"A sequel that will not disappoint its fans"

Ar Tonelico II, a sequel to Ar Tonelico, will not let its fans down. While the style of the game is still very similar to the first game, much has been improved, particularly its gameplay (and possibly graphics). In short, Ar Tonelico II is an embodiment of solid battle system, epic storyline and well developed characters. Of course, you can't have Ar Tonelico without its defining vocal songs, and yes, they are back, and they are just as good, if not better. Without further ado, let's get to the specifics...

Gameplay 10

Ar Tonelico I is probably an RPG more popular due to its heavy focus on character development, than battle system. Ar Tonelico II however, does not suffer from this. For those who are new to the series, Ar Tonelico II uses a standard turn based battle system, with frontline fighters and backline "singers" called Reyvateils. Reyvateils are girls that use song magic to help their ally, for both offensive and defensive purposes. They do not posses any physical attack and are in general fragile. So while "channelling" the song they need to be protected by the frontline fighters (but they won't be as easily blocked as they are in the first game). In Ar Tonelico II, all attacks from the enemies are directed to the Reyvateils all the time, and in order to defend them, you'll need to press buttons to time the enemies' attacks to allow the frontline fighters to take the damage, shielding the fragile Reyvateils from being harmed. Failing to time it properly will cause both the fighter and the Reyvateil to take damage, and a perfectly timed block will totally nullify the damage. In other words, perfect blocks will be the key to tackling special boss fights. With that said, the game is not very tough (although harder than the first game), and if you are not doing low level challenges or some other weird challenges, you would still do fine finishing the game without ever doing much perfect blocks, but the journey will be rougher, and with more potion drinking. As for the turns, it is split into 2 phases, Attack and Defend Phase. In Attack Phase, as the name suggests, you attack with the frontline fighters. There are 4 sorts of attacks for the fighters, 3 of them being offensive, and another one being defensive. Each of the attacks has different properties, like recharging the mana of the Reyvateil, etc. In conclusion they are all useful in different situations for different purposes. In this phase, you are also able to release a song you have been charging, or start charging another song. As for Defend Phase, you'll need to block attacks from enemies and shield your Reyvateils as described just a little while ago.

That is all but a prelude to the battle system. In Ar Tonelico II, you are able to use not one, but two Reyvateils in battle. This might not be very interesting initially, since you are only allowed to have one song to be channelled at one time. However, its true purpose is shown when Synchronicity Chain is introduced later on. Synchronicity Chain occurs when a song "morphs" into a dual-cast song after fulfilling certain requirement. There are only a few dual-cast songs in the game, but they are extremely damaging (superior to all normal songs), and have a very flashy animation for their execution. Replekia is another new feature of the battle system. Replekia basically boosts the song channelled, increasing the damage when released by an monstrous amount, making the song magic even more lethal. Of course, Replekia will have some requirements to satisfy before it can be triggered, but it is a powerful ability to have. Coupled with Synchronicity Chain, one shot kill on bosses is made possible with a well planned and executed song. As for the fighters, they have gained a new skill called EX attack (think to hiougi in Tales). Basically it's a super flashy and very damaging attack that has strict requirement. Each character has only one EX attack, and it doesn't get triggered very often (supposedly) due to its requirement. Even though that might be the case, EX attack will come up quite regularly at near end of the game and sometimes they can get a bit too repetitive to watch (as much as they are very flashy). The bad news is that there's no way to skip the animation, and you are forced to use an EX attack when it is available. Still, most people would probably get pretty excited when an EX attack is executed.

More about Replekia. Replekia linked with a fan club of IPDs dedicated to one of the main Reyvateil character in the game. IPDs are infected Reyvateils that will sometimes lose their sanity and harm innocent people. As you travel around, you'll bump into IPDs from time to time. In order to help them, you first defeat them (a level 9 IPD is potentially one of the hardest enemies in the game), and then you do some sort of psychotherapy to heal them. For the psychotherapy, you basically talk to them a few times, and depending on the correctness of your answer, they'll be cured. There's no heavy punishment for failing it though (besides losing some money), you can always try again. The IPDs you have helped will join this fan club, and effectiveness of Replekia is dependent to the amount of IPDs recruited. Another useful thing about this fan club is that the IPDs you've helped can be "equipped" (emotionally supporting them probably) to the frontline characters, and only one IPD per character. Equipping them gives the frontliners some special attributes, like adding fire element damage, increasing equipment stats, and many other different attributes. All attributes have various uses, although some might be better than others. In short, it gives a little more customization to the frontliners.

