Ar tonelico 2, Melody of Metafalica, is a direct sequel to the first Ar tonelico, Melody of Elemia.
Unfortunately for Ar tonelico 2, this game was released on January 2009, the beginning of the year where new games are in decline on the Playstation 2 due to gamers being more focus on new generation consoles such as the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 to find their needs for rpg games. What this means is that Ar tonelico 2 may end up being over looked by many rpg fans who now prefer to play with their Xbox 360 or their Playstation 3. This can be disappointing because Ar tonelico 2 is a perfect example of how despite the fact that the Playstation 2 is near the end of its cycle, it can still deliver out some good new rpg games for fans. Ar tonelico 2 is surprisingly a very good in-depth rpg game for fans who still want to get some final usage out of the Playstation 2. A recommended buy for any rpg fans looking for a game with good story, characters, and fun.
STORY
"Let our war with the Goddess begin!"
This is the real Holy Maiden,
Cloche.
In the world of Ar tonelico there are 3 towers with lands and population of people living in them. Each of these towers is govern by an administrator known as the Goddess. Our story, Ar tonelico 2, Melody of Metafalica, takes place sometime after the events of Ar tonelico, Melody of Elemia, in a different tower than the one we have come to know in Melody of Elemia. If Melody of Elemia is the first of the three towers than you can say that Melody of Metafalica is the second of the three towers. In this second tower is the land of Metafalss, an artificial land located at the top of the tower where the population of people has lived in for the past centuries. For the past hundred of years, the Goddess for an unknown reason has turned her back on the people of Metafalss. As a divine punishment from the Goddess, the lands of Metafalss slowly began to fall off the tower and green fertile lands that once grew crops became a memory. If nothing is done soon, Metafalss as a whole will soon fall off the tower and the end of the world will come to this second tower of Ar tonelico. In the wake of sinking lands, despair from the people on lack of food, and an infection called I.P.D spreading to Reyvateils throughout Metafalss, a new government called the Grand Bell under the guidance and leadership of the Holy Maiden Cloche has declare war on the Goddess. Holy Maiden Cloche's goal is to re-unite the people together to defy the Goddess punishment by singing the song of Metafalica to create a utopia of new green lands for the people to live in. Our story begins in the town of Rakshek with an attempted assassination on Lady Cloche's life by a rebel group oppose to the Grand Bell government called the Sacred Army. Despite the attempt on Cloche's life, she was saved by Croix, a Grand Bell Knight, and Cocona, Croix's partner. Grand Bell Knight Captain, Leglius, assigned the two with the tasks of protecting Lady Cloche and delivering her back to the city of Pastalia, a Grand Bell strong hold. With the Sacred Army chasing after them, Croix, Cocona, and Cloche headed for the small village of Mint where Croix's childhood friend, Luca lives. Finding shelter at Luca's house, the group soon learned more information about the Sacred Army and their goals with news of events happening around them. The Grand Bell Palace is under attack and facing a coup d'etat by the Sacred Army, followers of the Goddess that wish to overthrow the anti-Goddess government. With the current situation reaching all out war between the Grand Bell Army and the Sacred Army, Croix and his friends must find a way to reach Grand Bell immediately. War against the Goddess for the future of Metafalss and the people's desire for a utopia land through the song of Metafalica begins in Ar tonelico 2, Melody of Metafalica.
