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
The catch is that all items in the game allow for up to four levels of crystals to be attached. These do everything from boost health and attacks to make song magic grow faster or auto-regen Skill Points (the humans' version of MP that use skills related to the level of the Harmonics Gauge). The rare crystals plucked off of the many bosses in the game are so valuable, it's hard to part with their benefits, though you can't get top-level items any other way. Reyvateils are even more special; in a hilariously comical twist, they can have crystals pushed directly into their body (the where I'll leave up to you to discover) that can modify specific songs. In other words, you can Install status effects to a spell at level three, or make it so that just by casting a spell, the health of the party is refilled.
If it seems like a lot to take in, don't worry. The game spoon-feeds you the bits and pieces until it's all incredibly natural, and between Installing into Reyvateils, adding crystals to weapons and armor and leveling everything up with every battle (did I mention that the amount of damage done to enemies and the percentage of a song charge is directly proportional to how many DP a Reyvateil gets?), all of these things combine to make for an exceptionally deep experience.
Unfortunately, it's also quite easy to grow stupid powerful. Though you can be killed off later in the game by just average enemies that are immune to certain attacks, bosses will rarely -- if ever -- present much of a challenge. Once you get down the whole process of attacking to level up the Harmonics Gauge, then attacking with song magic to boost the meter, then repeating, most fights are a cakewalk if you've installed regeneration crystals to everyone's armor and songs. Worse yet, the songs themselves aren't significantly better than the first default attack spell, which you can use an unlimited number of times (the other unlocked spells have limits, though they will refill eventually with enough fights), so it's tempting to just default to using that first spell over and over again.
There's also a little bit of clunkiness to the game in general; menus can take a little while to load up, voice clips play a little late. This is entirely due to the fact that the game thrashes the disc pretty heavily. If you play it on a slimline PS2 or the PS3, it's not as much of a factor, but our old launch-era debug was having serious issues toward the end.
So why all the exposition of the battle system if the storyline is fairly trite? Simple: the battle system makes the game, and it helps smooth over the rougher spots in the story, which for most of the game is almost painfully cut and dry. At a couple spots during the storyline, though, you can actually opt to end the game early, though you won't experience the "true" best ending if you do, and you won't unlock the ability to dive into and power-up a third Reyvateil in the final Phase (read: Chapter) of the game.
There's another reason, too: though the game is at times chauvinistic -- if not outright misogynistic in parts -- it does at least try to deal with deeper issues with the girls. Lyner makes almost no real change during the course of the game, but the girls have pretty wide arcs, and who they are at the start is certainly different (though how different will depend on how much exploration of their minds you did) from the end of the game. Oh, and then there's the fact that you can choose which one of the girls you want to learn more about, opening up their three endings, though I have to admit that I didn't really know I was making such a drastic choice until it was too late. Still, it's something for replayability.