- Combat the mysterious IPD epidemic and uncover the secrets of Metafalica
- Stay on your toes with an improved song battle system and a dynamic blend of 2D and 3D graphics
- Dive into psychological realms and date other characters
- Enjoy expansive customization and object crafting capabilities
- Stay Engaged with more than 100 hours of gameplay and four different endings
Product Description
AR Tonelico 2: Melody of MetaFalica PS2Amazon.com Product Description
Developed by Gust, AR Tonelico 2: Melody Of Metafalica Premium for PS2 brings you into the midst of a civilization in crisis. With the Knight Croixe, you’ll undertake a search for the source of a raging I.P.D. epidemic that threatens the survival of the magical, singing Reyvateil maidens and end up caught in the middle of an epic struggle between humans and the ruling Goddess. Anime-styl… More >>
AR Tonelico 2: Melody Of Metafalica
I purchased Ar Tonelico 2 with high hopes, and boy did it deliver. An amazing and story, beautiful artwork, and a unique, yet very familiar and easy to learn combat system make this game such a wonderful experience. A colorful cast of very likable and memorable characters, wonderful music and a tolerable English voice over (though not entirely that bad) are like icing on a very wonderful and oh-so-awesome cake.
Only one thing holds this game down. Now being an originally Japanese game, and taking into account the overwhelming amount of dialogue and text that was translated, i can forgive a few errors, in both the actual text, and even some minor game play issues, but i will not forgive them for this: near the end of the game (one of the final bosses) the game will tend to freeze up and crash, making you restart from your last save point… absolutely unforgivable. NISA, weren’t you supposed to make sure stuff like this never happens? I believe this bug only exists in the US version of the game, so people who imported it, you should be OK, but for everyone else, be warned. i had to power-level until i could beat the boss in only a few turns. not too horrible, but still a pain. This i just a warning however, and i still recommend this game 100% to fans of JRPGs, anime, or anyone just looking for a good and fun story.
P.S.- this game WILL make you feel uncomfortable while playing it around others! there’s a plethora of naughty battle cry’s and sexual innuendos. If one took the dialogue out of context, the last thing anyone would guess is that you were playing a videogame, if you know what i mean
Rating: 4 / 5
I’m probably going to attract fire for this…but I feel the inclination towards honesty.
First, Ar Tonelico 2 is a quirky RPG from NIS. Its predecessor, Ar Tonelico, came out with limited fanfare and great packaging. Reviewers didn’t give it too much praise, and people could do little else but complain about what they felt was too much sexual innuendo…a sign of the sensitivity of Americans these days, and what our culture has come to. In any case, part two seems to take place in a totally different setting than the first, sharing only the idea of Reyvateils as a commonality. The reason for my title is that NIS seems to be unable to improve everything, and instead can only improve on single concepts and break others in their efforts to be unique. This was prevalent in the Atelier Iris series as well, which this does borrow from.
In AT2, you’re Croix, a young and promising knight in the Grand Bell Knights. You’ve been heralded as a legend in the making, being of sound skill and power. Part of your job involves containing Reyvateils who have contracted what is referred to as IPD, a “disease” that causes the Reyvateil to temporarily lose control of their faculties. Along the way you’ll meet other characters, including Reyvateils, who have varying objectives, none of which seem to be perfectly aligned with yours.
What?
If you’re confused, I don’t blame you…because what I just explained is what I got out of the game.
Let me start out with the great things of the game. The battle engine is fresh and unique. It does involve button mashing, with a twist though. You can hold in different directions as you attack, resulting in one of three attacks, or guard your Reyvateils. As you use these directions, you can increase psyche, harmonics, or burstech…in a nutshell, either the speed of your burst, the power of the attack, or the power of your guys’ attacking. Blocking is also interactive, in that you can block with the push of a button, but if you time it right, you can minimize or even eliminate damage. What’s more, the burst meter climbs for each successful block. Once your Reyvateil reaches a certain percentage of power, she will unleash her attack automatically; you can initiate it before hand if you want. Later in the game, you can equip other Reyvateils as “Girl Power”, resulting in additional bonuses. These Reyvateils are ones that you have saved from an IPD infection and who are now assisting you as you do battle, separate from the ones that are actual team members. There is a lot of variety in the game, and it’s clear that NIS was trying to improve upon the first one in every way possible. It’s extremely fun.