Now the story is the second best feature in this game outside of the music. What makes the story very good is the fact that it's not linear and predictable. The story early on gives you 2 possible story paths to choose from base on Luca and Cloche point of view. From there it branches out for you to choose which of the Reyvateils you want to develop the most in terms of character side story. The story itself has lots of twists and turn that keep you guessing on which direction the story is taking making it very unpredictable. It's been a long time since you had an rpg story where you can't really predict who the bad guys are and how the story will end or unfold. That's a major plus as it makes the story very interesting keeping you glue to the story and wondering what will happen next. A nice added touch is that the story really does justice when it comes to making a story ending. Most story endings in rpgs are short and brief that only last for 15 minutes or so before credit roles. With this story, the game dedicated over an hour of actually fully closing out the story properly. It's done excellently in a fully closure way that leave you happy about how things ended and yet at the same time also hinted of a possible third story of Ar tonelico leaving you excited about a possible Ar tonelico 3. The story is almost a perfect example of how to make a good rpg story very interesting. I say almost because despite having an interesting plotline, the story is riddle with too much useless wall of text story scenes. When I say useless wall of text story scenes I mean if you look at the game as a whole, I would say 60% of the longevity of the game is due to the story telling and the rest of the 40% is gameplay. And out of the story alone, 40% of it is useless story scenes that don't really have anything to do with the actual story plotlines and character developments. We are talking about useless wall of text on scenes that involve Croix and the girls in a simulation dating dialogue during rest periods, Cosmosphere, and getting recipes. I guess if you are a girl gamer you might find these dating dialogues cute or fun but if you are a guy, they just get more annoying and annoying. It's like random banter talk for the sake of having banter talk. There's just too much of these dialogue scenes with the girls that it becomes wall of text that you just try to skip as fast as possible instead of reading and watching the scenes. They just make the story unnecessary longer than it should be and can hurt the enjoyment of the story. Still overall these dating story scenes with the girls are nothing more than annoyances at best if you are a gamer that didn't find them enjoyable as the rest of the story it is very good.
Score 8/10
CHARACTERS
"It's up to us to save the world."
This is a good cast of characters, not great or outstanding, and as a whole they are introduce into the story nicely. The main cast of characters consists of 7 characters and they are Croix, Luca, Cloche, Jacqli, Cocona, Leglius, and Amaria. That's a nice rounded number of characters, not too big and not too small. What make the characters good in this game is base on 2 fronts. The first is the fact that they are portrayed and played nicely by the voice actors in the game. These characters aren't boring or bland. They have their strengths, weaknesses, and annoyance much like real people. The characters are different from one another in personality but they also come together and work well together as a team which makes them enjoyable. The second front is the way the story handle these characters in terms of their background development. The story does an excellent job in slowly integrating each character back story into the story as part of their character development. Each character has a decent shot in the limelight allowing gamers to get to know more about these characters. There's a sense of a human touch to these video game characters when their individual stories is told. So in the end you will definitely like these characters. However there are a couple of minor drawbacks to this cast. The first draw back goes toward the character developments for the Reyvateils, Cloche, Luca, and Jacqli. As part of the gameplay, Croix can get to know more about his Reyvateil teammates through the Cosmosphere feature. Depending on the story path you choose, you are looking anywhere between level 5 to level 9 Cosmosphere character development stories. Now the thing here is that developing characters through background stories is good but too much of background stories can become a wall of text that tend to deter gamers away from the focus of the game and the main story. This is the case here with the character developments of the Reyvateils where as you dive into Cloche, Luca, and Jacqli to get to know them more, you end up in a semi dating simulation mini game mode between Cloche and the girls that it start to become useless dialogue after useless dialogue that you end up just hitting the enter button quickly to skip through all the text because it's just too much useless wall of text for you to read. You can actually end up getting annoyed and bored with the character developments of the Reyvateils. The last thing about the cast of characters is that even though the overall cast is good, individually, the characters themselves aren't stand out great memorable characters. We can pretty much assume that a year after playing this game, you probably will end up forgetting most of these characters and the story behind them. But for now the characters are introduced and developed nicely in the game as a whole.
Score: 8/10
GRAPHICS
Old school 2D world with anime.
