I think you're just about the only channel out there that would go into such wonderful detail about an older and somewhat obscure JRPG series. I love your videos man, they get better and better with every upload.

"The Ar Tonelico Trilogy is made up of three games primarily." You know, as opposed to game trilogies with 4 entries? Genius. Anyway. Welcome to the vid folks. It's been a while. Been playing these games "Part-time" since around February. Had fun checking this trilogy out, and I hope you do too!

My personal unsung favorite aspect of the series is its Worldbuilding. The combat, waifus, and music are all openly great, but I found myself most surprised by how much I enjoyed perusing the wiki after playing just to find out more. There is a LOT of information that you either won't find in the games, or is incredibly difficult to piece together. I didn't even know why the Blast Line existed until after the 3rd game, and it turns out that's basically the past inciting incident for that game's/ the whole series' climax. Go figure. Heck, you can actually learn and _speak_ Hymnos! I have to give props to any series that makes a functional language. Mad bonus points for multiple dialects. Just, be careful when playing Qoga in the Clustania District. My game crashed 3 times walking through there.

Damn i love the first 2 games(Never got the console for the third). Wish they would make PC ports of the trilogy already . As a sidenote.. almost all the games Gust releases has great ost that i still listen to this day. Damn do they have a lot of good songs/soundtrack .

One of my favorite series, never found anything quite like it (well, except Ciel and Ar Nosurge, anyways.) I miss Ar Tonelico 2 so much!! These 3 games really need a remaster or dare I say a remake.

I personally enjoyed the first two games, but I do think some of the translation was a bit hit and miss. It a truly unique series.

This game sits at the top of my list of "Games I love to death but have a hard time recommending to friends." I'm sure a few of them would love it, but not many people have the patience for old-style gameplay these days lol.

I've been eyeing this series after learning about Ar Nosurge and seeing how it connects to Ciel Nosurge. I don't use my Vita very much and the online version of Ciel used the features of the Vita in such a unique way. It's a shame that we haven't gotten either version after all this time.

Played the first two games myself, but by the time the 3rd came out I had pretty much abandoned consoles in favor of being a PC gamer. The main reason people would have the game breaking glitch in the second game was due to one main issue (outside of the glitch existing in the first place) which was being underleveled for the fight. Most would play so fast through the game they wouldn't be able to beat the boss in less than 3 hits resulting in the glitch halting their progress. However, if you played like most play RPGs, and did the grinding necessary to become overpowered, then it wasn't an issue on top of knowing how to get the most out of the combat system. That said, I wish there were more games that had the social aspect/date sim type growth this game does. Most times, social interactions between party members/characters is 100% story driven. The Ar Tonelico franchise made it to where at some point you couldn't progress any further with some of the characters and had to choose one meaning the only way to see the rest of the others was to go back to an earlier save and play through to see their progression. This added some replayability to the game, but as it didn't really have a game ending change it usually wasn't something you needed to finish the game again to see. I think if they would have worked more into development of the system and combat it could have been more interesting, to include adding more options for game endings or even NG+ possibilities. Sadly it was a missed opportunity.

Finally get around to finishing the last half now! Such a well made video. Great work.

Idk why I didn't find this videos sooner, and I'm yet to watch it complete, but I just want to say I genuinely thank you for doing this video, some years ago I get into the first game and just finished it some months ago and it left a strong mark in me, almost as strong as the pain I feel for this series not being most popular. That's why I have to thank you for this videos before watching it, just making content of one of my all time favourites and so underrated games deserve praise, thank you truly

*screams* YEEEE BOI!!! You know this was an instant click for me. I love when anyone brings awareness to this goddamn series. This and Surge Concerto are STILL my favourite rpgs to date. Despite some obvious flaws, the storytelling, music and lore is unmatched for me and holds a special place in my heart. I think the fact I enjoyed them so much despite the god-awful localisation says SO much about the quality of the games themselves. Also... WHOO BOY THIS VIDEO LENGTH. Gonna have to split this up into chunks, but it’s getting watched in full, for sure.

I respect the super long in depth videos bro great job!

Glad someone covered the games today. Played all and beat each multiple times. Such a great series, which led me to importing the very rare soundtracks and figures.