Another new leveling system introduced in Ar Tonelico is the bath system - Dualstall. Unlike the first game, the Reyvateils don't actually gain experience in fighting; only the frontline characters do. The only way they can level up is by taking a nice dip in a big bathtub (onsen), mixed with the grathnode crystals. The grathnode crystals are obtained by defeating bosses, buying from merchants or found in chests during dungeon crawling. Different grathnode crystals have different properties that can be applied to the Reyvateils (increasing mana, increasing bond with partner etc). Items like floating bath toys and medicine solutions can be applied during the bath as well, and of course, these items do have some functional purposes, other than for novelty reasons. Another use of Dualstall is for building bonds between the Reyvateils, since talk topics are triggered when bathing and through talking the Reyvateils' synchronization level is increased, which in turn helps in triggering Synchronicity Chain. Dualstall is an interesting addition from the first game, and it is necessary because bond building between the Reyvateils are important in the game for various reasons.

Cosmosphere, another defining feature of Ar Tonelico, is back. For the new players, Cosmosphere is basically the inner world of a Reyvateil. It is used to develop relation between the main character and the Reyvateil and also to learn more powerful song magic for the Reyvateils. By diving into their Cosmosphere, playing through some events to learn more about them, song magic are unlocked in the process. It usually gets quite emotional, some might like it, some might find it plain cheesy, but overall it's quite an interesting way to get to know the Reyvateils. In general, most elements of the Cosmosphere remain the same as the first game. An addition to Ar Tonelico II is Infel Sphere. Infel Sphere is similar to Cosmosphere, with one major exception. Instead of building relation between the main character with a Reyvateil, Infel Sphere is used for bonding the two main Reyvateils. A lot of focus is being put on the relation between these two Reyvateil characters because of story purposes, and Infel Sphere is made to achieve this. Again Infel Sphere contain mostly just story events, and in that essence, it feels like a mini text adventure within the game (as is Cosmosphere). Just a quick mention Infel Sphere is also a source for learning the all-powerful dual-cast song magic.

As all Gust games share, item crafting is an important element of the gameplay. This doesn't quite apply to Ar Tonelico II, though. Probably because much effort has been put into other aspects of the gameplay, crafting in this game is heavily dumbed down to a very simple item making system. There are a few merchants in the game that allow crafting, with each of them offering different types of items being made. Crafting recipes are obtained by talking to them from time to time as story events progress, and by combining materials specified by the recipes, you make the items. There are no item properties, item ranks, whatsoever. Because conversations with the merchants involve normal daily chat and recipe-offering chat, getting recipes can get a bit tedious if you do not talk to them consistently, and the conversations can stack up pretty badly. The crafting system is probably the only gripe I have to all the new changes Ar Tonelico II implements. Oh, on a sidenote about bad changes, Ar Tonelico II also removes the jump ability on field, which doesn't have any functional usage usually but I just kind of miss it...

The length of this section probably explains itself how much Ar Tonelico II has to offer for its gameplay. All in all, the new battle system improvement, Synchronicity Chain, Replekia, Dualstall, Infel Sphere, are short of nothing but fun. The only flaw would be the crafting system, which is a tad little too simple. Overlooking this, as a whole, the gameplay of Ar Tonelico II gets a perfect 10.

Story 9

A little about the backstory of Ar Tonelico series. Ar Tonelico takes place in a heavily damaged planet called Ar Ciel. Ancient wars have scarred the planet very heavily, and the surface of the planet is no longer inhabitable. There are 3 floating land masses with people living now, each with its own "Tower", and a representative Goddess. Ar Tonelico I happens in the region of the 1st Tower, Eolia's Tower (also called Ar Tonelico, where the game gets its name), and Ar Tonelico II focuses on Meta Falss, a floating land of the 2nd Tower, Frelia's Tower (Sol Marta). Inhabitants of the floating lands are not aware of each other's existence, since these lands are pretty far from each other.

I'll introduce the characters a little before talking more on the story. The main character is a knight named Chroah. He's a usually calm and easy going, pretty blunt in general but is a reputable knight. The first heroine Reyvateil, Luca, is a childhood friend of Chroah. Being the childhood friend, Luca has the cliched "standard childhood friend stereotype" personality - friendly, cheerful, and of course just likes sticking with Chroah for no reason. The second heroine Reyvateil, called Chroche, is the priestess (miko) of Meta Falss. For a priestess, Chroche is quite bossy, not friendly, and doesn't get along with Luca because of her overly cheerful and happy-go-lucky kind of personality. Maybe these characters don't sound too interesting from my description, but eventually they grow a lot in the story and are definitely well developed. Other characters include Chroah's little sister Kokona, Chroah's commander Regris, etc.