Sometimes a game's graphic doesn't always tell gamers just how good a game is. This is very true in the case of Ar tonelico 2, Melody of Metafalica. If you are a gamer that believe in graphics doesn't matter than you probably have no problem adapting to the old school 2D graphics of this game, however if you are a player that believe in graphics being an important part of the game than you might have a problem looking at this game while you play it. The debate on how important graphics are to a game will rage on for a long time with both sides having their points, but what we can tell you is that Ar tonelico 2 graphics are very old and out dated by Playstation 2 standards. The game uses 2D sprites, anime, and a bit of old CG for its graphic engine. It's nice that the game utilizes all three components for its graphic look but truth be told, they all look very poorly done and outdated compare to other Playstation 2 games. The CG elements lack the clarity and detailed of what today's CG can produce. The anime movies are too short and very sub standard that they aren't relevant at all in this game. Having anime movies in a game is suppose to help enhance the visual effect and story telling but in this game the anime movies does neither of that. About 90% of the graphics are done in the 2D side to side artwork environment with short sprites mix in with a semi 3D movement environment. The problem with this 2D to 3D rendition is that it's very lackluster and lack details even for background artwork. They drew the background with just enough details to allow you to enjoy the game without too much complaint on the visual aspect but didn't really provide anything that stands out. Most dialogue scenes are done through anime character artworks that get swap in and out doing the dialogues with the usage of bubbles depicting what the characters are saying. The battle environment itself is a 2D side to side environment with short sprites representing your characters and monsters. In fact all characters in this game including those in towns are done in 2D sprites. The problem here is that even though these are drawn sprites, they aren't very detailed at all to the point where even on some of the sprites where they are making an animation to express their emotion, you have a hard time trying to see what their faces look like. It's very basic drawing of sprites that you know could have been done better as you seen better drawn sprites from other games. This game looks more like a Playstation game than a Playstation 2 game. Everything looks too outdated in this game on a Playstation 2 console. 7 years ago this graphic would be rated much higher but unfortunately being release in 2009 near the end of the Playstation 2 era where so many games look so much better and have been done better in terms of visual, this game seem a few years too late to be release on the Playstation 2. But luckly great graphics aren't always the center point of what makes an rpg game great. And Ar tonelico 2 can be thankful for that.
Score: 7/10
MUSIC
We'll sing for Metafalica.
Like with the first Ar tonelico game, the musical soundtrack is the game best feature. You are looking at over 60 minutes of music for the entire game in one soundtrack. The musical scores are broken into two categories just like the first game. You have the basic BMG tracks that play during the gameplay and then you have the more fully composed song magic of the Hymnos for the serious story scenes. There are over 70 BMG musical tracks with the addition of 18 Hymos song magic making a total of over 90 musical soundtracks. That's a lot folks, even more than what was presented in the first Ar tonelico. What's also great about the quantity of the music is that in this case, quantity does equal quality as each musical score is rendered and composed in top notch quality that fit the game perfectly. When you first start playing the game, you may not notice much about the music but as the game slowly progresses and you go deeper and deeper into the game, the music becomes a center piece of the game and the story. By the end of the game, you'd be fully impressed with how the music is done in this game. You can listen to all the wonderful tracks of the game in the Extra menu once you finish the game.
Score: 9/10
GAMEPLAY
Is this a duo dive called Infelsphere?
