JRPG Review: Ar nosurge

[Andromeda]

To start off things, Ar nosurge is the prequel to Ar Tonelico and crossover with Ciel nosurge. Ar Tonelico is a JRPG series from Gust that was released on the PS2 and PS3 with English localization. While Ciel nosurge is an episodic life simulation released by Gust for the PS Vita with only a Japanese release. Ar nosurge is also a direct sequel to Ciel nosurge. With that framing, you can understand how a little complicated Ar nosurge is.

If you go into Ar nosurge informed on merely this level, the game will seem a little overwhelming to take on. Reading around on the internet people will insist that Ciel nosurge is required reading before you even begin playing Ar nosurge. People playing it have claimed that it is bad without Ciel nosurge’s story to frame it. I, however, will tell you that they are all wrong.

I haven’t played Ciel nosurge, though I have played all three Ar Tonelico games, and understanding the characters and story was easy. Admittedly, if you have read or played Ciel nosurge you will know all of the characters, their motivations, their intentions and history from the start, but Ar nosurge does a fine job of explaining all of these details in ways that provide for great plot reveals. In a way, I would almost say that playing Ciel nosurge could ruin your enjoyment of the story of Ar nosurge since you’re already clued into so many of the things happening that things risk stopping being compelling. It could become a case of just playing to see what you already knew. I will concede that there is likely additional character building moments for the side characters in Ciel nosurge that will give greater depth and attachment to them, but for the main story and what’s going on you can play without fear, don’t listen to the internet’s remarks on Ciel nosurge as mandatory reading.

And to conclude, Ar Tonelico does also connect and is connected through Ar nosurge, however, the ties to Ar Tonelico are even less than that of Ciel nosurge. Ar Tonelico fans, namely Ar Tonelico 1 fans will be treated to a few things and characters that will be a treat for them, but you don’t need to have played them to feel like you’re missing out on things. The Ar Tonelico ties though are left very much unexplained though since their importance to the plot is very small. So unlike Ciel nosurge, you’ll be left with some questions if you don’t know about Ar Tonelico, but they aren’t serious ones. You’ll probably just feel like you are meant to know who they are, but don’t.

Answering that, let’s dig into the story for Ar nosurge. Like I said before, this is a weird game that is both crossover and sequel and prequel. So it has a lot of stretching. Most importantly, it is a direct sequel to Ciel nosurge. While on the surface Ciel nosurge might seem like a slice of life game, there is a very deadly story involved. The end of their world is coming and they’re trying to save their race. Ar nosurge picks up after that failed and the remains of the species are on a colony ship of sorts looking for a new world. This is thousands of years forward in time from Ciel nosurge.

The problem is that the last bastion of humanity is currently being threatened by an overwhelming force known as the Sharl. The Sharl have been attacking and kidnapping humans. After this started happening there was a divide among the people. Some wanted co-existence and others wanted to fight. So humanity split into two, those that wanted co-existence left the last home of humanity, Felion. And now those left in Felion are getting reduced in numbers day by day.

There is a lot happening in Ar nosurge, a lot of tied to what happened in Ciel nosurge. There were a lot of mistakes made then that the people in Ar nosurge are paying for now. And you’ll learn about those mistakes and how bitter it has made some characters. Barring Earthes, all of primary cast of Ar nuosurge are returning characters from Ciel nosurge, as they were all put into stasis. Due to the problems now, they were waked to solve them.

The one thing Ar nosurge has going for it is a really complicated story. It can be a little hard to follow at times, but if you keep paying attention and playing all of it will eventually make sense. Early on, you’re sort of expected to just accept your reality and move forward not really understanding a lot, sort like you’re supposed to know what’s going on. But things will be explained. All motives are explained, all plot threads are answered, and all things from Ciel nosurge are resolved. Ar nosurge does well to finish off the countless threads that was started and left largely unresolved by Ciel nosurge.

There was only one weird plot point where things jump forward two years and they tell you, but according to the timeline it didn’t really make any sense. Otherwise, everything is fine.

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Now I will get to the rest of the game, it will be a little complicated as well. For those that have read my Ar Tonelico 2 review will know I spent a lot of time explaining the combat. Ar Tonelico 2 is still one of my favorite JRPGs from the PS2 and my favorite combat system from that generation. So Ar nosurge had quite a lot to live up to, especially after I was sorely disappointed with the regressive design of Ar Tonelico 3’s combat.

