sends Lyner down to the Wings of Horus (Lower World) in search of the Hymn crystal purger . Suddenly the story gets worse from there because that’s only the first phase of the game even that seems like their big pitch. SPOILER: Phase 3 is filler. Shhhh they don’t want the people to know.
Concept: In Ar Tonelico GUST attempted many different and new things but what makes Ar Tonelico stand out from the rest is that it manages to actually fail at everything. This review has nothing against Moe Rpg’s or dating sims, I have nothing against either of them personally. This game introduces the “Intimate” dive system but it’s not so intimate as to involve the main game. It is like playing 2 games in 1. Diving has nothing to with the story. It changes none of the characters lines during battle nor does has impact on the Reyvateils personality or decisions in the story. Although you can have a bit of conversations with the Reyvateils I couldn’t help wondering why I couldn’t talk to Fool or Pansy every now and then. I mean these characters have backgrounds too right. Oh yes, Reyvateils are female songstresses/ magic caster. Basically they use the power of song to form magic. I haven’t figured out yet what’s the logic behind having only girls as Reyvateils, sounds like the basis of a harem to me.
Graphics: There’s nothing to look at here. The games backgrounds are horrible. Everything looks the same nothing moving, no life and no inspiration. I even got lost in the game because I couldn’t figure out whether or not I went backwards or forwards. Thankfully there’s a map even if the game tries to remove it at any given chance. Even with the map though you sometimes still don’t know where you are, especially in the towers. During battle the characters still look terrible. There are not a lot of animations either, why is it that gust believes that more they make games the less animations they are entitled to make. I understand that this is a 2d game but it doesn’t have to look this bad.
Gameplay: Let’s get down to the fun part… Not really. Gust did take a new approach on battle but just wanting doesn’t make it too good. First you have your frontline grunts. All they can do is attack and throw items. Yes that’s all they can do. They can’t run, Defend or use special attacks. Back row is the reyvateil row. Basically she is the control. She acts independently from the rest of the group. She forms harmonics with the frontline so that they can now fight (Special attacks now available). She is the reason you can run from battle. Don’t worry though for those who believe that too much variety is a problem Ar Tonelico solves it with a whopping 3 moves. Yes 3 moves. 4 if you add a passive skill. It’s good at first but after a while it starts to get repetitive. It tries to add zest by having enemies attack the back row. Once they select this option they will wait one turn to attack. Just selec t guard and it will ask which Reyvateil you want to defend (You can only have one at a time though). Enemy attacks, character guards Reyvateil and character can use Harmonics to counter. To make a long story short at any given chance just kill the enemy before their next move. The games is way too easy and too little variety of monster.
Diving: This is a special feature, you don’t have to use it (Lie, it’s the biggest sales pitch and you’ll be handicapped otherwise). Aurica and Misha are your only Reyvateils (another lie you get Shurelia as well). Basically you dive into cosmosphere and enjoy the poorly thought worlds. You don’t fight you just watch. For something that doesn’t impact the story you get very little choices but yet you feel responsible for bad things that happen. You can dive as much as you want but you MUST go to filler phase in order to complete the cosmosphere.
Sound: The sound effects to this game were neat. The arcade hit sound effects was nice. The English was pretty bad. It was the same ones who did Atelier Iris 2. Seriously NISA fire these C grade voice actors it’s not working. The Japanese is okay, it features all the voices you know and love but because the lines are horrible anyway it’s only an illusion. Only the people who truly love Japanese will love it. The music was terrible; it was so terrible it sounded like it was collected from the worst songs of 3 games. None of the music sounds like it’s on the same plane here. For a game about songs this would have to be the disappointing part.
Overall: The game wasn’t that good and that’s just from quality of work. The Characters were clichéd. The attitudes they carry should be dead and buried by now. I did have some respect for Shurelia but than I found out she looks like 15 or 16 year old girl and on top of the she was Out of character in the 3rd phase and started acting like 15 or 16 year old girl. For God sake she was there at the beginning of a damn war centuries ago that time should’ve been passed. Not only that but in the3rd phase this game turns into a Harem and that’s not good. The idea of having you talk to people and dive into Reyvateils was a good idea but it’s not as good Growlanser Generations talk system. If you have that game you should just play it again and be happy, if you don’t than it’s better to look for that game than to buying this one.