Instant clic, completed the original back in the ps2 era, and left the 2nd one at half, don't really remember why, I will absolutely play it again and finish it

I've always been curious about these games, thanks for the huge deep video!

Sadly I just found this video today. It's nice to see so many fans of a series I adore and have been a fan of. I would love to see those spin offs, especially if they're good!

Thanks, Tark. I want to try this game now. Ar Tonelico II look interesting.

I want to play these games just because of the artstyle, it's just perfect.

Thank you for the content bro I love Ar Tonelico. Subscribed

Trying the first one now and wanted to know if it’s worth my time. So glad you are talking about it

The glow of this channel is damn impressive yo

Enjoyed your video, loved how you enjoyed Ar Tonelico 2, my favorite game of all time! I do wish more people would try it out, it's a cult classics sure but man do I think it's up there among the greats. By the way if you ever planning to check the spinoff Ar Nosurge and Ciel Nosurge, know the series is super different from Ar Tonelico. They still have some similar elements like the music and use of Song Mages, but expect things to be very different. That Saudi do think it's brings it own type of uniqueness to enjoy.

My only experience with this game is that one infamous "put the crystal in my back" scene uploaded to KZfaq in 2007 as "Ar tonelico ENG - (Gameplay 05) I for Innuendo" that I saw randomly a long time ago, so I really appreciate this guide through the series! 😃

I remember Ar Tonelico 1 and 2 fondly, though I was more attached to the first game. The 3rd one I own but don't even remember. I do remember there was a manga side story Arpeggio that was pretty good too.

really concise video bud. I've not played any of the games thus far after watching this I'm thinking its best to wait for a possible remake of the trilogy.

that intro with the playstation boot up sound + ar tonelico's opening brings me back to childhood... i cant even 😭😭😭😩👌 it's making me feel all kinds of things, i miss the good old days

I never played these games, but I came across the soundtracks and they're simply amazing, especially EXEC_COSMOFLIPS, EXEC_FLIP_ARPHAGE and EXEC_CHRONICLE_KEY. Akiko Shikata is the 🐐 she never misses, and Kokia is also phenomenal.

I love this series, lewd warts and all. First of all, the worldbuilding was amazing. The producers actually went the extra mile to construct a new language for the Reyvateil songs, and to liken them to computer programming? Genius. Second, the characters (especially the Reyvateils) are incredibly deep and nuanced. Thirdly, the story. We can all wax poetic about the struggles of the protagonists as they endeavor to avert apocalypse, but the biggest point, the moment where everything hinged on, was Lyner. Lyner isn't exactly the deepest protagonist, he's certainly not as introspective like Squall or Cloud. But the choices he made multiple times through the first game made all the difference in the world. When Shurelia chose to power down the Tower to seal Mir, he moved to reverse the decision. When it came down to confronting Mir, Lyner chose to take the high road, and find out more about Mir, to understand her. And those decisions saved the world. If Lyner never reactivated the Tower to save Shurelia, the land of Metafalss would have collapsed in a matter of months to a year once Frelia runs out of MP keeping the land aloft. That means no Croix, no Cloche, no Luca, no Cocona, no Sasha. Even further than that, Lyner's compassion convinced Mir to reform, and therefore travel to Metafalss in order to induce Metafalica. In the end, Mir's efforts were able to generate a seed Heart of the Planet, which she then gave to Cocona so that Aoto and the party could finally save Ar Ciel from destruction. Lyner's compassion saved the world. One of the most profound moments came near the end of Ar Tonelico 1, when Lyner finally answered the question Tastiella asked, "What is the simplest, yet strongest reason for the rise of conflicts?" What Lyner said, and that scene will remain with me for the rest of my life. In the end, Mir changed, and could potentially get romanced by Croix, a human. That girl probably never saw it coming XD

34:28 both at1 and at2 have consumables that reset the enemy encounter bar, which are also very cheap to craft. I don't know about qoga tho. I really liked the video by the way, I subbed. keep it up!

Really cool video mate. Wonder why you didn't talk about the language? I always held the conlang here as the best developed one in video games. And it's really nice to listen to too. It's half the charm of the ost.

I miss my PS2.. Id like to play ar tonelico 2 again.. I didnt even know there was a third game, great video Tarks!