Making a comeback is the “Dive” – that is, the ability to enter a Reyvateil’s Cosmosphere and not only learn more about her, but unlock more powerful songs and art. Another change NIS made is that the conversations are significantly more difficult to locate; some are physical orbs that you can find scattered around the area. Others just come with the passage of time, and still others are event driven: equip a certain outfit, etc. Along with the Dive concept are some new additions: Dualstall, which is effectively the only way you can level your Reyvateil up. It’s nothing more than a bath with some crystals that you strategically place throughout, resulting in various temporary and permanent powerups. Also, you can get things like bath powders and toys to increase HP and/or start up conversations which help with sync levels (more on that later). There’s also the Infersphere, which can be thought of as a joint Dive between two of the Reyvateils. It’s actually a required activity to progress through the game.
Your other goal is to make your Reyvateils “sync” with one another. Since they’re contributing to each other’s songs in battle, you’ll want their sync to be as high as it can be. Dualstall helps with this as do intermittent conversations between the two (that you can’t initiate or predict). It’s clear the game is trying to diverge from the first AT, where the Reyvateils bonded with the hero but not with each other. Here, the Reyvateils seem to bond with each other more than with Croix, and only use Croix to further their own agendas.
I have to admit, I do love the intermittent anime cutscenes, though short, they do add to the edge of the game. There are a lot more than there were in the first one and that’s a good thing, and their placement is not out of the way as in other games. The music is also catchy and it’s clear they put lots of effort into some music that would be memorable and stay with you for a long time. Graphically…err…well, it’s not terrible, I mean beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I don’t care for the art direction at all. It’s the same art direction they used for Atelier Iris – and I like it for that series, but not for Ar Tonelico. Characters look strange, and the pseudo 3D world just doesn’t fit right for me.
As far as the good stuff, that’s about it.
Thus, the very first negative, strong enough of a negative to warrant a whole star knockoff: The game’s story is haphazard. First, you run across a Reyvateil who is the Holy Maiden of Grand Bell. She is blatantly hostile to you in every way possible, but wants to increase her powers, so she has no choice but to exploit you for protection. Then you meet another Reyvateil who is supposed to be your girlfriend/childhood friend/fiance, but in a shocking twist of fate, you end up separated, then in another twist of fate, you apparently end up together again, only to discover during a Dive that you are not together. Err? Mind you, there is never any clear direction on this part of the story – just little snippets of information that tell you what’s going on.
Meanwhile, another female character contracts IPD, who is not a Reyvateil. Err?
Yet another female character joins the team, with the apparent intention of swaying one of your Reyvateils to her cause along with another character. Only there is an incident that happens without any explanation where all of a sudden she is back on your side. No apology, no explanation of her motive, nothing. Just forgive and forget, eh? Oh by the way, the Reyvateil I mentioned is the same one I spoke about before where you got separated inexplicably…well, apparently, when she was “kidnapped”, she was actually leaving on her own volition and just didn’t realize it, then shows back up and re-aligns with Croix with no apology or explanation…nothing to indicate the fallout that should have occurred. Err?
On top of all of this, the developers saw fit to break certain functionality in the game. In the first one, you had three total Reyvateils, all of which you could max out at a whim, and this idea of “monogamy” was a foregone conclusion. In part 2, you’re forced to pick one and stick with her. Even though you can use more than one in battle, after a certain point in the Cosmosphere, you get told that you “…chose another to be with”. Temporary or not, I don’t like this. If I want Croix to be a polygamist, that’s on me. It’s a game for crying out loud; I play it to escape reality, not live it. For the life of me I can’t fathom why they would make a game with some moderate sexual innuendo, yet add something so pointless to the game.
The other negative – again, strong enough to warrant a star off – the plot is nonsensical. I know that seems like it should go hand in hand with story, but it’s a different issue. On one hand, the story is jumping all over the place, but on the other hand, the story is told extremely poorly. Characters enter the scene with no background or history. Characters depart with no reasoning. Characters are your allies, then turn around and stab you in the back, yet Croix is more than willing to allow them back on the squad with no explanation or apology. Your first goal (the subtitle of the game) is interrupted by another character, who based on the story thus far should be expected for a fight, which there is, in which you get trounced, but then they are subdued by a single robot for a period while you escape. Err? You’ve got characters pulling out handguns – guns, not phasers, not magic, guns – not to mention a guy who is over 18 sharing living spaces with a 10 year old girl not related to him, sleeping in the same room, mind you. You’ve even got characters who blatantly threaten Croix after discovering disturbing practices, yet Croix never once bats an eye…more than willing to ally with these people. Err?