Now for the story. Meta Falss, the floating land mass of that Ar Tonelico II takes place, is a pretty harsh land to live and is on the fringe of collapsing. There's a Utopia that all citizens of Meta Falss strive, Metafalica - a land with large green fields, flower gardens, water and ultimately a peaceful and happy life. Chroche, the priestess of Meta Falss, bears the burden of this dream, and attempts to seek a way to create this Utopia, through the power of Hymmnos song. Hymmnos is an ancient language of the world, and only Reyvateils are born to understand them naturally. By chanting songs written in Hymmnos, magical powers are granted to perform miracles like healing and combat purposes. Although there isn't a limit on how powerful Hymmnos song can be, to artificially create a land mass with life can be considered a feat closer to myth than anything. But hope is not forsaken, and in order to make this nigh impossible dream a reality, Chroche embarks a journey to sing Metafalica, for the sake of humanity (of Meta Falss more accurately).

This is probably as epic as I can put for its story. In any case, you start out as Chroah on his normal duty on IPD hunting (IPD is defined earlier in the gameplay section). Due to certain circumstances, you met Chroche and is entrusted to protect her from a planned assassination. You later met Luca, Chroah's childhood friend while evading enemies' attack, and then goes on for a little more running and hiding until the coup d’etat is under control. The story later continues with the team on their way to discover the method for creating Metafalica, and in that journey of both Mefalica and self discovery, hidden pasts and identities of some characters are unfold, bonding between Luca and Chroche is developed and a little dip of romance starts budding between Chroah and one of the Reyvateils.

That's as much story as I can tell without spoiling. As for its ending, there are a total of 4. The two obvious ones are the endings with Luca and Chroche, for the remaining two, I'll leave it to you to discover. The endings are controlled by a few choice points made during the game, but unlike its predecessor, some of the choice points occur fairly early and in order to get all the endings, there will be some replaying. An incentive for getting all the endings is to see the full Cosmosphere of the Reyvateils, since complete access to the Cosmosphere are only allowed for the Reyvateil you are paired with at the end (contrary to the first game where you have complete access to all Reyvateil's Cosmosphere regardless of the ending). Note that for all the endings, there'll be some minor difference in some story events but they are generally the same.

For a touching and epic (sort of) story, filled with decently developed characters and romance, I think the story of Ar Tonelico II deserves a 9.


Graphics 9

Ar Tonelico II's graphics is improved quite a fair bit compare to the first game. Keeping the tradition of 2D character sprites, the major change in Ar Tonelico II is the 3D environment. The background fields are all now in 3D (although it looks very 2D'ish for some reason) with some exceptions of small objects. The 3D environment is beautifully coloured, and the sprites are filled with cute and funny looking animations, for an example, when a Chroche points her big finger out to state some "important facts". A drawback of placing 2D character sprite on the 3D environment is that when the 2D sprite gets closer to the screen, it tends to get quite pixelated. This however doesn't usually happen too often, but can be quite noticeable when it does.

Anime'ish graphics are used for its cut scenes, and Ar Tonelico II is definitely the game by Gust with the most cut scenes to date. The cut scenes, generally short but well animated, are usually used when important events take place, and they are not stingy to make them this time. Probably does not apply to everyone, but more cut scenes is always a plus for me, with the exception of a few other games.

I am personally very satisfied with Ar Tonelico II's graphics. Even though it might not have the latest state of the art 3D graphics for depicting real-life looking people and terrain, it is not a case that can be applied for Ar Tonelico, which focuses on style more so than realism. For that, Ar Tonelico II's graphics gets a 9, for its cute looking sprite and a colourful, fitting 3D environment.

Music 10

Hymmnos songs are used from time to time in the game, and there are vocal music specially made for them, fans of the first game would know the distinctive music style of these Hymmnos songs. Once again, the 4 utahime (singers) from the first game are back, namely Shikata Akiko, Shimotsuki Haruka, Mitose Noriko and Ishibashi Yuuko. As a fan of Ar Tonelico I's Hymmnos songs, I was skeptical initially if Ar Tonelico II can repeat its success, but after finishing the game a few times and listening to them for a while, I can confidently conclude that the Hymmnos songs in Ar Tonelico II definitely have not disappointed me, in fact, I personally think that they are better than the first game. Many of the Hymmnos are probably a little weirder to listen at first, especially the ending theme "EXEC_with.METHOD_METAFALICA/.", but after a while, they'll start to shine and some of them get very touching when they are sung during story events. A big thanks to all the composers of the Hymmnos songs (Nakagawa Ken, Achiwa Daisuke, Tsuchiya Akira, Shikata Akiko, Shimotsuki Haruka and Inagaki Takashige), in particularly Tsuchiya Akira for the wonderful ending theme.