Feel the power of 100 I.P.D.s
Game Information
Genre: Traditional Turn Base RPG
Publisher: NIS America
Disc: 1 DVD Disc
Memory: 380 KB
Players: 1 Player Mode
Analog Control: Yes
Digital Control: Yes
Vibration Function: Yes
Rating: Teen
Release: January 2009
If you've played the first Ar tonelico game than you would be pretty familiar with this sequel since the gameplay is pretty much identical to the first one. In fact it's so identical that they didn't publish a strategy guide for the game like they did for the first one. Ar tonelico 2 has all the same features as the first game with new features to boot. The returning features were expanded a little and tweak up that they aren't completely the same as presented in the first Ar tonelico. The new features more or less are just added enhancements for the gameplay overall instead of features that radically change the scope of the gameplay that pushes Ar tonelico 2 in a cutting edge gameplay direction. The concept behind the gameplay and battle system is pretty much the same as the first game. Each town or village is made up of an artwork image of the town with menus of locations within the town. You can then visit and walk around in each area of the town from the location menu. You progress the storyline but visiting the towns and getting story scenes. When the story scenes are done, you normally head out to the world map to access a dungeon to begin your exploration part of the gameplay to further your adventure. Dungeons are normally medium size in range. Even the largest dungeon isn't so large when you look at it as a whole. And the game does provide an over head map of the dungeon as you explore it. It doesn't really take too long to explore a dungeon fully, probably an average of 30 minutes or so to clear each dungeon. Random encounters do take place in dungeon but the nice thing is that the rate of the random encounters is done in a fairly even way that you don't get overflow with battles that hamper your exploration of dungeons. And like with the first game there's an encounter gauge that once the gauge is clear, you won't get into any more encounters for that dungeon. The gameplay concept is clear the dungeons, defeat bosses, and than head to your next destination to get the story going. Just like with the first game, you can restock and synthesize items and supplies in towns. Other familiar features that you can do in towns include Dives, Topics, and Cosmosphere. These features are pretty much the same as before. The battle system too is pretty similar to the first game but a bit more expanded. Battles are still done in a 2D side to side format with the Reyveteils in the back and your fighters in the front of the Reyveteils to guard them from attacks. Your fighters attack the enemies with their skills while the Reyveteils sing and cast strong song magic. The learning curve of this game is pretty easy and the gameplay is pretty fast pace. The in-game tutorial does an excellent job in easing you into the gameplay of the game that gamers would understand the concept of the gameplay pretty quick without a need for a strategy guide or instruction book. Even in normal mode, the difficulty of the game is pretty easy that the game doesn't offer too much of a challenge for you during the entire gameplay. What make this game unique their old and new features. So let's take a look at what features have return and what new features were introduced.
Skill Attacks: Regular attacks in this game is broken up into 3 skill attack categories with a protection action base on the directional button of UP, DOWN, RIGHT, and LEFT. In essence each fighter has 3 regular skill attacks assigned to UP, DOWN, and LEFT. The RIGHT directional button is for protection when the fighter is place in a defensive position to protect his/her Reyvateil partner. Each of the 3 basic regular skill attacks can evolve into 2 higher level skill attacks if the fighter is following the emotional indicator that the Reyvateils are demanding while they are singing. By performing the right kind of basic skill attacks that the Reyvateils are calling out, the skill gauge will slowly start to fill up which in turns help evolve the basic level 1 skill attack into its next higher level version. Skill Attacks can evolve from level 1 to level 3 and then the final super move attack known as Skill EX. Skill EX Attacks: Your front fighters, Croix, Cocona, Amarie, Shun, and Leglius all have one super move anime attack known as Skill EX Attack that does massive damage to an enemy. No matter how many times you've done it before, Skill EX attacks are totally fun to do and watch. Skill EX attack will be activated once your basic skill attack reaches level 3 and the fighters have activated at least 10 different emotions that the Reyvateils demanded. Song Magic: Song Magic are back. No real change here as each Reyvateils have their own set of Song Magic that you can unlock and acquire in their Cosmosphere. As the Revyvateils sing their songs, the burst gauge grows indicating the power or strength of the Song Magic. Once the burst gauge reaches a certain point of strength due to the harmony of the Reyvateils, the Song Magic will then level up or evolve into their next higher form, increasing the Song Magic power even more. Combo Song Magic: This is a new form of Song Magic where a Song Magic is born from the combine singing of the 2 Reyvateils. This is known as a Combo Song Magic. You acquire Combo Song Magic in a similar way as a Song Magic but instead of going through a Cosmosphere, you are going through the Infelsphere which works in the same way as a Cosmosphere. Combo Song Magic is