Customer Reviews

Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm probably going to attract fire for this...but I feel the inclination towards honesty.

First, Ar Tonelico 2 is a quirky RPG from NIS. Its predecessor, Ar Tonelico, came out with limited fanfare and great packaging. Reviewers didn't give it too much praise, and people could do little else but complain about what they felt was too much sexual innuendo...a sign of the sensitivity of Americans these days, and what our culture has come to. In any case, part two seems to take place in a totally different setting than the first, sharing only the idea of Reyvateils as a commonality. The reason for my title is that NIS seems to be unable to improve everything, and instead can only improve on single concepts and break others in their efforts to be unique. This was prevalent in the Atelier Iris series as well, which this does borrow from.

In AT2, you're Croix, a young and promising knight in the Grand Bell Knights. You've been heralded as a legend in the making, being of sound skill and power. Part of your job involves containing Reyvateils who have contracted what is referred to as IPD, a "disease" that causes the Reyvateil to temporarily lose control of their faculties. Along the way you'll meet other characters, including Reyvateils, who have varying objectives, none of which seem to be perfectly aligned with yours.

What?

If you're confused, I don't blame you...because what I just explained is what I got out of the game.

Let me start out with the great things of the game. The battle engine is fresh and unique. It does involve button mashing, with a twist though. You can hold in different directions as you attack, resulting in one of three attacks, or guard your Reyvateils. As you use these directions, you can increase psyche, harmonics, or burstech...in a nutshell, either the speed of your burst, the power of the attack, or the power of your guys' attacking. Blocking is also interactive, in that you can block with the push of a button, but if you time it right, you can minimize or even eliminate damage. What's more, the burst meter climbs for each successful block. Once your Reyvateil reaches a certain percentage of power, she will unleash her attack automatically; you can initiate it before hand if you want. Later in the game, you can equip other Reyvateils as "Girl Power", resulting in additional bonuses. These Reyvateils are ones that you have saved from an IPD infection and who are now assisting you as you do battle, separate from the ones that are actual team members. There is a lot of variety in the game, and it's clear that NIS was trying to improve upon the first one in every way possible. It's extremely fun.

Making a comeback is the "Dive" - that is, the ability to enter a Reyvateil's Cosmosphere and not only learn more about her, but unlock more powerful songs and art. Another change NIS made is that the conversations are significantly more difficult to locate; some are physical orbs that you can find scattered around the area. Others just come with the passage of time, and still others are event driven: equip a certain outfit, etc. Along with the Dive concept are some new additions: Dualstall, which is effectively the only way you can level your Reyvateil up. It's nothing more than a bath with some crystals that you strategically place throughout, resulting in various temporary and permanent powerups. Also, you can get things like bath powders and toys to increase HP and/or start up conversations which help with sync levels (more on that later). There's also the Infersphere, which can be thought of as a joint Dive between two of the Reyvateils. It's actually a required activity to progress through the game.

Your other goal is to make your Reyvateils "sync" with one another. Since they're contributing to each other's songs in battle, you'll want their sync to be as high as it can be. Dualstall helps with this as do intermittent conversations between the two (that you can't initiate or predict). It's clear the game is trying to diverge from the first AT, where the Reyvateils bonded with the hero but not with each other. Here, the Reyvateils seem to bond with each other more than with Croix, and only use Croix to further their own agendas.

I have to admit, I do love the intermittent anime cutscenes, though short, they do add to the edge of the game. There are a lot more than there were in the first one and that's a good thing, and their placement is not out of the way as in other games. The music is also catchy and it's clear they put lots of effort into some music that would be memorable and stay with you for a long time. Graphically...err...well, it's not terrible, I mean beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I don't care for the art direction at all. It's the same art direction they used for Atelier Iris - and I like it for that series, but not for Ar Tonelico. Characters look strange, and the pseudo 3D world just doesn't fit right for me.

As far as the good stuff, that's about it.