I could go on and on but a game must have a solid story AND a solid plot. Missing one is tolerable, but both? No matter how great a battle engine, you’ve got to be able to relate to the characters, the story, and the background. The other fact that there’s no relation to the first one seals the lid on this one.
I call it a rental…if they even rent RPGs anymore. Nowhere near as great as the first, by far.
Rating: 3 / 5
I’m completely new to the entire AR Tonelico series. This is the first AR Tonelico type of game I have every played. I went out and purchased the “Premium Package” that came with an art book and music CD (nice extra’s!) and it told me one thing about the game I brought. The developers actually care about the game. You don’t see those types of packages too often but it was a nice touch.
AR Tonelico at first kind of took me by suprise. I didn’t know much about it at all. I just brought it on a whim. I was looking for a new RPG for my PS2 and this looked like it would fit the bill. My first impressions of the game was that it looked well put together. Atleast the opening was as it’s nice to watch and listen to. Then the game itself starts… at first I thought I time traveled back to 1993 and was playing this on a super nintendo! Because these are 16bit or worse graphics. If you picked this game up to be blown away by amazing visuals this is not Final Fantasy!
I was annoyed with the look as I knew what to expect but didn’t think it be that bad… then… I started to play the game. The story slow to start actually got me interested in the game. AR Tonelico is a game heavy on dialogue and character interactions. To me the game is a mix of HarvestMoon and Atlus’s Persona series. The graphics and sprites look like Harvest Moon, but the anime style and character relationships remind me a lot of Persona. Which to me is fine because they are both games I enjoy. There’s just something about AR Tonelico that brings you into it…
As for the story I’m only about 20 hours or so into the game but so far I have no complaints… matter of fact I don’t really have any actual complaints about the game itself. I can see where other people might dislike the game because it’s not all action and it’s somewhat a bit complex… but I think even though the game is rated Teen this game is really for adult players. There’s a lot of adult humor in the game that I’m sure goes over the heads of young minds or turns into something beyond the joke it was meant to be.
AR Tonelico is a “charming” RPG and honestly I’m glad that I brought it. What it lacks in visuals it makes up for in the story and to me that’s what really makes a great RPG. I love playing the game and seeing the character relationships develop. I enjoy RPG’s that aren’t always about slaying monsters and leveling up. Which is why I granted this to be an Adult game as it requires patience.
Overall… I’m 1/4 into the game and already I can’t wait for the next installment to the series! This is a great game and it’s unfortunate it has been overlooked by people that moved on to next gens and reviewers that didn’t think to give the game a second glance. If anything this game is a 4/5 at the very least. I note it 5/5 because it has it’s own magic and style that modern RPG’s don’t seem to follow anymore. AR Tonelico is a mix of old and new school RPG’s and I think that’s what makes it so great…
Also I almost forgot…
THE BATTLE SYSTEM!
This is what makes the game 5/5 for me.
This game features the best turned based battle system I have ever used.
It’s all fast past so it feels more or less like real time just about as you select your moves almost like a fighting game. You just move the directional pad and hit the attack button to execute the move you’d like. No selecting the attack you want to use and then watching it. You actually pull it off in semi real time.
The bottom line is that if AR Tonelico was to advance it’s graphics and bring them up to 2010 it would be a block buster hit. For now the 16bit yester year style of the game is somehting that turns most modern day gamers away sadly. This game deserves a lot more credit than it has been given.
Rating: 5 / 5
Like many others, who bought Ar Tonelico 2, I too had purchased the first installment and hoped the sequel (“AR2″) would be equally impressive. After having spent 50 hours beating the game, I feel as though NIS America owes us RPG gamers an apology and our money back.
The standard to which all RPG sequels adhere to is more of a curse than anything else as the product is expected to transcend the original and make us all feel great for dishing out however much money we invested in it. Not to mention sequels produce more hype that it has to live up to. Few RPGs have lived up to the standards of their respective sequels (Breath of Fire II, Knights of the Old Republic II), even fewer have gone above and beyond (Suikoden II), while most just tank (Chrono Chross, Final Fantasy X-2, Xenosaga 2).
AR2 falls under the last category as I felt NIS tried to quickly skate the game through in order to turn a profit from its fan base, a move that goes against one of the highest cardinal rule of marketing; don’t take your customer base for granted. This is what killed Working Designs as they kept delaying believing their customers would support them no matter what (they are now defunct).
So, enough babbling and onto AR2 itself.