automatically activated when both Reyvateil's Harmonic emotions are lined up together. Emotion Indicator: The Emotion Indicator tells you what the Reyvateils are feeling while they are singing and what emotions they want the front fighters to help activate. There are 3 emotions call Harmonic, Burstech, and Psychological. Each of the emotions just like the basic skill attacks are assign to the directional buttons of UP, LEFT, and DOWN. So in other words each of the 3 basic skill attacks a fighter has is also the activation of these emotions. When a fighter is performing a basic skill attack, he/she has a chance of activating the emotions assign to the directional button. Understanding and performing skill attacks to activate the right emotions is important because in order for certain songs such as Combo Song Magic and Replakia to be activated you need to perform certain skills to raise the emotional indicator to allow those songs to be activated. For example if you wish to activate a Combo Song Magic, you need to raise the Reyvateil's Psychological emotion high enough that they can perform the Combo Song Magic. You do this by constantly performing the skill attack that is assign to the DOWN button because the Psychological emotion is assign to the DOWN button. Burstech emotion help boost the power of your Song Magic. Psychological emotion help boost the chance of Combo Song Magic activation. Harmonic emotion help boost the chance of activating Replakia. Harmonics: The Harmonic Gauge shows 2 Harmonic Waves that belongs to the 2 Reyvateils that are singing. This is only important if you wish to activate a Combo Song Magic. In order for Combo Song Magic to be activated, the 2 Harmonic Waves need to merge into one. For the merging of the 2 Harmonic Waves to happen, both Reyvateil's Psychological emotion needs to be high. You can do this by performing the right kind of skill attacks that boost Psychological emotions of the Reyvateils. Dualstalls: In this game, Reyvateils level up differently from the front fighters since they don't need experience points from battles to level up. Reyvateils can level up by installing Dualithnode Crystals in them. This process is called Dualstalls. What it is really is the girls taking a bath together. Each Dualithnode Crystals give off some stats boosting effect and level up effect to the bath water. At the end of the bath, the girls level up with their stats being boosted. Once a Dualithnode Crystal has been used in the bath, its level up effect is gone. All you need to do is find all the different types of Dualithnode Crystals in this game and do a Dualstalls to get the girls to reach a maximum of level 99. I.P.D.S: Infected I.P.D Reyvateils will be hidden in numerous areas of dungeons throughout the entire game from beginning to the end. These infected I.P.D.s serve as optional extra battles. I.P.D.s ranges from level 1 to level 9 threat. The level range of the I.P.D.s is a bit misleading as a level 9 I.P.D is really strong and your party would need to be in the high level 50s to be able to take level 9 I.P.D.s on. You don't need to fight I.P.D.s if you don't want to and they have no effect on the actual storyline or main gameplay other than Replakia. Replakia itself isn't a must have feature as you can easily finish the game without using any Replakia. There are a total of 100 I.P.D.s in this game so you are looking at 100 extra mini boss fights. Dive Therapy: Once you mange to capture and defeat an I.P.D, you would then need to cure it. You can cure capture I.P.D.s in Dive shop through Dive Therapy. Dive Therapy is sort of a semi mini game. It's not really hard. All you need to do is have a small conversation with the girls in a Q & A format where the I.P.D.s say something and you answer the girls back base on a multiple choice answer. You only get to talk to the girl 5 times in this Q & A format. If you answer the Reyvateil's questions correctly in the way she likes, then the Reyvateil emotional gauge moves up. By the end of the 5 questions, if the emotional gauge is within the Pink Cure point that is resting somewhere on the emotional gauge, then the Reyvateil is cured. Girl Power: A very interesting feature in this game. Once you cure an I.P.D Reyvateil, you can than equip them to one of your frontline fighters. This equipping process is known as Girl Power. What is the benefit of this? Well for one thing each Reyvatiel have 4 special abilities that they can share with the fighter that is equipping them. These abilities can be stats boosting abilities or special effect abilities. An example of a stat boosting ability is "Increase in base damage" that the front fighter will do. An example of special effect ability is "Chance of instance death on normal enemies from regular attacks". Cloche Fan Club: Each cured Reyvateil can be recruited to join Cloche Fan Club. The purpose of recruiting a Reyvateil into the Fan Club is for usage on Replakia. Of course you can't just recruit a cure Reyvateil right away as you do need to meet the required condition that each Reyvateil has. These conditions are easy and they just mostly require you to kill a certain type of monster over and over till you gain a Reyvateil 100% support. Once you have 100% support from a cure Reyvateil, you can then recruit them to the Fan Club. Replakia: Replakia is a hymnos that can greatly amplify the powers of Song Magic. How much power does Replakia boost to a Song Magic is determine by the number of cure Reyvateils that have joined Cloche Fan Club. Let's say the Fan Club has a maximum number of 100 Reyvateils. Each Reyvateil in the Fan Club represent 1% of Replakia amplifying power.