Closing: This is 2007 there is no reason this company should be trying to get away with 2001 work. Ambition just doesn’t cut if you don’t want to work for it. 2D games are a depleted field so the work put into the games should be much greater but it’s not. In fact companies like GUST begin to believe that they can abuse this market because there’s no real competition. The fact that they believe they can abuse the 2D fans is a nearly unforgivable crime. With that said Ar Tonelico receives the grand score 0 out of 10. *Claps* you earned it GUST you earned it.
0 out of 10
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3/13/2007, 2:59 am
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btkirb
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Re: A Ar Tonelico Review
You're nuts. Ar Tonelico is great. Btw it's AN Ar Tonelico Review. Get your english right, son!
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5/29/2007, 2:45 pm
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Styxdivine
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Re: A Ar Tonelico Review
As crazy as this may sound, this is _actually_ a legit view on this game!
Why is this game so damn easy, anyway? :V
Anyway, Alchemy concept existed far far far before AI, in the PSX era? No, perhaps earlier than that. I don't remember. But it never did start with Atelier Iris, it started earlier than that.
btkirb: Mind explaining why you found this game great? Looking back on it, I find Stella Deus better than this. And that was a 2D SRPG. Made far earlier than AT in Japan.
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6/1/2007, 11:56 pm
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Bernhardt
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Re: A Ar Tonelico Review
quote:
Styxdivine wrote:
btkirb: Mind explaining why you found this game great? Looking back on it, I find Stella Deus better than this. And that was a 2D SRPG. Made far earlier than AT in Japan.
Re: Stella Deus Vs. Ar-Tonelico
Worse than Stella Deus? The characters in Stella Deus were just as two-dimensional, if not even more, than the characters in Ar-Tonelico, and in more ways than one (pun intended).
The whole damn plot ended up being a simple conspiracy to end the world, and the big villain's only aspiration was that of making humanity suffer, and wanting to challenge God Himself. Been there, done that.
The dialogue was stiff and dry; Grey helped put a little sarcasm and humor into it, but after awhile, we don't even hear from him anymore! The dialogue was just so matter-of-fact, and the characters all spoke so lifelessly and robotically.
And let's not forget that EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER that survived ended up in a romantic relationship (Spero + Linea, Grey + Adara, Avis + Lumena; like you didn't see any of those coming from a mile off, anyway...)
Woohoo! We defeated the Anti-Christ! Now, let's have sex!
...
At the very least, you should agree that the dialogue in Ar-Tonelico trumped the dialogue in Stella Deus.
Ar-Tonelico's English voice-acting was better (it's all relative), more humorous, more vivid, and more convincing than in Stella Deus.
And while cliche, e.g., having been mistreated by humanity, at least you could sympathize with Mir, the villain in Ar-Tonelico, while Lord Dingus, the villain of Stella Deus, was just a friggin bully.
...
I'm keeping Ar-Tonelico. I'm TRYING to sell Stella Deus, but it's not going anywhere soon, despite the fact that it's rare, and you know why.
Last edited by Bernhardt, 6/8/2007, 12:09 pm
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6/8/2007, 12:05 pm
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Ciddypoo
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Re: A Ar Tonelico Review
quote:
Styxdivine wrote:
As crazy as this may sound, this is _actually_ a legit view on this game!
Why is this game so damn easy, anyway? :V
It's a perfectly valid view on the game, but it's still notoriously biased, and the scores given reflect that.
If the OP honestly thinks that Ar Tonelico deserves a 1 out of 10 (or the laughable idea of a 0 out of 10), he/she needs to lay off of the triple A+ titles for a bit. With a score that skewed, I wanna know what games are being considered average in order to come up with a rating like that. I would consider Ar Tonelico to be an average or below average RPG from a critical perspective (though it's one of my favorites on a personal level), but not equivalent to digitized vomit on an electronic media format.
I can respect that people dislike the game for various reasons, but these reviews just seem way out there.
And the Gust releases that we've gotten here in the west are ALL laughably easy. That's nothing new 
Last edited by Ciddypoo, 6/17/2007, 10:56 am
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6/17/2007, 10:55 am
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To make it hard you HAD to inhibit the full experience.