So I was pleased to see that Ar nosurge largely looked at Ar Tonelico 2 for inspiration. While the combat is not a carbon copy of 2, Ar nosurge is wonderful and fluid combat system that rewards planning and strategy over mindless attacking. This was at the core of 2 as well. And that is what made the system great and really elevates Ar nosurge combat to both one of the biggest surprises of the generation and once again one of my favorite combat systems of the PS3 with only Lightning Returns being a challenger. And in the end, I think I would still give it to Ar nosurge.

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To explain the combat, Ar nosurge will only have two combatants ever. There are four main characters and I’ll get more to that point later, but needless to say you will only have two combatants. The way combat works is a lot like Ar Tonelico 2. You have the guardian and the songstress. The songstress can’t attack directly or defend herself, while the guardian can attack directly and is needed to protect the songstress. Like 2 as well, there is an attack and defense phase. During the attack phase, unlike before now there are certain amount of actions you can take, so it is no longer timed giving you more time to think about your actions. But once you’re actions are all gone you go into the defense phase.

Like before, the defense phase is a rhythm based timing event. The enemies will attack and you need to defend. However, unlike before, you have limited number of defends you can take, though each defense will last for several seconds. So you have a margin of error.

The attack and defense phases are closely tied together. You need to take out the attacking enemies to reducing the number of attacks that happen in the defense phase so you’re able to defend against each one of them. Fail and the songstress will be hit directly.

To aid in this, the attacking enemies will be marked, not all enemies will attack in the defense phase. So your main task is to prioritize the attack enemies. An attacking enemy need not be killed, all you need to do is interrupt their action and they won’t attack, thus saving your songstress and your need to defend.

However, it is not so simple, there are three rows and columns for the enemies to be placed on, in other words a 3x3 grid. If an attacking enemy is behind another enemy they can’t be hit, though there are moves later in the game that allow for you to do that or to even switch enemy positions adding to the strategy. So you may be forced to kill through enemies to reach the one you need.

Unlike the other game, all actions you make will fuel the song. The emotion requests part of combat no longer exists. But your performance in combat will grant bigger bonuses. So it is to your advantage to clear enemies quickly and smartly.

However, there is even more to combat than just that. The ultimate goal in the attack phase is to kill or interrupt all actions by the enemy. If you do this, you skip the defense phase and move back into the attack phase with a restored set of attacks. This is when good planning comes to help. The best player will never need to defend because they are always able to deal with the enemies before defense is needed. Early game this won’t always be possible, but as you gain more skills and customize yourself more it gets very easy if not overpowering. The only time this really can’t happen is during boss fights as I was never really able to interrupt all attacks, but usually I could interrupt some attacks. Bosses just tend to cue up multiple attacks, late game enemies can as well.

There are other systems involved in combat as well like the harmoburst and the boost meter and boost attacks, but they all fall under the same rules. The boost meter increases from actions you make, the stronger your connection and growth with the songstress the more boost you can have and eventually the harmoburst. Boost moves uses only boost, have no limit on count, and have a completely different set of actions and rules allowing them to break some established ones. They are powerful and best used at the rest time to their fullest effect. Late game you’ll need them to keep the defense phase away.

The last thing for combat, yeah I’ve been going on for a while about combat, it’s that involved. This is very similar, but very unusual for any RPG you’ve ever played. Which is why I actually love it a ton. Like other Ar Tonelico games, you have both an encounter meter and an encounter amount. The color of the meter represents the percentage of getting into an encounter while the amount of the meter remaining tells you how many encounters are left until the area is cleared and you are free to explore without any more enemies.

Ar nosurge does this similarly, but with one major change. They open with telling you how many encounters there are as a value. So you know exactly what it is representing. But that’s not the major change. The real change is that in combat you face all enemies at once as it were. The way it works is that each “encounter” is treated like a wave by the game. Defeat the wave and one encounter is gone, but defeating the wave moves you to the next wave. So you can literally burn through all of the waves or “encounters” in an single encounter if you wish. There is even a meter on screen in combat that displays the next eight or so waves and the layout on the grid of them and if there are any threatening ones.

However, this is where song magic comes in. It is vastly changed from Ar Tonelico. Before, if you used it and the enemies were not dead you could start a new one. That’s not the case here. Once you use your song the battle is over regardless of your progress. All progress made is then converted into your reward, exp, money, items, etc. You are ranked on your work as well, typically the amount of enemies killed and the times you had to defend.

The end goal of combat is to charge up your song magic enough and then unleash it. Unlike normal attacks from the guardian, song magic will affect all enemies in all waves. It starts on the wave you’re currently on dealing damage and if any damage remains after enemies are killed it moves to the next wave. This repeats until all damage is spent and then combat is over. So the ultimate goal is to take out as many waves as possible with your song magic. It is completely possible to take out everything in one go if you’re charged up enough. Though it gets harder late game with 50 waves.

