Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica

"I enjoyed the first game more (finished AT2 now)"

Update: Finally finished the game. Long and boring ending sequence was long and boring, and the ending I got with Cloche wasn't much of an improvement over the shoddy endings in AT1. Since I spent most of the game bored out of my tiny little skull and finishing it didn't really change my opinion, I'm reverting to a score of 5/10: Playable, nothing special about it.

In case I need to elaborate, the main reasons why I prefer the AT1 to AT2 are:
1. The characters in AT1 are more likeable. There wasn't much to choose between the reyvateils in this one, and Croix gets shunted to the side before too long. I didn't like the side characters and couldn't really care about their petty little problems.

2. The music in the first game was better. After unlocking the Extras I listened to the hymns and BGMs from both games. Apart from Replekia, nothing in AT2 can compare to the best hymns in AT1.

3. Too much talking!!!!! GEEZ! I would classify AT1 as a very talky RPG, but it still had enough gameplay for me to consider it a game. AT2 just has talking at every turn and angle, talk talk talk talk talk talk, far more than in the first game. The cosmospheres are longer, the shopkeepers just won't shut up and then there's that infernal Infelsphere system, aaargh! I liked the balance of game, talking and dating sim elements in AT1. In AT2 the balance is just broken. It's way too much for me.

I've made a few minor modifications my first review to reflect my final opinion of the game and things I felt/discovered after writing the first review.

Original review below
At 33:47 hours in [update: finished at 59:44 hours], I have decided to stop playing this game for a while. To be honest I'm bored now, and I find myself skipping most of the text just so I can get to the battles. Only there's just so much text and so little battling that this isn't satisfactory at all. Thus my decision to take some time off and come back waaaaaay later, maybe one day when I want a visual novel experience. In the meantime I've put down some of my thoughts and impressions about AT2 in roughly-organized point-form. Warning: points or no points, long and detailed review is long and detailed!

Ar Tonelico 2 Good points
• I started out liking Cocona and Croix (the main character). I disliked Cloche at first but she seriously grew on me after a while until she became my favourite character, tied with Cocona.

• The battle system isn't as piss-easy as before. You can't just close your eyes and tap buttons until the battle is over. Some of the I.P.D. side battles are seriously tough, even at higher levels.

• Limited cosmopheres give you an incentive to play again and choose a different Reyvateil. The game forces you to choose one girl early on and closes off access to the deeper cosmosphere levels of the other girl you rejected. There's also a third Reyvateil you can get an ending with. Character-wise she's not exactly my type, but she has her charms and plenty of fans.

• Synchro relationship is an interesting idea. It makes sense that the more Reyvateils like each other the better they work together. But in the end I just chose the two I liked most or, more often, the only two I had available and used them.

• The music is not bad. You won't find anything approaching Exec_Chronicle_Key, but it's all okay. Replekia was very nice. I admit I overused it just so I could listen to the song. The voice acting gets the job done too. The only exception is when Cloche and Luca try to get emotional. For some reason the (Japanese) VAs equate "emotional" with "screeching" and the result really grates on one's nerves. Shut up, Luca, SHUT UP!

Ar Tonelico 2 Bad points
• The town maps are so complicated they're ugly. You can't walk around town: every destination has to be individually selected on the map. Combine the two and you get huge ugly town maps where you can only visit 3 or 4 places, one of them usually a dungeon.

• Too much backtracking! I lost count of the number of times I went to Pastalia, the number of times I went to Rakshak, the number of times I had to return to an old dungeon to open up a place that somehow just wasn't there the last time I went there, uh huh. The presence of only 3 real cities in this game hurt it a lot, in my opinion.

• Graphics are bad too. Okay, I should qualify this, the background graphics and character portraits are beautiful, bright, crisp and colorful. Everything else is terribly disappointing. I thought Mana Khemia was bad but this game is solid evidence that Gust has sacked its graphics team and outsourced their work to chimpanzees. Aside their character portraits, all the characters are squat and deformed and stalk along the map like stuffed puppets, barely moving their bloated hands and feet.