AR2 is a more-or-less direct sequel to the original albeit on a different floating continent. A few of the characters, particularly the reyveteils, from AR1 make cameos in AR2 but aside from one of your own reyveteils, there is only moderate mentioning of the first game and even then is it light. This suggests NIS only put in some references so it could be considered a sequel, much like how Silent Hill: The Room was intended as a stand-alone project but later incorporated into another almost unrelated franchise.
You assume the role of a promising, yet overly whiny, knight that helps quarantine infected spell casters or Reyveteils. Along the way you get disillusioned, meet two beautiful women, choose between the two aforementioned women, meet more busty women, dive into them, fight the bad guys, etc. etc. It’s a very straightforward plot with a lot of innuendo especially pertaining to inserting the life-extending agent into the reyveteils (“Do it gently! You’re thrusting too hard!”). I am NOT making this up!
While much of the dialog is outright hilarious, I have the growing suspicion that the translators at NIS do not have ready access Microsoft Word or any form of a spellchecker. There were too many instances to count where I spotted blatant misspellings, typos, poorly translated phrases, and dialog that was meant to rhyme but in Japanese and it looked gosh-awful in English. This is VERY lazy on the part of NIS America as it doesn’t take much to spell-check your work. As a former TA at a four-year university, I’ve seen freshmen blue book essays with better spelling and grammar.
My next complaint is with the combat system. Instead of a wait-time, turn-based combat systems like the first you’re stuck with a different kind of turn-base system that goes “allies, enemies, allies, enemies” and so forth. This denotes speed as an important variable as everyone gets their turn in at the same time. It also makes the game almost a button masher as you quickly hit the “X” button over and over and over. This is a little too tedious for an RPG. I think NIS should’ve kept the original combat system or adopted one similar to Mana Khemia with a card-turn based system.
I also was not impressed with the dive system. Unlike the first game you can only choose one of the three reyveteils instead of unlocking the spells of the others. This was annoying since you need two reyveteils to tackle on tougher bosses and renegade reyeveteils. I know this makes the game more ‘realistic’ as it makes you more monogamous, but who cares?! This is a game! I want more than one woman dangit!!
Also, the talk topics in order to advance in the dive system were really weird and required a player’s guide to advance. I wanted to bond with Cloche, one particular reyveteil but could not because I missed one bloody talk topic that can only be found at a certain point in the game. This is lame, very lame, like super lame. I shouldn’t miss out on a potential ending because I didn’t decide to visit a gaming site to look up some player’s guide or buy the book outright.
However, despite my criticisms I do have some praise.
The game was pretty funny. When I could understand what the characters were saying (far better than I can say for Microsoft’s customer service hotline) I genuinely laughed most of the time at the suggestive jokes. Granted I thought the main character needed a certain male body part removed because he whined too much, but the overall dialog was very entertaining and THAT is what kept me going.
Overall, AR2 is a disappointment and the first I have ever experienced from NIS. Will this mean I will be more skeptical of NIS or drop their games entirely? Absolutely not! Every single software developer has the right to make one disappointing game (although Square-Enix took this too far with Final Fantasy X-2). I just hope Mana Khemia 2, which I just picked up this morning, will prove better than AR2.
Peace out!
Rating: 3 / 5
Ar Tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica is an Amazing game and even though the Raki glitch pissed me off a bit, I still give many props that anyone decided to localizes and translate such a crazy game with immense amount of dialog.
First off there are Errors and bugs in the US version that are not seen in the JP version. The text has some grammar errors; issues include misspellings, commas, name mix-ups, There are also various translation errors. to top it all off there is the infamous Raki Glitch. (which is a glitch that appears In the third-to-last boss battle of the American version, there is a bug which causes the game to freeze! When the enemy Raki uses the skill “Fractal Change” the game freezes due to memory usage exceeding the system’s capabilities.)
Also Sometimes, when your stuck in the game, all you have to do is ask your party to give you a hint and then your well on your way, BUT! since in the U.S version has errors in the translation, the character actually tells you to go to a place that no longer exists.
How must I beat a game with such unfortunate errors?
one answer can be leveling up as much as possible, another answer can be finding a walkthrough online or buying one at the store. In the case of the Raki glitch, I went to Youtube and found Some examples in how to defeat her (ironically, using another glitch, which allows you to freeze the battle clock) Trust me, it can get a bit frustrating, when your stuck in the game and you have characters giving you false information.
So, In the end, why! did I give this Five stars?! If your willing to look pass people’s criticism or what anyone says about the translation or localization. Melody of Metafalica is an Amazing RPG and is definitely worth getting. It Is possible to reach The End of this game, but it will be challenging, in the end it’s up to you. Will you take the challenge?
Rating: 5 / 5