Thus, the very first negative, strong enough of a negative to warrant a whole star knockoff: The game's story is haphazard. First, you run across a Reyvateil who is the Holy Maiden of Grand Bell. She is blatantly hostile to you in every way possible, but wants to increase her powers, so she has no choice but to exploit you for protection. Then you meet another Reyvateil who is supposed to be your girlfriend/childhood friend/fiance, but in a shocking twist of fate, you end up separated, then in another twist of fate, you apparently end up together again, only to discover during a Dive that you are not together. Err? Mind you, there is never any clear direction on this part of the story - just little snippets of information that tell you what's going on.

Meanwhile, another female character contracts IPD, who is not a Reyvateil. Err?

Yet another female character joins the team, with the apparent intention of swaying one of your Reyvateils to her cause along with another character. Only there is an incident that happens without any explanation where all of a sudden she is back on your side. No apology, no explanation of her motive, nothing. Just forgive and forget, eh? Oh by the way, the Reyvateil I mentioned is the same one I spoke about before where you got separated inexplicably...well, apparently, when she was "kidnapped", she was actually leaving on her own volition and just didn't realize it, then shows back up and re-aligns with Croix with no apology or explanation...nothing to indicate the fallout that should have occurred. Err?

On top of all of this, the developers saw fit to break certain functionality in the game. In the first one, you had three total Reyvateils, all of which you could max out at a whim, and this idea of "monogamy" was a foregone conclusion. In part 2, you're forced to pick one and stick with her. Even though you can use more than one in battle, after a certain point in the Cosmosphere, you get told that you "...chose another to be with". Temporary or not, I don't like this. If I want Croix to be a polygamist, that's on me. It's a game for crying out loud; I play it to escape reality, not live it. For the life of me I can't fathom why they would make a game with some moderate sexual innuendo, yet add something so pointless to the game.

The other negative - again, strong enough to warrant a star off - the plot is nonsensical. I know that seems like it should go hand in hand with story, but it's a different issue. On one hand, the story is jumping all over the place, but on the other hand, the story is told extremely poorly. Characters enter the scene with no background or history. Characters depart with no reasoning. Characters are your allies, then turn around and stab you in the back, yet Croix is more than willing to allow them back on the squad with no explanation or apology. Your first goal (the subtitle of the game) is interrupted by another character, who based on the story thus far should be expected for a fight, which there is, in which you get trounced, but then they are subdued by a single robot for a period while you escape. Err? You've got characters pulling out handguns - guns, not phasers, not magic, guns - not to mention a guy who is over 18 sharing living spaces with a 10 year old girl not related to him, sleeping in the same room, mind you. You've even got characters who blatantly threaten Croix after discovering disturbing practices, yet Croix never once bats an eye...more than willing to ally with these people. Err?

I could go on and on but a game must have a solid story AND a solid plot. Missing one is tolerable, but both? No matter how great a battle engine, you've got to be able to relate to the characters, the story, and the background. The other fact that there's no relation to the first one seals the lid on this one.

I call it a rental...if they even rent RPGs anymore. Nowhere near as great as the first, by far.

Firstly, the Ar tonelico games are definitely sleeper hits. These innuendo-ridden JRPGs feature unique battle mechanics, impressively deep stories and even deeper characters. All of this supported by an amount of tongue-in-cheek humor that no other series features makes these games incredibly entertaining. I have not played Ar tonelico Qoga, the third game in the series, and I don't plan on it based on what I hear. However, 1 and 2 are awesome. Now to talk more about the second game, Melody of Metafalica (MoM).

In a nutshell, this game delivers much more than the first, contains loads more information (and innuendo) and also builds on its predecessor, Melody of Elemia (MoE).

Unlike MoE, MoM sports a real-time battle system which requires guarding to minimize the damage taken. Unlike most RPG games, there is no way for your all-female partner cast to dodge attacks, so you must time your guards to reduce damage. Your party performs significantly better in battle the better you block attacks. Some of the enemy attacks will shake the screen or block off the guarding gauge with attack animations, which is annoying but not to the point of becoming frustrating.