If you have 35 Reyvateils in Cloche Fan Club, than Replakia can amplified a Song Magic by 35% more power. Only Cloche can summon Replakia once her harmonic emotion reaches a certain level. Talk Topics: Just like with the first game, talk topics are back during rest periods. Depending on the story scenes and certain gameplay events, you will unlock topics that involve Croix and the Reyvateil girls, Luca, Cloche, and Jacqli. These topics are just general chit chat on current events and general stuff between Croix and the girls so he can get to know the girls a bit more. The topics also serve as unlocking points for each of the girl's Cosmosphere level. A new separate Talk Topics called Girl Talk was introduced in this game within the Talk Topics. It works in the same as Croix and the Reyvateils and takes place during rest periods but instead of topics involving Croix and the girls, Girl Talk are topics that involve only the girls so they can get to know each other on their own. Unlocking and doing these Girl Talk raises the chance of the girls synchronizing together during battles to create Combo Song Magic. Cosmosphere: Cosmosphere is a returning feature from the first game and pretty much left unchanged. The Cosmosphere is a virtual world inside Luca, Cloche, and Jacqli that Croix can dive into at a Dive Shop in the game. It's a virtual world where Croix can learn more about the girls, their inner secrets, and thoughts so he can form a special bond with them. It's an expanded version of Talk Topics where Croix and the girls can act out their fantasies in a semi dating simulation fantasy environment. Each of the girls has 9 levels of Cosmosphere just like in the first Ar tonelico. The difference here as compare to the first game is that you, the player, are only allow to reach a level 9 Cosmosphere with only 1 of the 3 girls per play through as oppose to being able to unlock all of the girls level 9 Cosmosphere at once. The real purpose in terms of gameplay behind the Cosmosphere is to dive into the girls to unlock their hidden Song Magic to be used in battles. Look at the Cosmosphere as nothing more than mini side stories about the girls in terms of background development for them. And at the end of each of these character side stories, you automatically unlock a new Song Magic to be used. There are no battles or anything major inside a Cosmosphere, just dialogues and story scenes that is presented to gamers as a boy likes girl, girl like boy, love story. Infelsphere: The Infelsphere work in the same way as the Cosmosphere. But instead of Croix diving into the girls, the girls are diving into each other so they can develop a better understanding of each other. And after each story scenes between the girls, you unlock a Combo Song Magic. So in other words, you use Cosmosphere to unlock regular Song Magic but you use Infelsphere to unlock Combo Song Magic. Shops/Synthesizing: Each town has a shop to buy supplies and equipment from. In addition to the regular buy and sell supplies, each shop offers the option to synthesize different stuff base on Luca, Clothe, and Jacqli. Each of the girls can synthesize and make different stuff from the same recipes due to their different unique talents. You can get recipes for synthesis from the shop keeper themselves or from treasure chests. Once you have the recipe, all you need is the right materials and the right girl to make the item.