• The girls have bizarre standard outfits. Even if you change outfits in battle you're still stuck with them in main game. Plus they enter battle in their standard outfits then waste 3 or 4 precious seconds changing their clothes, typical girls. On that note, does the 3rd reyvateil really need to enter every battle naked before her clothes materialize on her body? I know she doesn't like to wear clothes (am I supposed to be turned on or something?), but blurry pixellated boobs just don't do it for me.

• The main girls are pretty unlikeable. I started out thinking I'd go for Cloche because breaking down tsunderes is always fun, but she was quite insufferable in the beginning. So then I thought I'd be faithful to Luca but then she starts going all emo and causing me no end of trouble and rapidly turned out to be a totally selfish little <rhymes with ‘witch'>. And she's the worst kind of <rhymes with ‘witch'>, the kind that thinks whining “Waaah, I just want to be happy!” is a good enough excuse for all the pain and inconvenience she causes everyone. Cruel, cruel little <rhymes with ‘witch'>. And ugly too. And flat. So I crawled back to Cloche-sama with my tail between my legs and gained a whole new appreciation for her character. Dear Cloche, I misunderstood you. The rest of the game was only bearable because you were there. You… and Cocona-chan. Cocona is more honest, more interesting and more likeable than those two girls, but you don't get to choose her, alas. Lookswise Cloche is somewhere between Shurelia and Aurica from AT1, but Misha has Luca beaten hands down. Luca looks like a squashed rat on the bottom of a car tyre. Cow.

• The other characters have about as much game presence as Jack and Krusche in the previous game, just there to fill up space with their boring little sob stories and equally boring little May-December romance. Yah, whatever. If they can do that, why can't I get it on with Cocona? Huh!? There are two more playable characters I nicknamed Miss Underwear and Lil' Bow-wow (no, you don't get to change names) but they join you late enough that talking about them in detail might be considered spoiling.

• Croix resists for a while but eventually falls into RPG hero stereotype: Gotta protect this, gotta protect that, protect, protect, protect… We've only done this 348,007 times before. It was almost okay with Lyner in AT1 because he was hot-headed to begin with, but when a rational, calm type like Croix starts spouting the same stuff and bawling over girls it's very disconcerting. But really, that's just a minor complaint. Croix's a nice guy, a little too wimpy when it comes to girls, but aren't they all? Unfortunately his presence and necessity in this game is much less than Lyner's in AT1. I get the feeling people like him, but nobody actually needs him, and if he wasn't there the game would go on same as ever. A bit like with Vaan in FFXII, but not quite as bad.

• The alchemy system has been toned way down. Not a problem except I liked alchemy, and I miss being able to synthesize everywhere instead of only in certain stores. The storekeepers only get new recipes once in a while so you have to visit and visit and visit in the hopes that they've got something new. 8 out of 10 times you visit there'll be a cut scene with some meaningless conversation and you won't get a thing out of it. I did like that synthesizing together with different girls would give you completely different results, but I would have preferred more recipes and more flexibility instead.

• Cosmospheres are boring and take forever to traverse, too much like visual novels. The whole “eek, I don't want you to see my Cosmophere” thing is overplayed, especially since the girls are willingly letting Croix dive in. If they dislike it that much, why don't they stop him? It's annoying. If it wasn't that song magic was so useful I would really not bother sitting through those frustrating 30 minute speeches and silly little cooking competitions and magical girl sequences, I kid you not.

• Battle system is needlessly complicated. Defend Phase seems to think it's a rhythm game, Attack Phase seems to think it's a fighting game. In essence the battles all boil down to stressful button-mashing, especially in the beginning when you are trying to get the hang of things. I did not like the super-easy system in AT but with the exception of a few (usually optional) battles, this is equally easy without being satisfactory in the least. Most battles will be over before you even get to use your song magic anyway. Once you get Replekia it's just overkill. Most bosses will just crumple up and die…the few bosses there are in this game, that is.

