Finished Chapter 3, and since the game released with it first I can technically write a review already.

Story and writing is really good and a welcome addition to the series. Gameplay can be fun, I would say I like it more than some others in the series, but the game eventually asks for your time later on. (Which is unfortunate I have to admit)

Anyway, the best part about the game is its writing and visuals, this could definitely end up as one of my favorite atelier stories. I had a thought the other day and realized the series didn't explore interesting concepts that much, with the exception being the Dusk Trilogy! So I will be looking forward how Resna's adventure will unfold!

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)

Good game to close off the subseries on, I enjoyed myself with this one and it was great seeing a nice closing arc for some of the cast.

I wish the open world was better handled, because the game is very linear and the game doesn't reward you that much for exploring, because the materials you gather are mostly the same or locations you have seen before. The game definitely would have benefited more if it was open like Firis.

Anyway, while I do really like this game, this game is even more bloated. The game gives you so many stuff and you can just completely ignore them just because Alchemy is so easily broken and you can max out everything with the bare minimum, and the problem I mentioned with the big open world. Also the Keys mechanic seems really cool at first glance, but in the end it was very underwhelming and totally random what effects you get (the random is the dumbest part). Also Alchemy wise (I consider these as alchemy skills), it is way more barebones and underwhelming compared to Ryza 2.

For the subseries as a whole, I am mixed on it, but I can't deny the quality put into Ryza 2 and 3 (I am not a fan of Ryza 1).

I was super bored with Ryza 1, characters weren't interesting other than Bos and Empel, battle system was slow and uninteresting (restricting item use in a game about crafting items is dumb) and alchemy has no depth it is literally item stacking and there is no trait combining, transfer costs, quality management or skills to make it interesting. The super slow start isn't helping either, it took way to long to get actual fast travel.

Ryza 2 was personally a huge improvement for me, while I didn't care too much about seeing the old cast again, I did enjoy the new characters quite a bit. Something felt off with the writing for me but I can't quite put my finger on it, also not a fan of Fi. The more adventure part of the story was pretty nice though. Battle system is way more fun and fast paced now, items don't have a limited use with the inclusion of building up CC in battle which was a good decision. I still think turn based works better for the series and I still prefer that but they did a good job for this one. Alchemy system still doesn't have the depth I want, but the essences did add a little bit of depth the system needed.

I think I might prefer Ryza 3 over 2 more just because I had more moments where I had fun reading the dialogue. The engine is the best it has ever been for the series but I do think system design wise it is worse than Ryza 2.

Anyway I am glad the subseries ended on a note where I enjoyed myself despite me really not liking the first game and not being a huge fan of the alchemy.

The game isn't anything special but it is so damn simple fun and addicting. As a remake? It is an insane huge improvement over the original, so many great QoL changes across the board and the cute chibi style fits.

The game is just an excellent remake that keeps the charms and quirks of the original. I am satisfied with the quality of a side-project like this. Given that the engine is made, Elie probably take a lesser amount of time if they start on it. Can't wait for more.

In the original, I had a very hard time figuring out what to do and how to unlock the events in the game. In the Remake they added mini objectives, being able to check how to exactly trigger characters events and has an agenda that shows the general events in a year.

Walking in the overworld is such a big boon, you can now freely choose the items you gather in given areas instead of relying on randomness. It is easier to track when an item is available to gather too. It made everything so much easier for me aside from a few weird exceptions.