Anonymous Tipster said:
I'm genuinely curious, how old are some of you guys who are enjoying the game? I don't mean this in a negative way, I just know my tastes in RPGs was very different when I was 16. I'd like to compare notes, so to speak.
I played the first Ar Tonelico and wanted to like it (Any game that is sprite-based is an instant playthrough) but I couldn't get into it. I'm not sure how to articulate what it was about it, but everything about it just felt poor quality. The writing, the UI, the sprites, the works. Admittedly, I didn't get extremely far, so maybe the story picked up.
Anyway, I don't want to turn this into bashing the first game (I did that once, and was rightfully jumped on) but I just wanted to get across that I genuinely wanted to like the first game.
I skipped the second, and I haven't been particularly impressed with what I've seen of this one-- but I want to be. What would you guys say is the biggest selling point of this game?
Wasn't gonna bother posting this in the thread since it'll just get devoured. But what the hell. Let's stir.
AT1 is actually a pretty alright game. Combat is simple and fairly easy once you figure out how it works, but it's fun to set up the dominoes so to speak and watch them fall. Slow to start, dialog is pretty insipid, but once it starts to get knee deep up it's own ass as far as the mythology is concerned it's kind of neat. Soundtrack for event battles and certain areas is incredible, really makes some parts stick with you. And there are some choices that branch off the story in different directions depending on what you do.
AT2 was a localization nightmare. Non voiced dialog was atrociously edited, barely made any sense in that kind of honey bee inn FF7 kind of way. Half the game that was supposed to be voiced was not, and they removed the corresponding Japanese voices where they didn't dub the English, it also has some game breaking bugs not in the JP version. If you use HD loader this is correctable, assuming you want to hear the Japanese dialog and not the dub. Combat is a lot more "intensive" as it's now timing based. Depending on your love / hate for that kind of thing, it will style your flavor or frustrate you to no end.
AT3 seems more in line with AT1 localization wise (this is good). I'm not very far, but the combat seems overly simplistic. It's now action based, you have one attack button which you mash in tune with the EKG at the bottom of the screen. Doing so levels up your stripometer thingy and you hold a button and shake to charge whatever spell you're charging to a higher level, losing a layer of clothing in the process. There is a toggle-able animation for this that only shows up randomly even when it's on. The men lose clothes when they do super moves too, so I guess it's equal opportunity.
All 3 games are full or pandery nonsense, 1 had risque costumes that showed up during conversations, 2 had you putting characters in the bath together to power them up in addition to the costumes. 3 seems to have gone a step further and added losing layers of the aforementioned costumes. Your tolerance for this kind of thing will directly impact your ability to appreciate everything else.
Is it worth it? It's not nearly as "amazing" as the crazy brigade would have you believe, but if you're still interested play through the first one in full (since you already have it) and come back for more if you liked the direction that one took. The sequels definitely turn up the pandering several notches beyond the first though, so keep that in mind too.
AniHawk said:
so overall, the localization effort a significant improvement over at2?
It's on par with their other recent offerings as far as I can tell.