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Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia is one of the newest games to be produced by NISAmerica in collaboration with Gust Studios. The game follows the story of a young man named Lyner Barsett on his quest to save the city of Platina and the whole tower of Ar Tonelico from a deadly new strain of virus.
The game takes place in the a world that has twice met destruction at the hands of God and man. As a result only a small portion of land remains inhabitable. To solve this problem, the Tower of Ar Tonelico was constructed. The tower is composed of many sections having the poorer more agricultural folk at the bottom and the industrious technological cities towards the top.
The story begins in Platina, one of the upper cities. Here we meet Lyner Barsett, a knight of Elemia. As a knight it is his job to protect the tower from viruses that threaten to destroy their very world. When a new strain appears that is immune to all of the knights attacks, Lyner is intrusted to retrieve the Purger Grathnode Crystal from the lower lands and return to Platina. However, when his airship crash lands at the base of the tower, things become much more complicated as he meets many new people and will be forced to climb back up the tower level by level to get home. Hopefully in time to prevent its destruction.
There are only a few things that really help to define this game from other JRPG's. The most important of which being the Rayvateils. Rayvateils are basically androids or cyborgs (although they have the ability to reproduce so it has evolved into a substrain of the human species really) that have the ability to harness the spirits of songs from stones to generate powerful magic. You will meet several Rayvateils along the way, but there are two key ones that will shape the entire story (there is another, but it'd be a spoiler), they are Misha and Aurica.
You use the Rayvateils magic in battle in a slightly less conventional way than you might expect. You select the magic for her to use and she will begin casting it. She will continuously amp up the power of the spell until she runs out of MP (or you tell her to cast it) for devastating damage (you can easily amp the power to 10,000% on some early bosses). All the while you can have up to three regular humans attacking in the traditional ways.
Thus far, everything seems not to different from a regular RPG. Then you find out there is a complex dating-sim-esque mechanic that is essential to building up the abilities of your Rayvateils. Since they are part machine, there are places called Dive shops where you can go into the subconscious mind of your Rayvateil and help her work through her demons and scars from her past. By doing so, she will use the strong emotions built up and pent up to craft new spells. It isn't all that simple though because she will not let you delve into the deeper levels of her mind until she grows to trust you and your intent. By having conversations with them at rest points and a few other actions, you grow relationships with your spell casters that allow them to become more powerful. This is truely the heart of the game and is the main reason I purchased it in the first place.
Aside from the relationship system, everything is none to different from other RPGs. Although the text heavy portions for the relationship scenarios is apt to turn several people off. Unless you are a fan of bishoujo games (Japanese dating sims), some more dramatic animes or movies, or are just willing to try something unique that hasn't been done to this extent before, you may want to steer clear. But for those of us who love having things really driven by story, characterization, and the relationships between the characters as opposed to just nonstop action, I cannot recommend this game any more.
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I'll admit,at first I didn't like this game too much.One reason being that like alot of new rpgs nowadays,it makes the grave error of throwing a bunch of info at you when you first start to play.
This isn't really a game that you can just pop in and understand everything right off the bat.You have to learn how this world works which includes creating new items and getting along with your singing partner (no,I can't remember the actual term because it's spelled ridculous)However,it was a breath of fresh air when I realized that all of these methods were not really very complex at all,and in fact,quite fun and addicting!
The whole aspect of "diving" into the singer is quite unique and even romantic in a way.Earning more points during battle to explore further into her psyche is an excellent concept.You had to laugh when one of the main female characters said to the hero "dive into me now!" at which the hero replies "are you sure you want me to?",then she says "damn straight,
and next time be a man and make the first move!"All good fun,and you can't help but think the developers of this game have a great sense of humor!
The graphics/effects are pretty cool esp. in combat when you join with the singers.It also give you the option to turn off the voices in the storyline dialouge(which I did;I guess I'm a fan of old school rpg gaming)However the voice acting during battle was very good.
All in all this is a great game that you will have alot of fun with.Just keep in mind that at first all of it may seem overwhelming.You eventually get the hang of it and are then treated with a different rpg treasure!
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This is a great game for anyone who likes to your RPGs with a good story line and background. I picked this game up at the store not expecting much, however I was pleasantly surprised when I was sitting there for a few hours playing it.
The game's graphic are good, but use small forms of characters instead of full sized versions. I like to listen to the characters in thier original language of Japanese, but was disappointed when the cut-scenes still played in english, even if the voice over for the rest of the game was in Japanese.
I gave the game 9 out of 10: 5 of 5 for fun and 4 of 5 for game overall becuase of the language thing.
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When I first saw the ad of this game in Newtype USA, it looked kinda cool. I was memorized by the art of course! As I gandered off looking that it had the same style world similar to Final Fantasy Advance, I had some drawbacks because I don't really like those tatic games or those kinds of games that look like they're really supposed to be gameboy games. The most things I like about RPG games is the voice acting and so far, I'm not disappointed! The voice actors are great, the art is truly wonderful and the songs so far are truly amazing!
There's even an option for those of you who cannot stand English voice acting, for you to change it to japanese, though I wouldn't know how that works just yet.
The only thing I didn't like was the battle system. You have your main fighters and your Reyvatail in the background that gives you back support for either fighting or health replinishment. I'm still not quite to used to it yet but I'm sure I will as I play on.
Though this game has a majority of lead female characters and little male lead characters, I do reccomend this game to anyone else who may want to give it a chance! I was skeptical but I gave it a chance and I don't regret it!
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I just bought this game last week and so far I really like it. It reminds me of Atelier iris ( which is also a great game). The Graphics are great and the characters are fun. I think this game is more for girls than guys. The game comes with a cute little book of illistrations and art. Overall I give it a 8 out of 10.
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