Ar Tonelico Melody of Elemia

[Lester C.]

Much like Final Fantasy X2 and Thousand Arms I walked out of the video game store embarrassed that I bought the game. I'm hoping that like Thousand Arms and FX2 this game will become and incredibly guilty pleasure. Does anyone else have this game and if so what do you think of it?

[Xero Kaiser]

Never even heard of it

[Lester C.]

Here is the gamespot review. Now it should be noted that gamespot is always much harder on rpg reviews then they are on other game genres.

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/artonelico/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;review

[Len Ikari145]

Meh, screw the reviews. As for me, I love the game. Granted, It's not an epic RPG nor does it really compare to the FF or Tales of series, but it's still entertaining and fun nonetheless(not to mention all the sexual innuendo makes up for it).

The plot is slow at first, gains momentum after nearly half-way through the game(I think it's half-way anyway). The primary gameplay is also kinda quirky. It basically consists of three main frontline fighters attacking while the Reyvateil(your primary spell-caster) is building up her Song spell(everytime your fighters attack, it 'inspires' the Revateil and causes her spell to increase in power and effectiveness. the power of the spell is indicated by the percentage gauge). There's potentially no limit to how powerful the spell will become.

What I most love about the game is the Dive system. Basically, you go into the core of your Reyvateil, explore her memories and emotions(you're going to encounter a lot of psychological symbolism, I'll tell you) in order for her to learn new song spells (it's also a way for you to get closer to your Reyvetail and also to develop her character). It seems to play similarly to those japanese dating sims.

As for guilty pleasure, yeah, you're probably going to feel alot of that once you start playing(especially when you Dive).

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

Guilty pleasure? Bah! Once you've played Thousand Arms, where you have to date girls and hope for smooches just to unlock powerups or new spells, or Star Ocean 2, where you get to freely manipulate the love lives of all your characters and thus affect who they hook up with at the end, or just about every Harvest Moon game ever, where half the point is getting married and having a kid, or Fable, which I shouldn't have to explain, or even FFX-2, which is cheese-cake personified...


You stop worrying about it and just play!


Dance, puppets!

Act according to my whims and for my amusement!


MWAahahahahahahaaha!


Incidentally, yes, I will be getting it.

[Len Ikari145]

Guilty pleasure? Bah! Once you've played Thousand Arms, where you have to date girls and hope for smooches just to unlock powerups or new spells, or Star Ocean 2, where you get to freely manipulate the love lives of all your characters and thus affect who they hook up with at the end, or just about every Harvest Moon game ever, where half the point is getting married and having a kid, or Fable, which I shouldn't have to explain, or even FFX-2, which is cheese-cake personified...


You stop worrying about it and just play!


Dance, puppets!

Act according to my whims and for my amusement!


MWAahahahahahahaaha!


Incidentally, yes, I will be getting it.


Fool! You forgot Growlanser: Generations!:D

But you see our point, Lester. Just play the damn game! :p

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

Fool! You forgot Growlanser: Generations!:D

But you see our point, Lester. Just play the damn game! :p

More importantly, I forgot Azure Dreams! Rhargh!


How on Earth could I forget the calvacade of teen-hormones/random dungeon generator known as Azure Dreams?!

[Lester C.]

I love all the games mentioned here. You guys rock.