But that is combat.

Moving on to the characters ties into everything else. I explained some of the things before, but there are four main characters, playable characters. You will play Delta and Casty and Ion and Earthes. They are paired up and most times they are playing in different parts of the story and area of the game. So you have a dual protagonist system, but it is one of the most unusual and unique uses of the dual protagonist system I have ever played in a game, period. If I could I would explain it, but it would spoil the surprise since it is actually plot related, it’s rather crazy, but you just have to play it to believe it.

Delta is the guardian for Casty, and Earthes is the guardian for Ion. If you’ve seen screenshots or art for Ciel nosurge you’ve likely seen Ion. Delta made a mistake he doesn’t remember that threatened all of Felion, so he was fired from his role as a soldier and runs a failing restaurant. However, he gets a call and sent with Casty to save Felion. Ion is a really complicated matter, but the simple explanation is that she is a person from a different dimension that was forcibly transported into the world in the hopes of saving it, Ciel nosurge story, that failed. So now she’s dealing with what she failed to do and the face that she was kidnapped against her will. Earthes is a sentient machine that she created to protect her.

Also to explain, Casty and Ion are songstresses to pick an easy to understand terms. They are similar, but not like the ones in Ar Tonelico. Unlike the ones in Ar Tonelico which are more like living programs in human bodies, the ones here used to be human, but underwent a process to allow them to do song magic. The down side, they stopped aging when the process happened. So Casty and especially Nay are older than they look. Ion is a special case and doesn’t fall under the same rules. It’s complicated.

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However, this is not an Ar game if it doesn’t get more complicated and you don’t do some diving. The dive system is in Ar nosurge like Ar Tonelico. Casty and Ion are just as equally repressed and screwed up mentally as any of the heroines you know from the past games. So it is up to you explore their minds and help them confront their demons, insecurities and weaknesses. The dives in Ar nosurge actually are more difficult to follow at times than past ones in other games. I also found that you’re more prone to failure and they aren’t as easy to clear, which I found a pleasant surprise. I always found the ones in Ar Tonelico to be a little too easy. There is also reasons to replay them, which was never an option or need before.

Moving on, they are also more closely tied to the side characters, so you actually learn a lot about the side characters and not just the main characters, making them even more useful for deepening the entire cast. Despite being harder to follow at times, they are still one of the best parts of the game as always. But the story this time is no slouch and I would argue it is probably the best story from the entire series.

The main gameplay point to diving into the girls is that you gain new songs and materials. In combat, unlike before you can only use a song once in combat before combat is over. Additionally, songs that are not the starting song have cooldowns. So you may not be able to use the more powerful songs back to back in combat. So it is important to have a good array at your disposal.

However, now that I can talk about it, there is one last element to put into combat and the songs that ties back to the diving. Which I never fully explained diving. Diving is the dating sim part of the game. You’re there to help the girls over come their problems. But it is done through choices you make. The choices that you make have a weight on their personality. While this doesn’t impact the story, it does impact the battle.

See when you enter into diving you will see a large grid with two axis labeled for two types of personalities. Introvert or extrovert and sadist or masochist. And based on the answers you give in the diving change these values. So yes, you can make the girls sadistic or masochistic based on how you answer and introverted or extroverted. And this ties into the songs. Each song’s power ties to different personalities. So some songs will become more powerful based on the strength of their personality and what they have. It also will change their in combat dialogue as well.

It’s always been a deep game.

Now we get to the other rewards from diving. You get songs, but you also get crystals from certain events. Which means the bathing customization is back! It wouldn’t be an Ar game without bathing customization. However, the guys get involved this time! The way it works is that you can insert the crystals you earned from diving into the girl or guy, they will tell you which they are meant for. These crystals provide passive stat buffs to your characters for combat. There are five total locations on the body that you can insert crystals in, but you have to grow deeper with your girls in order to reach that.

This is where the conversation system comes back. Through the world and through story events, you’ll get conversation topics. When you first do the baths, both girls admit to being very nervous about this. So they say talking may help to ease their tension. So conversations open first, there are tiers of conversations and each links to a different part of the body opening up.

