A game with a difference, and a great game it is. (honest review, not a fan boy review)
The Good
-Great story
-Great characters
-Interesting game mechanics
-Good art style
-Great Hymn music (which is saying something from someone who only entirely listens to Rock music)
-Good replay value
The Bad
-Game can sometimes lag during small battle
-Relatively bad English voices (though I didn't mind them I know some do)
The Nitpicks
-Voices can spring out of nowhere for a single line of dialogue in amongst a vast piece of text based conversations
-Not enough Anime cut scenes
-Needs more variety of facial animation on in game characters (it's rather hard to get into a scene where one is scared when they have a dopy smile on their face...)
-and just one of mine, bad use of EXEC_COSMOFLIPS/ using it in a boss battle you cannot win, that was perfect boss music D: (nicely avoiding spoilers)
Ar Tonelico Qoga is the final of a trilogy (which sadly I'm jumping in the last boat of the story) where you play as a boy called Aoto. After hearing a noise outside ends up getting involved in a protection mission of a girl called Saki, a mysterious girl who uses songs for magic (these girls are called Reyvateils). As they progress the story it delves into country wide problems and wars all leading to their own versions of saving the world but of course, being the hero, you learn the proper way to do it and that's what the story unfolds as.
I'll leave it here story wise, for this is a review, not a story time and it's FAR better to play it than read it (of course if you really do there is Wiki).
For those buying this for children, well you might want to make sure. The game itself is filled with sexual innuendos and the 2 main heroines need to strip (to the minimum of essentially different underwear) to help get stronger magic and I know there is a few very self conscious parents out there. However this feature is used in a more Japanese humour way than just flat out perverseness. And the innuendos are there for the same effect.
So onto the characters. There all mostly likeable, and all completely diverse from each other. Aoto is the typical teen hero archetype in JRPGs, who essentially doesn't put a job down until it's done his sole motivation at the start of the game. Saki is the "all peace in love and war" type, who has a really girly voice to her and only accepts that there is good in all, wasn't that much of a fan of her. Finnel is a troubled girl who has problems with inhabiting one of the most deadliest assassins inside her as a persona. I'll leave it here for talking about characters, avoiding spoilers as much as possible.
Continuing with the persona thing, each of the two main heroines has embodied persona, who you unlock throughout the game (if you so wish) by going through a system called Diving. Diving is when Aoto delves into the inner psyche of the heroines and this helps giving them better song magic. Each world is different for each character, Saki's is a peaceful place with hidden problems, Finnel's is a world with all the problems on show trying to find the good. Each persona has their own personalities, Saki's for instance has a rather, slutty one who wants more to do with love and another that takes all of Saki's pain and embodies it. This can help vary characters in the game as once unlocked you can use them entirely over the main heroine if you so choose.
I've done a bit of back story and filling in some gaps of the games mechanics, time to put a review together.
The game is well paced, the story has a good fluidity to it and it can get pretty heavy on the emotional parts (if you're into that type of thing) such as choosing who should die or not doing X can cause a death etc etc. And I found that to be a great thing, it brings diversity to a, which would normally be a single storyline, typical JRPG like Final Fantasy. But unlike the older Final Fantasy's and going towards FF13, there is, basically, no open spaces to go roam about in, it's all corridors, which personally I don't mind, nothing to fill a large area then why have them? They fix this problem by having the odd labyrinth style places, which after a guided cut scene tour doing it solo you can end up losing yourself and being stuck for ages (yeah had to resort to a guide once).
Combat is engaged like other JRPGs, walk about and random encounters, however Tonelico has a wee feature of a bar at the bottom of the screen telling you roughly how many encounters you have (each places has different degenerations) left in that area. This bar goes from blue to green, and on a full encounter bar would get you into a fight. The bar will flash red later on once near empty. Once the bar is empty but, you can wonder about fight free, great for trying to get the open all chest trophies (which I will be working on whilst writing this) good to farm next to the save point, fight, rest wash rinse repeat :D .
The battles themselves are good, the mechanic of trying to time an attack with a peak to the song can provide a little objective (and for pervs an award of a girl stripping once you get a purge ready). But I found the game will sometimes decide to kick back and lag all over the place for a spell then work perfectly fine after its little tantrum. It isn't game breaking but it can destroy a nicely paced boss battle or just general pace of things. Another tiny problem is aiming, trying to hit an enemy about to cast a spell (as it stops purges) can be a bit of a hassle in crowded fights as you target the person you are hitting, and there is no camera controls (unless I've completely missed them -_-) to help to see what you're doing.
Most of the people I saw once looking into getting this (and watching part of a walk-through on youtube) is the poor English, but if you keep it on (there is a Japanese voice acting if you so wish) you'll get used to it and I didn't mind it at all. My problem with it is that it isn't consistent. By that I don't mean Aoto will speak like he normally does then all of a sudden it's like a completely different guy, I mean that during heavy text based conversations, a single line of dialogue, may it be a laugh or a small comment, will all of a sudden spring out of nowhere and well ruin whatever atmosphere was there. This is relatively rare, but I cannot help but sometimes think all of it is meant to be voice read but its broken, but so far it doesn't seem to be the case.
One thing this game is lacking is cut scenes, there are essentially 4 different types of them. The first is the text based conversations, I know it isn't a cut scene per say but they can go on for a bit and well that to me is a cut scene. Second are the CGI style ones which were very short and showed not much really, they are only a small handful in the game but I would like to maybe have seen a few more. Thirdly is the Anime, these are even rarer which is a shame because they are not bad and personally would have liked to have seen more of them. Lastly is in-game style ones, these are as common as the text ones and they do a relatively good job setting the scene.
I say "relatively good job" because it is a slight problem with graphics. The overall graphics are good and refreshing from "real life shades of grey and brown" you get in most of today's shooters but it lacks variety of in game faces. One scene where Aoto confronts Finnel about the assassin she struggles with her persona and is worried, but the game shows you a happy wavy hip girl standing there, doesn't entirely fit. There are some different faces, but they are restricted to different characters like anger and extremely happy goofy faces, which are used well, but I feel they lack overall.
This game overall is great, it really builds tension and the ability of variety of story and you can even choose which girl you want... not entirely romance but essentially be your girlfriend, which for those who played Persona (like myself) would appreciate somewhat, and doing so will give different outcomes in the story and ending as well. This helps reply value and with a new game + style added (which I stupidly missed, last boss fight again here I come) will help take some of the rather easy grinding off your second run (hell I made it to level 90 odd on my first play through, considering I lose interest in really long stories like Final Fantasy that's an achievement and the fact I beat it, all be it once on writing this, is one too). The little hick ups will not break the game, but can creep up here and there but its best to show it a specific finger and move on. You will laugh; cry, (if you're a wimp, like people at the movies) and especially enjoy your tour of Tonelico and what it has to offer. I could go on and on but I'll leave it here and any questions feel free to ask, I'm no Tonelico expert but I can perhaps provide a helping hand if you're stuck to choose this game.