Singing a Different Tune
Ar Tonelico is one of the most weirdly attractive RPGs to ever hit the PS2. Here's why.
Published: February 21, 2007
I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, though. Before we get into the whole song magic thing, it's probably best to explain the battle system and diving a little more. Battles are semi-random encounters, meaning you actually have a meter that fills slowly as you move letting you know when you're going to get hit. You can't see the enemies, but you can prepare for them, and every time you finish a battle, pocketing the usual experience and Dive Points (which I'll get to in a second), the meter drops a little (it'll drop too if you run away). When the meter is gone, the area is enemy-free until you run into a new section or out to the overworld map. In this way, you can control how you level up a little, and it takes away the burden of fighting all the time when you just want to explore.
Now, Dive Points are expended any time you do anything inside a Reyvateil's head, their Cosmosphere. The number of points is directly proportional to how embarrassing the event is, and there are entire sections and conversations that aren't required to pass through that level of a Cosmosphere, though they do add a lot to the different characters swimming around in these girls' heads. They also help thicken up the whole concept that these physical manifestations of thoughts or feelings can be dealt with to help unravel the more muddled parts of the girls' minds.
When you do help them out -- and it really is a fairly non-interactive thing -- scooting around their Cosmosphere, visiting pre-set spots on the little map of their mind, you'll help them confront their inner demons (or, uh, demonesses in Aurica's case) and they'll learn song magic along the way before they finally have an epiphany and open up to you heading down to the next level. Before you can even dive, though, you'll have to talk with the girls in inns or while camping out in the world to get them to open up enough to let you go deeper.
The songs crafted in the girls' minds are carried right into battle, and it's here that the game is most compelling. The Reyvateils don't just cast spells and are done with it, they sing constantly and then unleash the attacks. As they sing, the spells level up, becoming bigger and more powerful and so long as a Reyvateil has MP, she'll keep singing (when it runs out, the spell is released automatically, and when she's not singing, her MP recharges extremely quickly). Coupled with the fact that only one other party member can actually heal without using items, a Reyvateil is extremely important (not to mention the only way you can flee a battle), but more or less defenseless while singing.
This is important because the three main fighters in your group serve as the front line, and enemies can't attack your Reyvateil except with special moves that can require anywhere from one to all of your fighters to forfeit a turn to guard against the attack. The upside to this is that after an attack, the person (or persons) guarding can counter-attack for big damage. Since enemy turn order is always shown at the top of the screen, this actually affords a nice bit of strategy during fights, allowing bigger hitters to continue to dole out attacks while others can protect. As enemies are hit, their Ambiance Field increases, and song magic will do more damage.
During the course of the battle three things are filling up. The first is the Reyvateil's song magic percentage if she's singing -- and that can go as high as you let it (I got mine up to 100,000% in some fights). The second is the Harmonics Gauge, which is broken into two parts; blue for your fighters and purple for the Reyvateil. When the two meet up (blue fills with attacks but drops as your fighters are hit, purple just fills any time magic is being sung), they add a little jewel to another meter which fills as damage is done with song magic. If you can attack, protect and sing well enough, it's possible to level up this top gauge three times, at which point you'll get all the 1st tier items that are dropped by enemies.
Items, it should be stated, that are often key to building stuff with the game's synthesis system called Grathmelding. By combining items dropped from enemies with crystals of varying rarities called Grathnodes, you can create items that are incredibly powerful. Toward the end of the game, it's actually the only way to get the best weapons, and you have to sacrifice some rare (as in there's only one in the game) crystals to get the best, strongest version of that weapon or armor piece.