MoM cannot be 100%'d the first time through, unlike MoE. Game completionists, keep this in mind. This is double-edged because it gives you more content, but you have to sink more hours into the game. It's definitely worth replaying, and the skits (which happen quite often and are definite treats to watch) can be skipped, so you can save some time there.

Overall, just like MoE, MoM delivers a thoroughly entertaining and exhilarating experience. The story and characters are even deeper than in MoE, and there are more plot twists than in MoE. If you love RPGs, a deep story and watching complex characters mature, this game series is definitely for you, hands down. Just make sure to play MoE first or else you'll miss the connections the game makes to its predecessor!

I purchased Ar Tonelico 2 with high hopes, and boy did it deliver. An amazing and story, beautiful artwork, and a unique, yet very familiar and easy to learn combat system make this game such a wonderful experience. A colorful cast of very likable and memorable characters, wonderful music and a tolerable English voice over (though not entirely that bad) are like icing on a very wonderful and oh-so-awesome cake.
Only one thing holds this game down. Now being an originally Japanese game, and taking into account the overwhelming amount of dialogue and text that was translated, i can forgive a few errors, in both the actual text, and even some minor game play issues, but i will not forgive them for this: near the end of the game (one of the final bosses) the game will tend to freeze up and crash, making you restart from your last save point... absolutely unforgivable. NISA, weren't you supposed to make sure stuff like this never happens? I believe this bug only exists in the US version of the game, so people who imported it, you should be OK, but for everyone else, be warned. i had to power-level until i could beat the boss in only a few turns. not too horrible, but still a pain. This i just a warning however, and i still recommend this game 100% to fans of JRPGs, anime, or anyone just looking for a good and fun story.

P.S.- this game WILL make you feel uncomfortable while playing it around others! there's a plethora of naughty battle cry's and sexual innuendos. If one took the dialogue out of context, the last thing anyone would guess is that you were playing a videogame, if you know what i mean ;)

This game's a blast. There aren't many games out there that dive into the subconscious mind, and this one does so literally, creating entire worlds for some of the characters' minds. As long as you don't take things literally, instead taking it all symbolically, you can really appreciate the work the developers put into it.
Oh, and you'll probably also giggle at the thinly veiled sexual euphemisms, but that comes hand-in-hand with psychology, does it not, Mr. Freud?

Such a great game, I have been able to play it over and over. Anyone in love with RPG's, like myself, will absolutely love it! Definitely a classic!!!

I've played alot of rpgs. The new rpgs that have been coming out, haven't interested me much. However, this game interested me from the start. The rest of the reviewers (that gave it a low rating)here are nit picking. Ar Tonelico 2 is extremely funny game, with an addicting battle system, and lots of entertaining talking.

This is a solid RPG title. Anyone a fan of RPG's should take a look at this title. It's a good game with a good story and a lot of gameplay. it has it's flaws, but so do most other games. I would rate this game a 9 out of 10 there is no reason it should be rated less then 4 out of 5 stars.

Like many others, who bought Ar Tonelico 2, I too had purchased the first installment and hoped the sequel ("AR2") would be equally impressive. After having spent 50 hours beating the game, I feel as though NIS America owes us RPG gamers an apology and our money back.

The standard to which all RPG sequels adhere to is more of a curse than anything else as the product is expected to transcend the original and make us all feel great for dishing out however much money we invested in it. Not to mention sequels produce more hype that it has to live up to. Few RPGs have lived up to the standards of their respective sequels (Breath of Fire II, Knights of the Old Republic II), even fewer have gone above and beyond (Suikoden II), while most just tank (Chrono Chross, Final Fantasy X-2, Xenosaga 2).

AR2 falls under the last category as I felt NIS tried to quickly skate the game through in order to turn a profit from its fan base, a move that goes against one of the highest cardinal rule of marketing; don't take your customer base for granted. This is what killed Working Designs as they kept delaying believing their customers would support them no matter what (they are now defunct).

