1245: New Game Plus

I’m currently 90 hours or so into Ar Tonelico Qoga, an RPG that is, by all accounts, quite short (about 30-40 hours or so) under normal circumstances. And yet for some reason I’ve been inspired to not only try and get all its endings, but to literally see everything it has to offer, leading to the grossly extended playtime just mentioned.

This is not something I generally do unless I really like a game, so it’s considerable praise from me to Ar Tonelico Qoga that I’m doing this. I never went back and finished Dragon Age Origins with a different, well, origin, for example, nor did I ever go back and play through Knights of the Old Republic as a Dark Jedi rather than the poncey Light Side-type person I normally do. I liked those games, sure, but they didn’t grab me by the Feels in the same way that the Ar Tonelico series has done fairly consistently over the course of three games, despite the fact that both Dragon Age and KOTOR are objectively “better” games in terms of mechanics, production quality and all manner of other considerations.

I’ve been trying to determine the reasons why Ar Tonelico in particular has resonated with me so much that I want to seek out everything it’s hiding. Longtime readers may recall that I felt much the same way about Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2, a game which was almost universally panned by the press (though not quite as much as its predecessor) that I actually ended up loving.

The reasons why these games resonated with me so much are many. Chief among them is the fact that I genuinely adore both the setting and the characters. Neptunia’s cast is silly and full of tropetacular stereotypes, but, crucially, is well aware of what it’s doing and consistently pokes fun at itself. Ar Tonelico, meanwhile, simply has an astonishingly well-realised world with some incredible backstory and lore. And, unlike many Western RPGs that include an in-game encyclopaedia of completely irrelevant information, Ar Tonelico’s lore is woven into the tapestry of not only the individual games, but the overarching narrative that runs across the three games in the series. Each game stands by itself, but playing all three gives you a thoroughly deep understanding of the situation that humanity has found itself in, and the quirks of this strange world’s unique culture.

Aside from the narrative, setting and characters, though, another reason I have found such enjoyment in the Ar Tonelico series is that I’ve never once felt like I was grinding through content, plodding through “filler” material solely designed to artificially bump up the playtime. Granted, I artificially bumped up the playtime to a certain degree myself by deciding (foolishly) that I’d seek out each and every treasure chest in the game for the measly promise of a bronze PSN trophy, but even while doing that, I begrudged the game anything it was doing — though I must admit that after I hit level 99 with all my characters, I began to wish there was a button to turn enemy encounters off.

I’m not going to lie; not everyone will enjoy the Ar Tonelico series. If you can’t stomach big-eyed teenage anime girls and Japanese voice acting with a lot of melodramatic screaming and crying, then this series probably won’t do much for you. If you enjoy those things, though — or if you can at least look past them — then you’ll find one of the most interesting, emotionally engaging JRPG series that I’ve ever played, and one that, across its three games, has some of the richest content I think I’ve ever explored in the genre.

I’ve got five more endings to get. I’m closing in on the first of these, and the last four should be pretty straightforward to get. When I’ve seen everything the game has to offer, I’ll be genuinely sad to leave the game world behind, because not only will I be done with Ar Tonelico Qoga, I’ll be done with the series, too; not to spoil anything, but the “true” ending of the third game all but guarantees that there won’t be a fourth game.

Still, stranger things have happened, particularly in the world of Japanese games.