It is hard to express all of my issues with this game.
Let me start that the majority of this game is like a huge step back from its predecessors. Ar Tonelico II is still one of my favorite games of all time, so it was hard to live up to it as a sequel. I never expected it to be perfect, I just want to have a solid game that could wrap up the trilogy.
What I got was a smaller cast which is somehow worse developed than the big one in Ar Tonelico II, and my favorite character didn't even originate from this game. Aoto is a horrible main character fit for the series, both Lyner and Croix were very understanding even if the former was a bit stupid. Aoto is the total opposite where he is kind of rude, and usually does things his way even while entering the girls’ cosmosphere. I still can’t get over the fact where a girl did her trauma dump in her cosmosphere and Aoto responded with: “Idiot, If I knew you had a traumatic past, I wouldn’t have constantly bullied you.”. Is that really you should be saying to a girl who already felt at her lowest point?
Speaking of the girls, they added a new kind of gimmick to them which in the end didn’t make them any more complex than the girls in the first game? A cool thing that Ar Tonelico II did to improve over the first game, was making the girl you didn’t pick in the split still plot relevant throughout the game. So even though I couldn’t go past their cosmosphere after a certain point, I still feel like I didn’t miss out on too much, because in the end the two main girls are going through their own personal struggle together. Now, that whole thing isn’t present in Ar Tonelico III. It just felt off that the two main girls were lacking and didn’t even try to do something like in AT2. And on the topic of reyvateils, holy shit did they butcher the whole gameplay system around them. In battle you just charge one song, you don’t get any new songs and you just spend the whole fight building this one song just to one-shot everything. No strategy of healing to a Healing Song if your party is low (healing comes from a regen of the singular song you are charging), or no buffs etc.
Speaking of the battle system, I will keep it short. It is once again, a straight up downgrade from both the first two games. I already talked about the songs, but the combat from the vanguards are not any better either. It is a super dumbed down version of Tales of combat with a weird “rhythm” like mechanic and no resemblance of combos, it never felt satisfying and didn’t evolve how the game could use its reyvateils in any way.
But wait, what about the plot? Let me tell you that the entire game is back loaded. On top of everything just happening fast in this game, it just doesn’t feel satisfying most of the time. Things just do not get built up well, and the moments are over before you realize. This game has plenty of Hymns, but for some reason, 90% of them are all in the LAST STRETCH OF THE GAME. They just happen at a fast and constant pace and songs like COSMOFLIPS didn’t feel earned when played despite the song being amazing. It doesn’t apply to all of the songs, but the fact that it happened annoys me. I never had this problem in the other two games.
I think the soundtrack is pretty nice, a bit of a unique choice as it is more of a silly style than the others though. I think it is very cool that the normal battle theme has a LOT of variations and I have to give the game huge credits for managing to make it work. But it is very unfortunate that the game somehow doesn’t have boss themes? The first game had a stupidly amount of boss themes, which made things fresh. The sequel had technically two, one for the main story and the other one for IPD battles, but despite the former getting repetitive at least you felt the battle was different. Ar Tonelico III does not, which I would be fine with, but with the fact most of the hymns were back loaded at the final part of the game annoyed me.
The game didn’t have to be better than Ar Tonelico II, but it makes me very sad and annoyed that it ended up as something that left me empty. The game had some cool stuff and I like a lot of the concepts, but it is hard to look back at it from a good light. Most of my enjoyment came from the stuff and characters that were specifically set up in Ar Tonelico II.
If you have a PS3 and a copy (emulator is unplayable), go ahead and try it for yourself. Maybe you will get more out of it than I did, but if you can’t acquire those things let me tell you that you didn’t miss much if you fully enjoyed your time with Ar Tonelico II. Go continue the series with Ciel Nosurge by watching a youtube playlist of that one followed up by Ar Nosurge (which you can actually emulate)
Let me start that the majority of this game is like a huge step back from its predecessors. Ar Tonelico II is still one of my favorite games of all time, so it was hard to live up to it as a sequel. I never expected it to be perfect, I just want to have a solid game that could wrap up the trilogy.
What I got was a smaller cast which is somehow worse developed than the big one in Ar Tonelico II, and my favorite character didn't even originate from this game. Aoto is a horrible main character fit for the series, both Lyner and Croix were very understanding even if the former was a bit stupid. Aoto is the total opposite where he is kind of rude, and usually does things his way even while entering the girls’ cosmosphere. I still can’t get over the fact where a girl did her trauma dump in her cosmosphere and Aoto responded with: “Idiot, If I knew you had a traumatic past, I wouldn’t have constantly bullied you.”. Is that really you should be saying to a girl who already felt at her lowest point?
Speaking of the girls, they added a new kind of gimmick to them which in the end didn’t make them any more complex than the girls in the first game? A cool thing that Ar Tonelico II did to improve over the first game, was making the girl you didn’t pick in the split still plot relevant throughout the game. So even though I couldn’t go past their cosmosphere after a certain point, I still feel like I didn’t miss out on too much, because in the end the two main girls are going through their own personal struggle together. Now, that whole thing isn’t present in Ar Tonelico III. It just felt off that the two main girls were lacking and didn’t even try to do something like in AT2. And on the topic of reyvateils, holy shit did they butcher the whole gameplay system around them. In battle you just charge one song, you don’t get any new songs and you just spend the whole fight building this one song just to one-shot everything. No strategy of healing to a Healing Song if your party is low (healing comes from a regen of the singular song you are charging), or no buffs etc.
Speaking of the battle system, I will keep it short. It is once again, a straight up downgrade from both the first two games. I already talked about the songs, but the combat from the vanguards are not any better either. It is a super dumbed down version of Tales of combat with a weird “rhythm” like mechanic and no resemblance of combos, it never felt satisfying and didn’t evolve how the game could use its reyvateils in any way.
But wait, what about the plot? Let me tell you that the entire game is back loaded. On top of everything just happening fast in this game, it just doesn’t feel satisfying most of the time. Things just do not get built up well, and the moments are over before you realize. This game has plenty of Hymns, but for some reason, 90% of them are all in the LAST STRETCH OF THE GAME. They just happen at a fast and constant pace and songs like COSMOFLIPS didn’t feel earned when played despite the song being amazing. It doesn’t apply to all of the songs, but the fact that it happened annoys me. I never had this problem in the other two games.
I think the soundtrack is pretty nice, a bit of a unique choice as it is more of a silly style than the others though. I think it is very cool that the normal battle theme has a LOT of variations and I have to give the game huge credits for managing to make it work. But it is very unfortunate that the game somehow doesn’t have boss themes? The first game had a stupidly amount of boss themes, which made things fresh. The sequel had technically two, one for the main story and the other one for IPD battles, but despite the former getting repetitive at least you felt the battle was different. Ar Tonelico III does not, which I would be fine with, but with the fact most of the hymns were back loaded at the final part of the game annoyed me.
The game didn’t have to be better than Ar Tonelico II, but it makes me very sad and annoyed that it ended up as something that left me empty. The game had some cool stuff and I like a lot of the concepts, but it is hard to look back at it from a good light. Most of my enjoyment came from the stuff and characters that were specifically set up in Ar Tonelico II.
If you have a PS3 and a copy (emulator is unplayable), go ahead and try it for yourself. Maybe you will get more out of it than I did, but if you can’t acquire those things let me tell you that you didn’t miss much if you fully enjoyed your time with Ar Tonelico II. Go continue the series with Ciel Nosurge by watching a youtube playlist of that one followed up by Ar Nosurge (which you can actually emulate)