So, enough babbling and onto AR2 itself.

AR2 is a more-or-less direct sequel to the original albeit on a different floating continent. A few of the characters, particularly the reyveteils, from AR1 make cameos in AR2 but aside from one of your own reyveteils, there is only moderate mentioning of the first game and even then is it light. This suggests NIS only put in some references so it could be considered a sequel, much like how Silent Hill: The Room was intended as a stand-alone project but later incorporated into another almost unrelated franchise.

You assume the role of a promising, yet overly whiny, knight that helps quarantine infected spell casters or Reyveteils. Along the way you get disillusioned, meet two beautiful women, choose between the two aforementioned women, meet more busty women, dive into them, fight the bad guys, etc. etc. It's a very straightforward plot with a lot of innuendo especially pertaining to inserting the life-extending agent into the reyveteils ("Do it gently! You're thrusting too hard!"). I am NOT making this up!

While much of the dialog is outright hilarious, I have the growing suspicion that the translators at NIS do not have ready access Microsoft Word or any form of a spellchecker. There were too many instances to count where I spotted blatant misspellings, typos, poorly translated phrases, and dialog that was meant to rhyme but in Japanese and it looked gosh-awful in English. This is VERY lazy on the part of NIS America as it doesn't take much to spell-check your work. As a former TA at a four-year university, I've seen freshmen blue book essays with better spelling and grammar.

My next complaint is with the combat system. Instead of a wait-time, turn-based combat systems like the first you're stuck with a different kind of turn-base system that goes "allies, enemies, allies, enemies" and so forth. This denotes speed as an important variable as everyone gets their turn in at the same time. It also makes the game almost a button masher as you quickly hit the "X" button over and over and over. This is a little too tedious for an RPG. I think NIS should've kept the original combat system or adopted one similar to Mana Khemia with a card-turn based system.

I also was not impressed with the dive system. Unlike the first game you can only choose one of the three reyveteils instead of unlocking the spells of the others. This was annoying since you need two reyveteils to tackle on tougher bosses and renegade reyeveteils. I know this makes the game more 'realistic' as it makes you more monogamous, but who cares?! This is a game! I want more than one woman dangit!!

Also, the talk topics in order to advance in the dive system were really weird and required a player's guide to advance. I wanted to bond with Cloche, one particular reyveteil but could not because I missed one bloody talk topic that can only be found at a certain point in the game. This is lame, very lame, like super lame. I shouldn't miss out on a potential ending because I didn't decide to visit a gaming site to look up some player's guide or buy the book outright.

However, despite my criticisms I do have some praise.

The game was pretty funny. When I could understand what the characters were saying (far better than I can say for Microsoft's customer service hotline) I genuinely laughed most of the time at the suggestive jokes. Granted I thought the main character needed a certain male body part removed because he whined too much, but the overall dialog was very entertaining and THAT is what kept me going.

Overall, AR2 is a disappointment and the first I have ever experienced from NIS. Will this mean I will be more skeptical of NIS or drop their games entirely? Absolutely not! Every single software developer has the right to make one disappointing game (although Square-Enix took this too far with Final Fantasy X-2). I just hope Mana Khemia 2, which I just picked up this morning, will prove better than AR2.

Peace out!

After beating the game I'm re-writing my review of AR Tonelico II. This is the game is unbelievable and it's no wonder IGN gave it the best PS2 game award.

I've been playing games ever since Mario started jumping down pipes. I have never played a game that is this thorough or this well developed before. This game offers the player so much to do, and so much to explore, and so many bonuses and features that it's really overwhelming. I'll get one thing out of the way before I go into my review of the game itself and it's the only thing that does take away from the game. The Graphics! There's plenty of amazing artwork, beautiful dungeon maps, and areas to explore to keep you satisfied and smiling but the character sprites really look of the PS1 era. AR tonelico 3 of course is the next gen version and all the sprites are gone but just be aware that you will have to use your imagination somewhat when playing this game as it's not exactly polished.