Ar tonelico 2 gameplay is definitely more in-depth with better features than the first one, however despite that fact, the game is pretty much still simple and easy to complete. Even on the normal setting the game is simple and easy which is kind of a disappointment. Dungeons are very small and easy to navigate through so completing those takes little time. This is a plus but it's also a minus if you are looking for a bit more of a challenge when it comes to exploring dungeons. Battles or fights are pretty easy too because just like with the first game, Song Magic are just too over powering that it takes just a couple of rounds to build up a strong Song Magic burst to destroy all enemies including bosses. With the inclusion of the new Replakia feature, Song Magic became even more ridiculously powerful that total ownage of enemies is a normal thing taking the fun of having any tough boss fights. That's not to say fights can't be difficult since like with any rpg game, if you party is too low in level than you are going to have problems with fights but this is normally solve by fighting regularly in normal random battles. The leveling of your front fighters versus your Reyvateils is unique and different in this game but it's also very unbalanced. Your front fighters level in the normal way through getting exp in battles while your Reyvateils level up through installing Dualithnode Crystals. What you will notice during that game is that your Reyvateils will end up gaining a higher level advantage over the front fighters simply because for a Reyvateils, all you need to do is find various Dualithnode Crystals hidden in the game and doing a Dualstall to level up which is a lot faster than spending time in battles to gain exp. By the time you are near the game and have been able to find all the Dualithnode Crystals, your Reyvateils will be at a maximum level of 99 while your front fighters are still down in the 50s or 60s. This further makes the Reyvateils and Song Magic over powering in the game to the point where the game doesn't provide much of a challenge. Now the game will probably take over 60 hours or more to get a complete game and you're thinking 60 hours of gameplay is good but it's very misleading. I would say 20 hours or more of that gameplay time is due to wall of text reading from the Cosmosphere, Infelsphere, Rest Topics, and recipe topics/scenes. These features are okay if they serve a better purpose than just mindless dialogue dribble about what the girls like, who Croix likes, and random fantasy side stories that are uninteresting with no real purpose. They don't really add anything in terms of value to the gameplay other than just dragging on the gameplay hours with wall of text for gamers to read. I find most of these topics just boring and bland that would probably appeal more to girl gamers. It's nice to see the Cosmosphere return and the feature expanded to another feature known as the Infelsphere but outside of that, the game didn't really change the Cosmosphere feature in terms of finding a better way to acquire new Song Magic other than just story scenes. It's still just long mini story scenes after story scenes of the hero and the females in a boy like girl, girl like boy dialogue before you get the new Song Magic unlock. You would hope by now that they would come up with a more inventive and challenging way to get new Song Magic instead of just hitting the enter button quickly to skip through the dialogues to finally get a new Song Magic. Hence it's a bit disappointing that some of these unique features aren't used in a more useful way than merely just trying to drag the game a bit longer than it should be. So if you looking at the drawback of the game, you could say lack of challenge, actual gameplay time not including story scenes are a bit short, and too much unnecessary wall of text dialogues.
However the good news is that these drawbacks can easily be over looked by the fun and enjoyment of the game. See in the end of everything, no matter how many bad spots that you pick up from a game, you have to ask yourself did you have a fun time playing the game and enjoyed it and what did you enjoy the most about the game. Sure the game is simple and easy but that is also its charm. Random battles were handle in a way that you didn't mind getting into battles. Battles were fast pace and fun to play. It's addictive getting your Skill Attacks to level up, and its totally awesome getting off a powerful Skill Ex attack. Even unleashing Song Magic and powerful Replakia is fun because nothing beats doing massive damage to enemies. Synthesizing items to get new equipment and food is pretty addictive too. That's the thing about this gameplay, it's the addictiveness of the battles, Skill EX attacks, Song Magic, and Replakia that keeps you going and going in the game. And the pacing for the gameplay is very nice that it doesn't wear you out. Sure dungeons are small but at same time, it's also nice that you don't get drawn into a long dungeon for hours which help speed the gameplay up a lot. The game may clock in at 60+ hours but when you play it, it doesn't seem like it's a long game because things are broken down in short segments that they don't bore you. And that's what makes the gameplay work here. The gameplay would score a lot higher if there were more in-depth useful features in the game.
Score: 8/10
EXTRAS/REPLAY
Warning, infected I.P.D sighted!
