This old school RPG is a solid 8. Hilarious conversations and a great type of battle configeration.
Let me explain: The story goes that a Virus names Mir is trying to exterminate all humans because of the way they treated her and all of her kind throughout the years. After her escape, Lyner, a Knight of Elemia, is thrust into action to find a special crystall that should stop Mir once and for all. Of course, its never that simple. Lyner meets Aurica who is a song singer who has very low self esteem. Then you meet several other main characters who help you on your quest. Aurica is the most important because of the battle configuration I will get too later. It seems that each woman in this game is very eager to get into Lyner's pants. Yes, that's right, they each come on to him very strongly and very raunchy. He of course is totally oblivious to this as his main concern is saving the world. (What a true hero)
The battles are what makes this game different from the rest. There is a configuration of 3 physical attackers and one song singer. The attackers mainly keep the enemies busy while the songs gain power and become overpowering to any enemy. Fighting is very easy because any song can kill any enemy if you make it strong enough. Even Bosses go down in a few rounds if you play it out right, some with only one hit from a song. You still have to gain a considerable level for all your main characters so you can have a lot of HP but mostly, battles are easy. Plus, you always attack first and can 100% run from any minor enemy. As the song levels increase, the attackers also get stronger attacks and can do different moves. There are also enemies that will target your song singer for a big attack, so you have to protect her which can lead to a super strong counter attack. Once again, battles are easy. Enemies mostly are the same, only with slightly different element strengths and weaknesses. Some can only be killed or damaged with songs.
Each song singer, Aurica, Misha and Shurelia has a Cosmosphere, which is there personal conscience encased in a world. You explore the world when you dive into each girl. These worlds are long stories which enable them to create new songs to use in the real world. Plus they can gain new costumes which make them stronger in battles also. The stories are very adult themed and some have very adult pictures. (Half naked women) But they all seem to focus on getting with Lyner, in any way possible. I was able to do 100% of all 3 Cosmospheres and got the strongest songs and costumes. If you hate reading a lot you wont be happy but the rewards are totally worth it.
Another great thing about this game is the Grathmeld feature. Basically its the games version of Alchemy. Some of the better weapons and accessories are created this way, but that means you can never sell anything because you will eventually need it to Grathmeld. First you need recipe cards to see the ingrediants which are not always easy to come by. A lot is found through treasure chests or fighting monsters.
Each weapon or armor can also be upgraded with crystalls that have different properties. Basically, the stronger the crystall, the stronger your character will be. But there are hundreads of different crystalls to be used. Plus you can Install some into the song singers to make them stronger as well. The conversations leading up to Installing is almost soft core porn. But they are funny for most adult players like myself.
Finally, the story takes place over 3 Phases. Most people dont even realize that there are 3 in total because at the end of Phase 2 you answer a question that will either end the game or continue on. Plus, there is also a part in Phase 3 where your asked another question and the wrong answer gives you the bad ending. Basically if your not fighting against a giant Shadow Mir that looks like the Alien Queen, you havent really explored all that Ar Tonelico has to offer. I was finished after 34 hours at level 79. The final battle took almost everything out of me though, she was really tough and it lasted very long. Make sure you Grathmeld a lot of Boom Medicines that heal your whole party or your in trouble.
This was an excellent game that would have gotten a higher score if not for the long winded conversations that happen very frequently. Plus, they always had every female character basically begging to get into Lyner's pants and be his wife. As if there were no other male characters on the planet. However, the story is very engrossing and will keep you occupied for a long time. Great way for the RPG legacy to go out for the PS2.