• You have to pick 2 frontliners in battle. Since everyone gets the same EXP regardless, there's no motivation to use all the characters, just pick 2 and stick to them. Since it's a battle against time in Attack Phase you need to pick the speediest attackers so I suspect most people will end up with Croix and Cocona in front and the rest cooling their heels in the back for good. Sadly you can't switch characters in battle. You can't even switch who protects the Reyvateils, so Cocona will gladly stand by and let Luca die if Croix happens to fall in battle, instead of stepping up to the plate. I mean, I approve of letting Luca die and all, but it just doesn't make any game-sense.

• Pulling up a menu in battle means leaving the battle screen entirely before returning to the action, even if you just want to use an item. Furthermore, because of the messy battle system, using items in battle for anything except emergency healing is a major pain in the ass. So you can make and buy all sorts of bombs and poisons and stuff but 99% of them will never be used.

• There aren't enough battles. Not a problem except most of rest of game is just talking talking talking. Especially the Infelsphere stages, which is like Cosmophere Part 2, but with more whining, boo hoo hoo, you don't know what I've been through, boo hoo. Dungeons take up only 25% of the game and in each one you fight like 4 or 5 times. Boss battles are rare, as I said. It's not an RPG any more, it's a visual novel with fighting or something.

• Obvious story is obvious. Anyone with RPG/anime experience will figure out half of the “big secret” just from watching the first 5 minutes and the rest by the end of Phase 1 (note: I didn't say you can figure out the whole story in 5 minutes, stop misquoting me). The rest of the story is just some nonsensical gods-and-man stuff, just an excuse for more talking, talking, talking. Mysterious comment here, mysterious comment there, ulterior motive here, ulterior motive there, bad guys who want to make everybody happy in a bad way, nothing you've never seen before.

• Who the real bad guys are keeps changing, before long you stop caring. Whichever side you pick has its share of shady characters that you're forced to follow blindly anyway even though you know they're up to no good.

• Characters enter and leave your party too often, particularly the two main Reyvateils. Every time they leave the game notifies you that so-and-so has left the party, but sometimes a character leaves, you walk 3 scenes and they join you again before you even do any fighting. Why bother? Just install a revolving door and call it a day.

• Taking a bath method of levelling up Reyvateils is RIDICULOUS, to say the least. If they're too good to level up in battle like other mortals then at least come up with something more sensible than skinny-dipping. You can't even call it fanservice because you don't get to see a thing. And it's so random too, tossing in bath toys and crystals and having conversations in the hope that your Reyvateil will pass close enough to a crystal to gain a few stats. Pretty quickly you realize they move in a straight line, so you put your Reyvateil at one end, line up the crystals, put the toy at the other end and Bob's your uncle! Whose bright idea was it? And does he know he could make a fortune selling whatever he was smoking then?

• Girl-powered system using IPD'd Reyvateils is too much work. You defeat the Reyvateils and they form a Cloche fanclub (where do I sign up?) so you can “equip” them to give you (very useful, I must admit) extra stats and boosts in battle. But first you've gotta track them down through endless backtracking. Then you have to beat them in some pretty tough battles for which you get NO items and NO experience. Then you need to go to the dive shop, pay money and go through a “therapy session” where you answer 5 questions correctly so you can make them happy. Then you have to fulfill some conditions like having enough money and fighting certain enemies. Then you have to go to one of five places on the world map where they gather so they can call out to you. THEN they join you. I didn't bother for half of the game and barely saw any difference. You won't be doing that much fighting anyway, trust me.

Overall impressions
I liked the first game more. At least it WAS a game, not a glorified visual novel with stupid characters and unnecessary features. I have finished the game and my impression has not changed. A 5/10 is what this game deserves and that is what I'm going to give it.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 01/21/09, Updated 05/26/09

Game Release: Ar tonelico II: Sekai ni Hibiku Shoujo Tachi no Metafalica (JP, 10/25/07)