Another great Ar Tonelico game.Goofy,charming,funny,a bit naughty,has dating sims and I like it's new battle system idea

User Rating: 9.5 | Ar tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel PS3
Ar Tonelico Qoga was a wonderful experience for me because it's funny,emotional,it's battle system had great ideas and is fun to use and the game is colorful and beautiful to look at.

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Story
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The main story is about how humans created special females known as 'Reyvateils' who can convert songs into energy(magic)so the humans could use the power from the Reyvateils songs to build and power great cities and technological inventions.

However after a great disaster,most of the world became uninhabitable and surrounded by toxic clouds which forced the humans and Reyvateils to live on giant,floating towers or artificial land high in the sky.The Reyvateils decided it was humanity's turn to be the slaves,so they started a war against humanity and killed any human that resisted and forced the humans to be their slaves.

However,the Reyvateils society has their it's own internal problems which caused 2 Reyvateils named 'Saki' and 'Finnel' to flee from the Reyvateils society and they will meet some humans and they will be caught in the middle of the war between the humans and the Reyvateils.

The story will become more about than just that though,because some of the characters have big revelations to reveal,which will have an enormous impact on the fate of the world and the story can heart breaking because of certain reasons I don't want to spoil but trust me when I say they were very heart breaking and because certain characters can die because the story is open-ended and decisions you make can result in a sad ending,true(happy)ending or normal but unfulfilling ending.

You can make Saki or Finnel become your girlfriend,but you can only choose 1 of them to be your girlfriend.It's even possible to end up marrying one of the girls if you make the correct decisions and complete certain objectives within the game.

I found the characters to be enjoyable.

Aoto is a white haired human male soldier who can be funny,rude, or the determined tough guy who wants to protect the Reyvateils.I guess he's purposely made to be a bit generic but he has enough goofish charm to go well with Saki's sweet,gentle,innocent nature.

Saki looks and acts so cute and she's very gentle despite being a Reyvateil and she does some very funny things.Saki also has a serious side though,such as how she liked being a preschool teacher and wants to make the kids happy and still reads stories to them and she wants to make everyone in the world happy(whether they're human or Reyvateil)and she would sacrifise herself to make the world peaceful.

Finnel has more of the ''whatever I want,I get'' kind of mentality,and this even applies for her ambitions to become Aoto's girlfriend,even if you've already made Saki become Aoto's girlfriend.

Hikari is a cool looking doctor with long,purple hair and glasses and he's a valuable party member because he's a good fighter and he's wise.

Richaryosha is a pretty,purple haired lady who's very flirtacious in a way that's a bit crazy.

There's other characters who I will let you discover for yourself an

Just like with the other AT games,AT Qoga has sexually suggestive humor and funny situations that flaunt a woman's body.For example,Saki told Aoto that she hasn't been wearing much clothes lately because she had to sell most of her clothes to pay the rent.

Saki and Finnel even have personas which are their feelings that take the body form of another woman/being.Saki's and Finnels personas seem as if they have personalities of their own,when in fact they represent the feelings of personality/character traits of the girl that they sometimes don't reveal to othes.I found this concept to be very interesting.For example,Saki can take the form of a persona named 'Filament' and Filament is a dark haired woman in a nurse outfit who looks very different to Saki and she talks as if she's depressed a lot and she has many wounds on her body because everytime Saki is hurt,she takes the pain for Saki.Saki can also take the form of ther older sister.Finnel can take the form of an assassin.

You can also use these different forms in battle and they'll give your
Reyvateil certain stat advantages.disadvantages and I'll explain more about the battle system later.

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Gameplay
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I enjoyed Ar Tonelico's battle system a lot and I was impressed with the improvements it's made to it's battle system over the previous Ar Tonelico games.

AT Qoga uses a real time battle system that takes place on a 3D environment.You will control 1 vanguard and the Reyvateil in your party.The vanguard who you are controlling and the enemies can perform attacks at anytime(no longer do you and the enemies have to take turns attacking eachother unlike in the previous AT games).

You can try to dodge enemy attacks by running out of the path of the enemy attack and you can run behind some enemies and attack them from a position where they can't attack you back.

Just like in the previous AT games,the Reyvateils will play a big part in battle.In AT Qoga,you can only use 1 Reyvateil in battle.But you can have 3 vanguards in battle.Also,just like in the previous AT games the Reyvateils will be unable to defend themselves against enemies so you'll need to protect the Reyvateils from enemies while they're charging up song magic which can be used to cast some powerful spells.

As you would expect,sometimes the enemies will try to run past your vanguards and they will run straight at your Reyvateil and they'll try to attack her and when you're fighting against multiple enemies,you'll need to keep an eye out for enemies who try to sneak past your vanguards.If an enemy does get past your vanguards,you can chase the enemy down before they reach your Reyvateil or you can press the circle button which causes the vanguard you're controlling to leap in front of your Reyvateil and swipe enemies away who are inside a circular zone that surrounds your Reyvateil,but the circle button/swiping method only works when an enemy is within the small,circular area that surrounds your Reyvateil and you don't want to let enemies get that close to her in the first place,because often they'll land a couple of attacks on her before you manage to swipe the enemy away.

For those unfamiliar with the AT song magic system,in AT games,you can charge up your song magic and the longer you charge it up for,the more powerful the spell will be.