Next is the instrumental. Sharing the same composers as the first game (the trio Nakagawa Ken, Achiwa Daisuke and Tsuchiya Akira), the instrumental music are in general enjoyable. The music is a little more techno and upbeat compared to the music of their Atelier works, which fits the atmosphere of Ar Tonelico II. With that said, the slower, heartwarming or melancholic kinds of themes do stand out a little more than usual, and the normal battle themes are by far one of the better ones they've done. More vocal choir background music is also used this time, which is a plus because they tend to feel more epic or drama, depending on situation. Overall, the instrumental is decent, with a few tracks that I personally like a lot.

As I always do, I'll write a little about the music albums related to the game for those who are interested. At the time of this review is written there are 3 albums released for all the instrumental and Hymmnos songs of the game. First would the Original Soundtrack, which has 2 CDs, containing all the instrumental music, the opening and the ending theme of Ar Tonelico II. There's a bonus music score called Hymmnote II for the first press of the O.S.T. (pre-orders), which has the complete Score for all instruments, vocals and chorus for the opening and ending theme. Pretty cool I'd say, although it would not be much of a use to most people. There are a total of 22 instruments, 3 chorus, and 2 main vocals for the ending theme so unless you have an orchestral band (and manage to convince them to play the song), it just serves as a nice big music sheet to look at. As for the Hymmnos songs used in the game, they are compiled under 2 albums, namely Mio~Mio Ar tonelico II Hymmnos Concert Side Ao (Blue) and Homura~Homura Ar tonelico II Hymmnos Concert Side Aka (Red). These 2 albums contain all the Hymmnos songs used, and also a few other original tracks. Definitely recommended if you like the vocal themes.

Ultimately, music is very subjective and there's no music that's for everyone. The best thing is to listen it for yourself and judge it. Ar Tonelico II is a game that I've enjoyed its music immensely, and for that, its music scores a fantastic 10, for my ear bud.

Replayability 7

There are a few reasons to replay the game. First would be to get the few different endings. Although you can reload from certain choice points (by saving wisely), to get all four endings offered by the game, you'd still need to play roughly 2 times of the whole game. The reason is that one of the split happens quite early in the game, and replaying from that point probably saves only a few hours of game time. Second reason to replay, as mentioned in the story section, is to see the whole Cosmosphere of all Reyvateils. Ar Tonelico II allows full Cosmosphere access for the Reyvateil you have chosen to end with, but only half of the Cosmosphere for the others. Therefore if you are interested in their Cosmosphere's story, there's no other way but to get their ending. The third and weakest reason for replaying the game would be to see the difference of story events for different paths. Honestly, the difference is only minor, and I can see little meaning in doing so.

Replaying the game isn't a bad idea, though. The battle system is fun to play and there's much to explore, if you are not interested in fighting you can always just use an item to remove the encounters and just brief through the game to get the ending. As for the reward for finishing the game, the game unlocks an "Extra" section where it displays the achievements you have made, Reyvateils status, items collected, etc. Note that most of these are accumulative for different playthroughs. A good change made this time is that you are able to play through the events of Cosmosphere and Infel Sphere, read the talk topics that you have unlocked before.

Having spent 140 hours and done 2 complete playthroughs of the game, I guess the replayability of Ar Tonelico II is somewhat decent for me. The "Extras" unlocked are also a little more interesting this time, and so in conclusion replayabilty gets a 7 in my book.

Overall 10

The first thing to note is that the overall score is not a sum average from all sections. To me, different aspects of the game have different importance and so the weighting of each section can be quite different. The overall score is given based on how I feel for the game in general.

I am really satisfied with the new battle system improvement of Ar Tonelico II. Still keeping the battle style of Ar Tonelico, they have managed to turn it more action oriented and with the new blocking system, Replekia, Synchronicity Chain, EX attack, etc, battles are made more much interesting than just standard turn based combat (as for fans of Ar Tonelico I, look forward to the dual-cast song "Phantasmagoria" where 3 heroines from the first game are summoned). For those who are interested in challenging fights, level 9 IPD is the answer. Without mastering perfect block, these insane IPDs will murder your team as easy as squashing bugs.

The story starts out kind of bland, but does pick up its pace and get pretty interesting and also touchy later on. Unlike the first game, most of the character development actually happens between Luca and Chroche, and Chroah takes the back seat as a supporting role most of the time. The graphics is definitely not shabby, coupled with lovable music and Hymmnos songs, Ar Tonelico II feels like an improved, superior version of the first game.

With that said, I sincerely think that fans of the first game would not be disappointed by Ar Tonelico II. As for the new players, give it a go, and play it with an open mind, as it is an experience quite different from most RPGs. Ar Tonelico II might not be a game with incredible graphics, complicated story, multi-levels dungeon, populated metropolis towns, or just as well made compared to the more popular RPG titles, but it is simply - fun, which in my opinion, is the most important factor. To sum everything up, Ar Tonelico II scores a flawless 10, for all the positive changes made while still keeping the distinctive Ar Tonelico feeling.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/01/08

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