This only speaks to one side of the customization though, the other is naturally the equipment. Which I would normally ignore as not being necessary to talk about. However, you get a lot more equipment slots and the impact equipment actually has is significant beyond your standard HP, defense things. You can’t equip the same item, so there is no stacking of your overpowering items for one. And there is large amount items to pick between and it is not immediately clear which you want and don’t want. So experimenting is good. And you may find early game items are the best for your style. You’ll really want to moving things around to fit into your play style. It is definitely meant to adjust to you and it’s not about the best stats, is how other RPGs handle it. This is the only reason I bring it up, because it is different and important enough to talk about.

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Now how you get the gear, this is probably one of the silliest, oddest, entertaining, yet simplistic things in the whole game. The crafting system. You can naturally buy gear, but the better stuff is made not bought, though there are some really good items until you can make the better stuff. The crafting system like past Ar is not really complex. This is a game from Gust, the makers of the Atelier series, which is known for deep and sometimes overly complicated crafting systems. No so for the Ar games. They are simple get materials, slap together and you have what you asked for. Though here it is a little different. It is so simple and silly, but I love it so much. Once you’ve confirmed your item, you dance to make it! Yes, you dance. The two characters you’re playing currently and the third party you got the recipe from do a dance. There are several crafting types and each has a different dance and song with background image. So you get to see a rather reluctant and sort of unenthusiastic Delta dance along aside the really happy and cute looking Nay. It’s silly and in the end is completely meaningless, but it is so fun. I watched most of them to their end every time because they are really catchy songs.

Getting to the last thing, the visuals, it is a Gust game and an Ar game, it’s never been about the visuals. The dating sim game part using standard still images with the characters overlaid in front. The environments are fixed cameras that are good looking, but not necessarily amazing. And the cities are strange architecture in stills that you point and click to navigate. It is simple, but works for exactly their needs. The characters all look good and details, though the Atelier Dusk series feels a little better at times. It’s a budget company, but it still looks okay.

And now we get to the uniqueness and quirkiness, the game. Really, if you’ve read my Ar Tonelico 2 review you probably knew what you’re getting into. I’m going to give the similar advice. If there is one super ultra niche JRPG you play this year or only for the PS3 Ar nosurge is the must have game to play. It is weird, silly, will blow your mind and yes some of the characters are a little on the young side for the outfits they wear. It is not like Ar Tonelico 2 with sexual innuendoes thinly veiled toss left right and center. It is actually a little better managed for that. It is still there though, the sexual content and implications still remain just not as heavy handed.

Reason to play:

It’s Ar nosurge, but seriously this is a game that begs to be played. There will not be another game like it to come again. And the unfortunate thing is that the greatest thing about the game is so important to the plot that I don’t want to spoil it. But it is something that will leave you jaw dropped asking yourself did the game just do that. Is it seriously doing that, is it going there? Because if it is going there that’s awesome! It is awesome. If you want to know what I’m talking about PM me and I’ll answer in the simplest way not to ruin the enjoyment, but it is one of the most uniquely crafted stories and designed games I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing. Ar nosurge is the worthy successor to the Ar series and leads wonderfully into Ar Tonelico bridging the two worlds together.

A final note, I would be remiss to not mention it. The translation for the game is a little on the poor side, not too much unlike Ar Tonelico 2 in that respect. It’s not unenjoyable, but I did notice a number of errors while playing. It is about the only part that is disappointing about the game.

Story – 9.5/10 – Both the story and the characters are immensely detailed and complex. There are twists and turns, reveals and mind blowing events. It’ll leave you wanting to keep coming back. The story is so important though this is not a play an hour and drop or play a bit and pick up a month later. You need to play it through with very few breaks or you will be completely lost. And the use of the dual protagonist system is excellently handled.
Combat System – 9.5/10 – A return to form, this is the worthy successor to the immensely satisfying and rewarding combat of Ar Tonelico 2. You will find nothing like this out there.
Customization - 7/10 – There are a lot of options and you get to push and pull things around to your heart’s content to craft things the way you want to play. It is deeper than other base RPGs, though not as deep as others. But it completely works for what you need.
Graphics - 7/10 – Visually, it is about the weakest part of the game, translation aside, but it still looks beautiful. The characters are well crafted and the world is fantastical and strange.
Characters – 9.5/10 – The twist and turns you will face with all the characters really make them something you keep wanting to dive to learn more. They are complex, frail people that are afraid and insecure, but still strong.
Uniqueness/Quirkiness – 9.5/10 – The game itself is going to be quirky, but the best part is the biggest surprise I had out of my gaming career. It is worth playing for the revealing moment alone. Though admittedly, this is going to be game that will push people away with its willingness for sexualization of some characters.

Overall – 9.5/10 (Not an average)