A new feature AT introduces is what's called the purge ability which allows the Reyvateils to remove their clothing to make their song power charge up more quickly,so they can perform more powerful spells,and it increases the attack power of your vanguards too.The furthest the Reyvateils can strip down to is having only a bra and panties left on.However,the best way to use the purge is not by making the Reyvateils strip down to their underwear straight away but having them removing their clothing one layer at a time.Such as their robe first,blouse 2nd,tank top third.The more layers you remove,the more powerful their magic will become,but like I said,making them strip down to their underwear instantly will result in them performing a weak spell because they won't charge up enough spell power.For all you pervs,don't worry,after you remove the tank top,you will still get to see the girls in their underwear and they can perform powerful spells.To make the use of spells more interesting,after you remove 3 layers of clothing and you perform a purge for the 4th time,a colorful screen will be brought up and you'll be asked to perform some button presses at the correct time(indicated by the screen)and if you get most of the button presses at the correct timing,you can perform an extremely powerful spell.

The gameplay has a jump button/feature so you can make your party leader jump and at times he/she will need to when you're trying to get to new areas or explore.

Like most RPGs,AT Qoga has environments that use puzzles and dungeons that are set out like mazes.The only negative thing I experienced with the gameplay(and with the entire game)is some of the dungeons/environments are set out like such intricate mazes,it's extremely difficult to find your way through them without a guide.

Like with the previous AT games,AT qoga allows you to dive into a
Reyvateil's subconscious which is also refered to as the cosmosphere.Diving into them and talking to their subconscious and being understanding towards them will allow that Reyvateil to learn more powerful spells and will result in them wanting to be your girlfriend.Saying things they don't like can result in them being unhappy with you and you being kicked out of the dive session and you'll have to retry that conversation with them.As you've probably guessed,the dive session conversations give you dialogue choices and you choose what to say to the Reyvateil. It might sound simple enough,but you need dive points to initiate certain conversations which you earn during battle and when you upset a Reyvateil and get kicked out of that dive session,you'll waste the dive points you spent for the conversation.

Also,before a Reyvateil will allow you to dive into them,you'll need to talk to them a bit and they will let you dive into them,but only 1 level at a time.You'll need to keep talking to them if you want to dive further into them and it's not as easy as it sounds because you can only talk to the Reyvateil after certain story segments or if you find conversation topics when you walk around the world/towns(which gives you incentive to explore).

A single playthrough of the game is around the 15-20 hour mark which might seem short,but there's multiple endings to go through(which will require at least 4 playthroughs to see them all.

It's also easy to miss out on the true(happy)endings if you do one little thing wrong and you might not realize it's such a big deal until you read what a guide says you must do to get a happy ending with a particular girl.You can try to get a happy ending with either Saki or Finnel.You could easily end up getting a sad ending because some decisions hide their consequences well and you might think you're making the right decision but your girlfriend will end up dying.However,a positive way to look at this is it makes the story unpredictable and keeps you on your toes.

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Graphics
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The graphics have a cel-shaded style to them and even though they're not quite cel-shaded they look polished,smooth,bright,colorful.AT Qoga is easily the best looking AT game and it's environments also have a 3D effect to them(unlike it's predecessors which have 2D environments.

The game still uses the visual novel style stuff which I like.

When you perform the purge,you will see layers of the girl's clothing disappear and to give you an idea of the sexual nature of this game,when Saki uses a purge,you will see her big boobs bouncing underneath her blouse,tank top or bra.Even when she casts a spell she will learn forward to give a view of her boobs while they're bouncing.Also,you will see a close up view of the body of whichever Reyvateil you're using when you perform a purge and it will even show a close up of the breast area(and in Saki's case,it will make her large breasts bounce).I found this feature of the game to be harmless fun but it's not for everybody and there's an option to turn off the purge body scene while still being able to perform purges in battle if you want.

However,I don't like how the bodies for Finnel and Filament look as if they belong to very young girls who haven't even developed yet(I mean they look like they have the bodies of 12 year old girls)and the purge will give close up views of their bodies while they're in their underwear.

When you perform a purge you will see some colorful screens or cute illustrations for a level 4 purge spell or giant,firey explosions for other spells and creative ideas such as cakes falling from the sky onto the enemies or a massive number of cats attacking the enemies for some spells you use.

The game's cinematic scenes are very short and aren't very exciting and look a bit dated,which I found to be disappointing.The game has some nice cinematics of high tech cities that are brightly lite up but other scenes such as the high tech military aircraft flying around looks dated and not very exciting.

I like how the environments look during the general gameplay because you'll explore underground cities build inside these long caves that have villages inside them and dirty industrial areas with little convenience stores near them.There's colorful towns near beautiful blue water and vegetation and there's high tech areas.

I think the cutscenes look very nice and polished though.

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Sound
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Just like with the other AT games,the music for this game is beautiful and it's hard to describe it,it reminds me of a combination of new-age,electronic,spiritual,celtic music.I like how the music can change suddenly when you perform a purge,such as changing to a different J-Pop song and it helps keep the atmosphere exciting.
You can select Japanese voice acting for this game too and I prefer it because it sounds more natural.

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Overall
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I love this game,it's a wonderful experience and typical of the AT series.It's charming,goofy,naughty,allows you to date girls,has the old fashioned visual novel type stuff and it's battle system really impressed me.It's story can be very emotional and if you like JRPGs,you should check out this game.AT Qoga was my most anticipated game of 2011 and it did not disappoint me.