Right off the bat most players will see major differences between this game and other RPGs of this generation. First, the game is almost completely 2D. Secondly, the battle system is extremely different. There are four man teams, in a diamond-like formation with the three in front being fighters, and the one in back is your magic user. Here is where the game really differs from most other RPGs. As soon as a fight starts, the magic user, called a Reyvateil goes first. Now the Reyvateil uses singing for her power. Once the song starts, it begins to power up, constantly draining your magic points. The player can press the triangle button at any time to stop the battle and activate the spell. If your magic points run out, the spell falls apart and cannot be used. Once the spell is released, if you do not start singing another song, your magic points are restored over time. Certain creatures can specifically target the Reyvateil in your party, if this happens, the knight with her must guard her. Upon a successful guard, the knight might have the opportunity to counter attack and a button will appear on screen and the player must press it before time runs out.

New, and more powerful magic is created when the knight who is protecting the Reyvateil dives into her mind and helps her create new songs. Usually this entails the Reyvateil overcoming an obstacle, with the help of the knight. For example, there is a village in the mind of one of the Reyvateils in the game. This village keeps getting burned down and all of the people in it blame her. She creates a new song to protect the village, and once this happens, the new song becomes available in the real world. But be careful, you must have enough DP, or Dive Points, which are obtained in battle, in order to make this happen. The characters must also harmonize with their Reyvateil. During battle, there is a bar at the bottom of the screen, on the left is a blue bar representing the fighters in the group, on the right a purple bar representing the Reyvateil. When the two bars meet, your harmonize level goes up during the fight, giving you small bonuses during the remainder of the fight.

Equipment is done a little bit differently in Ar Tonelico than in others of its type. A player can upgrade equipment by using Gramsythe crystals, which are also found either in shops or by defeating enemies. Most weapons and armor have upgrade slots on them, and there is a max of four, each with levels one through four. Each upgrade slot can be equipped with one crystal of it’s own level or lower. For example, a level 3 upgrade slot can use a level one through three crystal, but a level one upgrade slot cannot use a level 3 crystal. And when equipment is exchanged, the crystals are automatically moved into the new equipment. This is a big relief since everyone can equip three items, which means a player might be moving as much as 48 crystals if new equipment was purchased for all four characters in your party.

New items, armor and weapons, can also be forged using a melding process known as grathmelding. In order to accomplish this however, not only must the correct ingredients be gathered, but a recipe card must be found or bought as well. Unlike Dragon Quest VIII, a player cannot just attempt to mix random items in your inventory.

As mentioned earlier, most of the game is in 2D and the character models and enemy models are both sprites. The backgrounds are lush and colorful, however some of the backgrounds are small, so moving in large dungeons can be a pain with the constant loading of new backgrounds. The overworld is in 3D, and is navigated much like Grandia. The name of a location appears over the actual place on the map, the player presses a direction on the D-pad to select a specific location and certain areas are not available to the player until certain story events occur. Unfortunately, this means that exploring is extremely limited. The players cannot just go wandering into any area they want to, they must be told where the place is before being able to go there. This brings me to one of my biggest problems with the game. Towns are done much the same way, upon first arriving at the city, the player is shown a portrait of what the city looks like. A menu is then displayed somewhere on the screen, and a location is chosen from the menu. With some exceptions, you cannot just freely walk around the city, explore, or talk to people.

The biggest drawback of Ar Tonelico seems to be loading. From the start, the game stutters a lot. Starting a spell seems to be the biggest factor and when a new spell is selected, the game pauses for a quick moment and then continues and shows the spell’s start. Also, when new costumes are unlocked for your Reyvateil, the game shows her in the original costume, and loads the new costume. This also adds to the load times of battles, however overall, they are still very short compared to most games. The stuttering also happens even in just wandering around and talking to people, going into your menu, just doing normal things that anyone would do within the game.

Most anime fans will be pleased to know that both Japanese and English voice acting can be selected. The biggest problem with this is that both voices are not particularly good, and all of the anime cutscenes are spoken in English no matter what is selected. However the voice acting can be turned off, so the only voices that are heard are ones in battle and in the cutscenes.

With all of the drawbacks, Ar Tonelico still does a reasonable job of entertaining. The battle system is a refreshing twist on something that has been done for the same way for many past RPGs, and diving into your Reyvateil makes for reasonable character development. Once a player looks past some of the drawbacks of the game, it turns into a fun, different RPG experience.