Ar Tonelico

I got into this game series completely backwards after hearing about about AT Qoga from a very negative review by Bennett the Sage, who just declared it as one of the worst games of 2011.

I can see why: the combat requires you to land hits in time to BGM, which requires you to spend a lot of time waiting for the music to hit a crescendo. Also there's no auto-mapping, so you have to either make your own or download them to navigate the more intricate dungeons. Worst of all is the combat system that requires the female singer characters (called Reyvateils) to lose layers of clothing in order to boost attack power.

So why did I buy and play this game? Simple: the music is awesome! I bought the omake version with a soundtrack CD included.

I can't fault Sage for hating the game, although many of the issues can be mitigated (the difficulty can be adjusted and the 'purge' feature can be switched off).

The story has a lot of potential: Reyvateils are artificial beings that can chant song magic for powerful effects (they remind me of Fatimas from Five Star Stories) and are often treated as little more than war machines. Each game in the series centers around a giant tower built high over a depopulated polluted wasteland governed by an ancient but youthful looking Reyvateil called as a Reyvateil Origin. These are regarded by many as goddesses, and indeed their powers are supernatural. The characters in every game are interesting and well written.

It plays like a cross between an RPG and a dating sim, a little like the Sakura Taisen series. The hero of each game always travels with at least two Reyvateils who have very different personalities and he can interface with their minds to increase his bond with them which gives them better spells and attack power. Naturally he can choose to become romantically involved with one or the other, although other love interests are become available depending on how you play the storyline. It's meant to be played through several times to see how the story can end differently.

After finishing AT Qoga I decided to track down and play through the first two games in the series: I've played 3/4 of the way through Melody of Elemia and I think it's a much better game, the purge feature must be recent since this doesn't have it. Also it has an automap feature. It's a similar premise, but with much less fanservice.

I also have the second game but I want to play through Melody of Elemia first.

Bought all three soundtracks and they are great!

The first two games are pretty rare, but worth a look.

>>> I just played the first one for the PS2, I played a lot but didnt beat it.
Yeah, the game is pretty bad I just played it for the cute girls there..:luca:

I hear you.

Melody of Elemia is a actually a good solid game, if a bit cliched. Took me a while to figure out how to maximize combat rewards. The only problem is some monsters are immune to regular attacks by specific characters so I had to experiment to see which special techniques worked best. I found Jack's Flash Bomb and Toxic Bomb worked really well against groups of enemies.

Qoga is hard to defend. Leaving the blatant fanservice aside, it looks and plays like a PS2 game on the PS3 platform (about FFVIII equivalent). It did have some neat supporting characters. My favorites are the dimunitive scientist Katene and his (SPOILER)childhood sweetheart Mute, who looks like a football linebacker, but still likes cute things and ribbons.