Does the game offer much in terms of in-game extras? No. Does the game offer lots of extra gameplay time? Yes. It's weird how 2 different components out of the Extra features can have totally different answers. One would think that lots of in-game extras would equate to lots of extra gameplay time while little in-game extras would offer little on extra gameplay time. But here in this game, less to none existent in-game extras equal lots of extra hours on gameplay time. So what does the game offers in terms of in-game extras? Well there's no bonus dungeon for you to do or any real side quests. There are lots of extra optional battles for you to do in addition to one extra Cosmosphere. That doesn't seem a whole lot but it does add up to lots of extra hours if you want to do all those optional battles. In terms of the extra Cosmosphere, late in the game you can dive into the Reyvateil Frelia for some extra story scenes outside the regular story. Again like with the other Cosmosphere, its more wall of text on a dating dialogue story between Croix and Frelia. But by doing this extra Cosmosphere, you do get a couple of new combo magic songs out of it. In terms of extra battles or optional battles, there are 2 kinds. The first optional battle is with a boss called, Raki. You have to beat this boss 15 times to get 3 extra artworks to appear in the Extra Menu. However this optional boss fight does have a glitch where the game freezes up on the third round of the fight if you not able to kill the boss in 2 rounds. It's a minor glitch at best as you can easily kill the boss in 2 rounds if you level up probably and use certain items and trick to do so. The other optional battles are finding, capturing, and curing the infected I.P.D.s out there. While Infected I.P.D.s are part of a key feature in the game, it is an optional key feature since you don't really need to find and cure all the I.P.D.s out there since there are 100 infected I.P.D.s. Finding and fighting all 100 infected I.P.D.s does take up a long time. A few hours of extra gameplay time the very least and they do require you to be well over level 50 for your front fighters and your Reyvateils to be over level 70s to make things easier especially if you are fighting I.P.D.s that are level 9 infected. So yes, the bulk of your extra gameplay time is mostly toward finding and fighting infected I.P.D.s. Outside of this, there are really no other in-game extras to be had. Short in quantity but long in quality toward gameplay time.
Now once you finish the game, you do have an Extra Menu that pops up at the Title Screen. This Extra Menu allow you to revisit and replay all the conversations and scenes in the Cosmosphere, listen to all of the game's musical soundtracks, view all the anime and CG movie clips, character bios, and the game's artwork collection. It's a very nice bonus to have for some extras outside of the game.
Even though the game doesn't have any New Game+ feature, it doesn't mean there isn't any replay value to the game. The game after all does have 4 to 5 different endings, hence multiple endings. And with different story paths and Cosmosphere scenes, you might want to replay the game again to check out how the other story path is different from the one you just finished, depending on which path you took on your first game, whether it's Cloche storyline or Luca storyline. So even without a New Game+ feature, there is a good reason for replaying the game again.
Overall this game does provide a nice value for extra gameplay time and replayablity. Quality over quantity I guess.
Score: 8/10
Ar tonelico 2 isn't an overrated rpg game nor is it an underrated rpg game. What it is is a surprising rpg game. It's surprising because it's more than what you expected out of it. I think it's fair to say that people who brought this game are ones who have already played Ar tonelico or one who is looking for a semi decent rpg game that will hold them over till something better and bigger comes along for them to play. So expectation for this game isn't high from the get go but on the other hand it's not a total let down of an rpg game that you wouldn't want to get it. Which makes this a surprising rpg game is that you end up getting way more than want you thought you would get. Good story, good characters, great music, good gameplay, and good extra & replay value. The only thing that is sub par standard that you know you would get from this game is the game graphics. The phase, "don't judge a book by its cover", comes to mind here. In this case don't judge a game by its graphics alone. So the debate rages on in how important are graphics to a game because clearly this game would rate much higher with higher expectation if the graphics were much better. It's the graphics that will mislead you to believing that you shouldn't expect too much from this game hence it becomes a surprising rpg game in a nice way. You'll be surprise at how good this game is and pleasantly surprise that it was money well spent.
