"You never forget your first...or second...or third."

Introduction: Welcome to the world of Ar Tonelico. A world destroyed twice over, a world in which artificial life forms known as Reyvateils can harness a force known as Symphonic Power and craft powerful energies known as Song Magic. If you've played any of the Atelier Iris games this should look very familiar to you. Ar Tonelico is a 2d RPG, featuring many classical elements and a few new twists and turns.

Gameplay: In Ar Tonelico gameplay can be divided into 3 sections: Battle, Overworld, and Cosmosphere.

Battle- Battles in Ar Tonelico are turn based, featuring 3 party members who focus on physically assault and 1 Reyvateil of your choice to sing Song Magic. First of all let's look at the new elements to this game.

First you have Song Magic (magic crafted by the Reyvateil due to her strong internal emotions and feelings for her partner). Personally I find Song Magic to be a mixed bag. It works like this, Song Magic consumes MP from the Reyvateil over time as she sings. The longer she sings, the higher a % gauge will build up. If you're casting a damage song, a higher % means more damage. Where a healing song or stat boosting song will just have their effect amplified (healing in songs is done over time, much like a glorified regen). You can effect song power in two ways.

The first is the harmonics gauge. At the bottom of the screen is a bar with a blue side and a purple side. They gradually increase in size to meet in the middle (blue increase by your characters dealing physical damage where the purple increase just from your characters doing anything at all and when you successfully guard your Reyvateil from attacks). Once they meet, you will gain a level in Harmonics (max 3) and a little sphere will be filled in. Damage done to your party makes the bars spread apart, and if the bars are all the way gone it will drop you down a Harmonics level most likely. You gain up to 3 Harmonics levels by doing damage with your Reyvateil's Song Magic (about 1000% needed for unlocking level 2 and 2000% for level 3).

The other way to effect Song Magic (for damage songs only) if the Ambience Field. Simply put, the more often you attack a single enemy, the higher the chances their ambience field will gain a level (3 levels max). Each level amplifies the effect of Song Magic used against the target.

However as fun as this sounds Song Magic takes the challenge out of most of the game and then turns around to be key for survival later on. With the right equipment a party can do nothing but guard the Reyvateil (while feeding her MP regen items) and win virtually any battle in 1 shot. Depending on how many songs you've unlocked this can limit boss battles to about 5 minutes tops if you know what you're doing. However once you pass the 2/3 point of the game your party wouldn't be able to survive without Song Magic in most cases, and the effect of it's damage goes waaay down except on the most powerful of song.

As for the rest of combat, your party has these basic options: Normal Attacks, Items, Wait, Special Attack, Guard.

Normal Attacks are as it sounds, however a twist here is everyone has their own named attack, which becomes more powerful as your Harmonics gauge increases. Items are as in any other RPG. Wait just means you sit there and do nothing, I haven't seen any increase in defense from just waiting. Special Attacks are a mixed thing. Your characters will eventually get 3 (sometimes 4 but only 3 do damage) special moves that do more damage than a normal attack usually. The trade off is they eat up your HP (10%, 20%, 30% respectfully). In later battles this easily opens your characters up for death unless you have a healing song going. In the latter case Special Attacks become easily abuseable. Guard is a special feature, rather than guard yourself, some enemies try to bypass your 3 melee characters with a special attack directly. If you do not guard the Reyvateil will most likely lose a nice chunk of % assuming she doesn't die. Reyvateils are very fragile and will most likely crumple in 1-2 hits late game. If you do guard, the damage is spread amongst the guarding characters ( sometimes it requires 1-3 depending on the attack), and you get an opportunity to launch a counter attack if you have at least 1 sphere in Harmonics, you lose 1 level in Harmonics no matter how many characters counter. If 1-2 characters are guarding this just does a simple strike back and really isn't worth the loss in Harmonics, but if you have 3 the last character to attack gets to launch a very powerful counter attack ability unique to them.

And finally. Retreat is always an option. Your Reyvateil will have a retreat option on her menu which I have yet to see fail. Makes passing through areas you've been in before only slightly less annoying.

Overworld- Overworld play in Ar Tonelico is pretty simple and straight. There is no world map travel featured in games like Final Fantasy, you simple select which town/forest you wish to go to. In towns exploration has been reduced to more menu options (Such as Town Square, Inn, Park, ect.) Selecting one of these will let you explore a very small section of the town. In outdoor areas such as forests and dungeons you can walk along where you please (although the pathways are pretty linear), a bit into the game you get special magic which can be used to destroy certain objects. Usually these objects are simply sitting in the road and blocking you from going on with the story, with a few that block you from getting an item or two. This aspect of the game seems to have been thrown in as an after thought as you can simply cast the Reyvateil ability "Analyze" and see anything that is destroyable, which sadly isn't that much that you can't figure out on your own. Also semi tied in with the overworld function is a thing called "Melding" (it has a longer name). Melding basically works like this: Insert items #1, 2, & 3 to get item 4. Very similar to Alchemy from Atelier Iris 2. The only difference is that after you finish an item, sometimes the Reyvateil you made the item with will suggest a different name for the item, at this point you can chose what to name it. Depending on the Reyvateil and item this can be very cool or very humorous. It's a win/win situation.

