Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica

"This game stood to be a masterpiece, if only they'd done proper QA..."

Ar tonelico 2 [sic] is a sequel to the 2006-7 cult hit, and it will probably be one of the last new PS2 JRPGs released outside of Japan. It almost makes a fitting swan song, too: it stood to be one of the greatest games the PS2 has to offer, and the only thing preventing it from taking its place among them is that it was, paradoxically, released both too soon and too late.

As a note: I do not consider the highest possible review score to imply perfection, as this would render that score unusable. Although this game is superb, and I give it the highest possible scores for that reason, it has its share of flaws, which I will mention. However, I believe that many players will not care about these flaws while actually playing the game, as the good outweighs the bad by far.

Gameplay (Great/9) - The battle system defies easy description, blending aspects of turn-based and realtime mechanics into an odd cross of Valkyrie Profile, Super Smash Bros, and Dance Dance Revolution in a way that works far better than anything with that description has any right to work. Realtime and turn-based RPG fans alike will find things to be happy about. This system is brilliant.

The Dive mechanic of the previous game -a sort of simulation minigame involving psychological concepts- is intact, and it plays pretty much as before. However, the concept has also been expanded upon with new situations and mechanics, allowing you to interact with more characters in unique ways. Not only will you find yourself Diving into a collective unconscious in this game, but you will also find a sort of reverse-dive: the mind and soul of a Reyvateil manifested into reality which takes several hours to complete.

Exploration mechanics are basically as in the previous game, and are fairly standard JRPG fare: you wander around towns and other areas, examining objects and interacting with people. One interesting new twist, however, is that you can eavesdrop on other people's conversations as long as you're close to them. This mechanic doesn't seem to be used for hints or other elements directly useful to the game, but it provides interesting new perspectives on the game's setting and plot, from the viewpoint of ordinary people living in the game world.

Monster encounters in the game are usually decided as in the first game: while you encounter monsters randomly, you only encounter a limited number of them within each area, after which you are free to explore that area without further combat until you leave or run into a boss. There are ways to manipulate this gauge as well, though they appear later in this game than in this predecessor. Unlike the first game, however, there are some places where enemies appear on the map instead, and with colliding them will take you to the battle system. This makes for an interesting exercise in contrasts for fans of both styles.

The major flaw in the gameplay comes from poor QA, which I will elaborate on later in this review. One of the later bosses has a glitch which can cause the game to freeze on the third round, and while avoiding this glitch is not difficult, the glitch itself remains inexcusable.

Presentation (Superb/10) - As with most games NIS involves itself with, this game uses 2D sprites in a 3D environment, and it uses the expressiveness of this style to maximum advantage. The larger CG artwork is similarly gorgeous. Characters and enemies alike range from the cute to the creepy to the gruesome, covering a huge spectrum in between.

The Ar tonelico series never leaves any doubt as to where most of the production budget goes: into the music and sound. This sequel easily lives up to its predecessor in the quality of the music, both in Japanese and in Hymnos, the game's constructed language. For a series so tied up in the power of sound and music, one should expect no less, and this game delivers.

The extras provided with the first printing of this game include a CD soundtrack (people who preordered from RosenQueen also get another disc with even more music) and a small "artbook" pamphlet. Adding a CD for this game was a stroke of genius, but the artbook is less than inspiring: it doesn't fill the player in on nifty backplot and history like the previous game's pack-in artbook did.

Storytelling (Great/9) - The crowning glory of the game's storytelling is the rich setting of the planet Ar Ciel, with its sprawling history, meticulously-detailed culture, and the constructed language Hymnos. Although this game takes place on the same planet as the first, for all intents and purposes they are in two different worlds that happen to share a common history. The plots are similarly loosely tied together. As a result, the games can be played in either order: a great help for those who have trouble finding the first game.

The plot is driven by complex politics, thorny ethical issues, and deep philosophical disputes. The game's morality is full of grey areas, and no matter where you go in the game's branching plot you will find yourself questioning whether or not you really joined the "right" side.

The characters are perhaps not as purely likeable as those from the first game, but they are better crafted, with more depth and motivation. They also manage to shatter some of the stereotypes set up in the previous game: while the Reyvateil spellcasters are still all female (for reasons that are finally explained), your party also contains a Reyvateil who is not a spellcaster: she fights on the front lines as effectively as the other strikers.

Finally, the innuendo which earned the first game its infamy is back, and it's stronger in some significant ways, though as with the first nothing explicit is ever shown. It is important to understand that this is not always intended to be taken as humorous, and in some cases makes certain scenes and concepts far nastier than one would expect based on the visuals alone. Despite the lack of an M rating, this is not a game for the immature, if only because they'll spend more time going "hurr hurr he puts the crystal in the slot" than actually playing the game. They will also miss some rather important aspects of the plot.

Alas, the game's storytelling, like its gameplay is marred by poor QA. Spelling and grammar errors abound on a level that has not been acceptable in this industry for a decade or more. At least one line, repeated fairly frequently over the course of the game, wasn't even transliterated from kana, much less translated from Japanese. Tarzan need copy-editor, folks.

QA (Terrible/2) - Game reviews don't often consider the quality-assurance process, nor should they really have to. A good QA process leaves no traces other than a lack of problems, and this makes it hard to notice. But while it is hard to spot a good QA job, it's very easy to spot a bad one, and alas, this game "quarifies." Between the myriad gameplay and storytelling issues, the only thing keeping this score above 1 is that the main quest can actually be completed. Severe disciplinary action is in order for the team that allegedly performed quality assurance on this game. Shame on you, NIS America, for marring this game with such a shoddy QA job. You could have had a masterpiece on your hands.

Overall (Great/9) - It is a great shame that this game was released when it was. Aside from needing at least another month of QA if not more, I do not think it is as likely to find a wide audience this late in the PS2's lifetime. But Ar tonelico 2 stands to become a forgotten classic, and in a more favorable environment and better QA it could have shot to the top of the must-play lists. As it stands, if you can overlook some Engrish and poor QA and you like JRPGs, get your hands on this game. You will not be disappointed.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/28/09, Updated 02/23/09

Game Release: Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica (US, 01/20/09)