Let’s Blog: Ar Tonelico III – #1: Cake and Death

Since I haven’t managed to do anything useful with this website, I’m going to instead keep a blog of my attempt to play the newly-released Ar Tonelico III in the original Japanese with a middling level of fluency. Hopefully a few people will enjoy reading this, though I would recommend not putting too much faith in my interpretation of the story. I won’t be holding back on spoilers, so don’t read further if you fear them (of course, you’ll be waiting a year or more for a translation of dubious quality from NISA…)

I cannot take screen captures with my PS3, so I’ll instead be capturing them from the AT3 play videos on Nico Nico Douga.

Let’s get started!

Project A.T. Presents

Long ago, “songs” were spoken of as a thing of rare power.

People believed that “songs” were the hand of the Mother who enveloped the world, and that they would continue being sung forever.

But, it is different now.

In this small world, everyone has forgotten how to sing.

The ancient words have all been lost.

And, when the songs were forgotten, this world also lost their gods.

In this world where the sea and sky continue without end,

a boy was born.

He shall meet the only girl who continues to sing,

and though nobody may understand now,

for that person’s sake…

Though we meet Aoto briefly beforehand, like AT2, the first important scene in the game consists of unknown people talking over a black background -

Man: “Ugh… is this as far as I go…?”

Woman: “Kiraha-san! Pull yourself together!”

Man: “Just run!”

Woman 2: “Don’t even try! This is the end…”

The sound of a blast, and then the spotlight returns to Aoto, who wakes up complaining of some noise outside. You gain player control, but can’t do much except jump around (jumping is back!) and leave the room.

Outside, a blonde woman in armor is backed up against the wall of a building, next to an fallen man; she is surrounded by a muscular woman and her two companions. “Is it the Clusternia military?!” says Aoto. “They’ve already killed somebody! If I don’t help…!”

Aoto runs by the blonde’s side and demands to know who the others are. If they’re Clusternia military, what are they doing on the Great Fang? The usual response- “This doesn’t concern you! Get lost!” Aoto retorts: “Even if you’re a huge man, who are you to say such things?!”

“Who the hell are you calling a man?!”

Things look to be heading to a brawl. Aoto asks the blonde if she’s capable of fighting. She is, but she asks him to promise one thing… “Afterwards, please take care of this girl.” “Which girl?” “You’ll understand soon.”

Cue combat tutorial.

In a refreshing change (perhaps), hard mode is really hard in AT3. As in, folks on GameFAQS have calculated that on a fresh game this very first enemy takes 95 hits to defeat, and will kill you in four. After losing several times, I decided to play on normal difficulty instead; hard is clearly intended for New Game+ only.

Other than the brutal hard mode, it’s a fairly standard ‘hit the enemy before they hit you’ ARPG system thus far, since one has no Reyvateil yet. Even though the blonde said she was still able to fight, she doesn’t join you in battle.

The normal difficulty battle was fairly easy to win.

After winning, Aoto makes some trash talk about how even though the enemy is a Reyvateil she has no magic. She replies “Don’t get cocky! C’mere and I’ll kick your ass with magic!”, but her companions are worried about the collateral damage that might result and drag her away forcibly.

Suddenly, the blonde begins emanating pink light, and transforms into a completely different girl… fainting in the meantime. Aoto doesn’t have much time to ruminate on this before her male companion begins to stir. He’s pretty close to death, though, and can’t do more than give his name as Kiraha and tell Aoto to “take care of Saki. The Clusternia military is…”

Kiraha presses a pendant into Aoto’s hand. “It’s the same as the one my father wore… Why…!?” he thinks. Kiraha says “Please… Give this to my son…” Aoto replies “Son…? Hey, who is your son?!”, but Kiraha has expired, just as Saki regains consciousness. Without having a chance to consider the ramifications of this event for his own parentage, he asks her if she’s okay.

Disoriented, Saki apparently doesn’t remember anything that transpired earlier and doesn’t know who he is. After seeing the dead Kiraha nearby, she bursts into tears. Aoto asks who Kiraha was, and Saki says that he was a person who always protected her. She continues weeping as Aoto is at a loss how to comfort her. Suddenly, a shout of “Saki-chan!” comes from afar. Two men arrive, whom she seems to recognize, and tell her to run away as the Clusternia military is still looking for her. They then notice Kiraha, and are shocked by his death.

After sorting things out, Aoto tells them he’ll take care of Saki, and they tell him to run to the bus terminal and catch the next Airbus with her. It’s free roaming time again. The town isn’t very interesting, though; you can stay at the inn and recover HP or save, but the lone shopkeeper won’t sell you anything yet. The only place to go is the bus terminal.

As they are waiting there, Tatsumi arrives. Evidently he and Aoto are already well acquainted. Tatsumi asks whether Saki’s his girlfriend. After denying it, he attempts to introduce them to each other, but Saki is not in the mood to do much more than repeat his name. Aoto explains that Tatsumi is a V-Board player who came to live in this village a month ago.

Aoto asks when the bus is coming, but Tatsumi doesn’t know. He wonders why they’re in such a hurry, and Aoto says “we’re in trouble.” As Tatsumi begins to ask what he means by trouble, they’re discovered by the Clusternia military. They order Aoto to hand Saki over. Aoto refuses, even as he’s surrounded by a large number of Reyvateils…

Time for another battle. But this time Tatsumi is here to help. He’s obliged to Aoto, as Aoto showed him some good V-Board spots. Other party members in battle are controlled by an AI (you can select who you’d like to control in the formation,) but this one was no more difficult than the last.

After defeating two of the Reyvateils, the remaining two threaten Aoto with holding the village collectively responsible if he continues to resist. A small robot called a Meka also arrives to reinforce them. Aoto is unfazed, and Saki suddenly speaks up, saying that she’ll help them fight as a Reyvateil.

The battle system starts to mix things up a little here. Reyvateils are surrounded by a ‘Heroine Field’ that heals allies’ HP when they are nearby; this is near useless, though, since you won’t spend a lot of time near them. They’re also vulnerable to enemy attacks and prone to being targeted (my Saki died during this battle and I didn’t get a chance to see if she can cast any spells yet. Battlefield awareness is important! Also, those Meka enemies are a real pain to kill without a Reyvateil…)

After the second battle, even more reinforcements arrive, and Tatsumi remarks the situation isn’t looking good. Saki becomes flustered, apologizing for causing the two of them trouble. She begs the two of them to escape and leave her to deal with them. Aoto asks her what she plans to do by herself, and she answers, “Pray.”

Saki clasps her hands together, shouting “Please, grant me power!”, and…

Stripping to her underwear granted her the power to turn the half the enemy Reyvateils into cakes, causing the remaining ones to flee.

She also fainted again. Aoto and Tatsumi grab her and run. They end up at a tent in the forest where you encounter your first save point.

That’s where I’ll stop for tonight.  More writing then I expected to do, though it conveniently summarized the same portion of the game as the Nico video (about 15 minutes). It may get cumbersome if I continue the entire game at this pace, though…

Tags: ar tonelico, ar tonelico 3, gust, jrpg