Cosmosphere- Finally we get to the newest and most original aspect of Ar Tonelico, the cosmosphere. Put simply, the Cosmosphere is the Rayvateil's mind, where you can see thoughts and feelings even she may not be fully aware of. Despite the talk, hype, and speculation about this game element: Ar Tonelico is not a dating sim by any measure. The Cosmosphere serves 3 functions, to learn Song Magic, to learn little hidden facts about your character (like what they love to do when no one's watching), and to be a visual novel. Aside from moving your main character around the Cosmosphere map there is little to no interaction between you and the Reyvateil. Once in a Blue Moon you will get to chose between two options, and even if you chose the wrong one all you need to do is re-dive (the process of entering the Cosmosphere) and chose the other one. Seeing story events costs you Diving Points (DP), which you earn from using a Reyvateil in battle. There is no shortage of DP to be earned, so it's relatively easy to pass through all the levels of the Cosmosphere when you need to/can. Each Reyvateil has 10 levels to their Cosmosphere, 9 about themselves and a 10th that is there just for fun. You gain access by talking to your Reyvateils (an option at the Inn menu). You can talk to them by:

1. Finding "talk topics" in overworld areas.

2. Doing something in battle (such as making a Reyvateil wear a certain outfit for X number of battles).

3. It just pops up due to events in the storyline.

Once you have the required number of topics you can access a new level in the Cosmosphere. Clearing a level means you gain new songs for your Reyvateil to use in battle and usually a new costume.

Costumes serve dual roles: To look good, and to boost Song Magic (usually in the form of faster or more powerful song magic).

In short: The battles are fun but very 1 sided until late game. The overworld map is very railroading and linear, with limited exploration in where you can go and what you can see. The cosmosphere is little more than a visual novel.

However as much as I rant on these features the game makes good use of what it gives you, and it's a rather enjoyable experience to sit through.

Gameplay: 8/10

Story: The story starts off rather dramatically. Viruses are invading Platina with no way to stop them and your character is put in charge of obtaining the one thing that can stop them, the Hymn Crystal Purger. However your airship is attacked by a monster from the Blastline and you find yourself near death in a forest. Thankfully a Reyvateil named Aurica comes along and heals you, however she soon takes off before you come to. ...sounds cliche right? Admittedly the first phase of Ar Tonelico is pretty much cut and paste fantasy. But three saving graces come into play:

1. Past Phase 2 the game gets a few twists and turns to hook your interest, what those are I can't say.

2. This game allows flexablity with your story. There are times when you can chose who gets to do the important thing and even which part of the story to follow once it branches in Phase 2. You can even chose a premature ending later on if you wish.

3. The characters are loveable even if the story is slow at first.

7/10: -3 for the slow start but give it time. The characters will more than tide you over until the hook hits it's mark.

Graphics/Sound: Graphically there's nothing new about this game that hasn't been done before. If you've seen Atelier Iris 2 then you won't see anything really new. However they did take the time to throw more anime cut scenes into this game. This should be a good thing however some of the Song Magic you can learn has it's own anime clip for it's full power effect. Said clip tends to cause the game to slow down a little bit and drives away originality when your Reyvetails have two different songs that use the exact same animation.

In terms of sound overall it's a mixed bag. There's some very lovely mood fitting pieces that set theme perfectly, then all of a sudden you might get hit with a piece that makes you think "...what the heck? *twitch*. However the vocals in this game are absolutely gorgeous. This is one game I would buy for the vocals alone. I only have one gripe, rap music in my battle theming. -.-; If I want to listen to rap I'll go fish a $9.99 shooter out of the bargin bin. Some battles you'll be rushing to finish just so you don't have to listen to the rap chorus again. This really sucks all the fun out of certain boss battles. However other vocals help heal the wounds from his aspect.

Graphics & Sound: 9/10 Would give it a perfect 10 if I didn't feel like choking someone every time I hear the words "Radical Rebels".

Play Time/Replay Value: I got through this game in about 30 hours, if you wanted to go through and Meld every item in existance and find every conversation topic you could potentially grind our about 40 hours for one playthrough. However since the story significantly changes perspective depending on a choice you make in Phase 2 you'll want to play this at least twice. Overall the game has a total of 7 endings, so perfectionists will have fun making sure they see every little thing this game has to offer.

No, there is no New Game + however upon completion you get an Extra section at the Start Menu. Here you can view all the art you've collected, listen to game music, see what Song Magic you have learned, ect. In short it's a great guide to let you know if you missed anything.

Play Time/Replay: 10/10 Any game that actually gives me a good reason to play it twice deserves a 10 in this day and age.

Final: Overall I'd have to say buy this game if you can find it. NIS is notorious for making a shortage of copies for games they produce. If you like RPGs with good music (sans the rap), good characters, and a new twist to an old battle system then this game is for you. It's too long for a rental so get it while it's hot!

Overall: 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/20/07