Second Verse, Better Than the First
Ar Tonelico II was one of the best RPGs the PS2 had ever seen, with a killer battle system, a storyline and characters I actually cared about and tons of replay value... until it decided I couldn't finish it.
Published: January 28, 2009
I'll give Gust some serious props for attempting to keep the art of 2D gaming alive, though the sprites in the game aren't overwhelmingly well-animated despite sticking to an old-school feel. The actual dungeons do a very odd trick of mapping what looks like 2D planes into a 3D environment, giving you the feeling of drilling through layers as you move forward and back through the world. It's a cute little trick, and actually ended up complementing the rest of the game's feel. Still, it would have been nice to see one of the last few games to cling tightly to the last vestiges the medium be a truly fitting swan song.
The audio, luckily, more than makes up for things. As has been the case with plenty of localized games from (relatively) big-time importers like NIS America and Atlus, you've got the option of listening to either the original Japanese voices or the English dub, and the latter is definitely quite listenable. The game's little chirps and chimes and smacks and battle cries are all solid too, but the highlight here is, without a doubt, the game's soundtrack. The first Ar Tonelico was packed with great tracks, but I honestly don't think there's a sing track in ATII's that didn't either blow me away right from the start or grow on me to the point where I'm still humming some of them while in the shower or something. It's an absolutely amazing collection of choir-driven hymns, plodding semi-industrial tracks, lilting melodies and, just like the first game, there's a heavy dose of computerized voices that often spell out a word or two in a mechanized whisper. I really can't praise the soundtrack enough, and it's almost reason alone to play the game.
There are plenty more reasons, of course, most of which I touched on briefly in this review, but it's the game's combination of characters that you'll come to love, a storyline that twists enough to keep it interesting, yet won't leave you scratching your head and a battle system that is, without question, one of the best turn-based setups in RPG history. It all just works, and works so well that even if you're normally turned off by the kind of doe-eyed, big-boobed (or, uh, uncomfortably small-boobed) typical anime fare, it's really rather easy to overlook. It's just a shame that NIS' traditionally solid translation took a nosedive this time around and a potentially game-stopping bug all but ruins all the good will the game spends some 40 or so hours building up.
In the end, it can't completely destroy what the rest of the game does so ably, but it's a serious problem. So long as you can look past it (and I can completely understand if some can't), you're going to find one of the most compelling, addictive RPGs on a system already overflowing with great ones -- arguably the best RPG library in history. For that, I can't help but recommend Ar Tonelico II whole-heartedly, even if there are some things one must beware of when pick it up.