Alright with that out the way I wanted to bring up just what sets this game apart from any other RPG out there. The story in this game is massive. NONE of the characters are perfect and they all have some pretty deep issues that they need to get over. It's not your typical hero saves the damsel in distress game. The character development of ART2 is extremely deep and massive. It takes hours upon hours to get to know and explore the girls in your party. Even the secondary characters you travel with are hiding secrets. As you travel with them and most of these details about their personalities are revealed. When you "Dive" (a system that allows you to enter the minds of the "Maidens" you enter a new type of game. One that's more like a Story adventure. In this you get to explore the personalities of the girls in your party and what makes them who they are. You get to realize that the person they act as on the surface isn't the person they are under the surface and that they have their own doubts and insecurities about themselves.

The only other game to say that explores the mind of people to reveal their true nature would have to be Persona but, AR-Tonelico has little in common with that series outside of the idea of bonds making you stronger.

When you're not getting to know your party you get to know the towns people and the shop keepers who also play an important role. They're not just the generic clerks you run into to get your weapons and items from. They have their own problems and their own stories to share with you as well. in that sense AR Tonelico does a great job at adding the feeling of a "community" in the game. You get to understand how the towns people feel by chatting with them as events progress in the story. Although it's not required and really doesn't matter if you chose to converse with them or not, it does help add a sense of community to the game. The towns people aren't exactly ignorant to your actions anymore.

Additional to exploring towns, strengthening bonds,crafting items (which also ties in with the previous mentioned). Is ART2's fighting system. To be honest the games fighting system is a mix of turn based/real time controls. You still take turns between defending and executing moves but, at that point it plays sort of like a fighter game. Where you press a certain direction and button combination to execute a special move. In the same manner it's the same idea only all of your attacks are like special moves depend on which button and arrow direction you select. When you defend it becomes a timing game where paying attention is key. You have to press your block button before the attack hits. Closest thing I can say is it's like playing Guitar hero and trying to match the buttons with what's on screen in time with the music. Only this time there's just one button to follow and instead of music your matching your timing to a light bar. At first it's confusing but it become a lot of fun.

You can also use song magic by selecting from the various types of spells offered. You can make a battle long or short it's up to you. It's hard to lose in the game once you get past a certain point. If you explore your going to level up, and once you level up even the final boss isn't that much of a challenge. Even so, the battle system is really really fun. It's hard to say it gets dull with there being so many options to choose from.

ART has a variety of options there is no specific formula you have to stick with. You can use items, melee, use magic, etc, etc, it really doesn't matter it's all up to you.

The biggest Gem of the game of course is the story. One of which isn't exactly plainly put because the game ties in so many different stories. The main objective is to create new land for a world that's dying. However by the time you get to the end that will take a back seat to all the other craziness taking place.


Overall AR Tonelico is an incredible game. There's fun RPG's you play and there's RPG's you play that stick with you. This game sticks with you because it's so unique. Note of course these plenty of sexual innuendo which is why this isn't a kids game because it's adult humor but truthfully it doesn't take away from the game at all it's just part of its charm.

5 Star game even with all the typing errors and that game crashing glitch.

I loved the first one, and I know a sequel tries to add on to a game to make it better, but it didn't work for this. The battle system is unnecessarily complex without needing to be. Too much is going on with the battles, and looking away for a moment will result in your reyvateil dying.

The main character, Croix, looks like a hipster out of his armor. In his armor, fine, but... he wears bell bottoms and glasses... hipster if I ever saw one. And the sprites, in addition to the character art, look cartoon-y. Cocona's head is almost as big as her torso.

The voice acting is horrendous. Sorry if I spelled that wrong, but that is the correct word. Legilus sounds like a college kid or something. The characters aren't lovable either. With the first game, you could find something to like about all of them. With this one, Luca makes you hate her, Cloche makes you like her a little more, but other than that, not much else. You feel no attachment to the reyvateils, although you do have to pick one eventually.

Don't buy this unless you are a hardcore fan of the series or just like having a complete set.