Really excited to watch this. I was introduced to Ar Tonelico via a PS3 game named Cross Edge, which was a crossover rpg. I've only played Qoga, but would like to play the other games as well.

Hey man! Awesome video!!! I played Ar Tonellico 2 like 11 years ago or something and I kept it all this time! I played through it again last week ((just finished it yesterday)) and I was so stuck on that Promise Hill typo too!! I have no idea how I managed to get through it as a 15 year old with no internet hahah! It was even better than I remember 'cause at that age I didn't really understand what was happening in the Cosmospheres and how deep & psychological it all was! I chose Luca at 15 and I planned on picking Cloche for this recent playthrough. As a kid I always thought "obviously I should choose the one that I've been friends with the longest!" but right before the part where you have to choose- Luca tells you that she never loved you and that she was just using you and I was like "WHAT?!?!? HOW DARE YOU XD" And it made me feel wayyyy better about going with Cloche the 2nd time around! I always wondered how it would change the story and I was really saddened to know that it didn't really change all that much. You get reunited with Luca and her party REALLY SHORTLY after you both part ways. And Cloche & Croix's feelings for each other seem really forced and unnatural ? I don't remember how it was when choosing Luca but the game makes you feel like you picked the wrong one xD ! Because playing through it, you feel like you're /supposed/ to be with Luca, 'cause she's still all flirty and shy, even though she told you that she never really liked you at all. And then when Jaqcli comes along and seems to fancy you too ?? Along with every other girl you meet falling in love with you like Cynthia, the Chemist lady and even INFEL!!!!!!!! Whom I thought was gaayyyy ?? for Nanesha ?? It's a bit unclear but the ONLY female who doesn't flirt with you is Amarie xD!!! And me and my friends were trying to think what's so special about Croix, he's a really boring protagonist and everyone just fallls all over him but I guess that's the whole fanservicey thing coming in to play but it didn't really do anything for me. I actually watched your video because I wanted to know if the other two games were worth trying to get and omg I'm so glad I watched this and I'm really happy to know that the one I have is considered the best one to play out of all of them because for some reason, they did not make the first game playable in the UK systems so I would have to go out my way and spend more money to play a game that I probably wouldn't enjoy! Same with the 3rd one, I don't have a PS3 but I was considering it but not anymore lol Amazing video, I subscribed! Thank you!!

Congrats for your deep analysis

I really love this game series and its philosophy. One of the things I remember and helps me a lot is that you shell just be a person that you would like, no matter it is bad or good or fake(I hope I remember correctly). If you like yourself then everything would be fine. And the song 光の中に (Hikari No Naka ni : Into The Light) helped me get my girlfriend lol.

So glad I started with Ar Tonelico 2. I really do love their concept of sobg magic. I played that with Mana Khemia which had similar aspects. Now I want to add the category for best game OP. Arto 1 slaps followed by 2 and 3.

the Ar Tonelico is one of the best OSTs ever created for an RPG

I was not expecting that Xavier reference, very funny.

it s one of underated JRPG in ps2 era. i think story wise Ar Tonelico 2 is the best among the trilogy

To this day I feel that this trilogy had a way to tell a grand overarching narrative while still managing to have a self contained story, it felt like the ultimate salvation of this universe’s world was only possible because each game ended the way it did and not to mention how just the central conflict of each game is because of the world it’s set in (the planet being uninhabitable)

Sophie/Aurora Valkyrie would definitely enjoy this episode.. it's too bad about her departure from KZfaq bringing all of her content with her..

Man this game brings many level of nostalgia and DIVE events of the game was really entertaining

Bit starved on time these days, but would've instantly played these games back then. Thanks for pointing on the fan project, I'll check it out.

Never played a visual novel/date style game but this series as an RPG sounds so unique, and being music focused, I'm intrigued, and bought Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia. Guess i'll find out for myself.

Going through AT2 right now and this showed up in my recs, it’s always great to see this series given love I remember how my initial reason for playing the first game (but never finished it because failed ps2) was the fan service rep as a horny teen and Noriko Mitose (Radical Dreamers such a good track), restarted 1 last year because I became a full eroge degenerate and Haruka Shimotsuki became my favourite vocalist of ever, and came out most impressed by Shikata. Honestly though, everything you’ve said about the two games I have played has been spot on

Wish we got a remaster or something, a pc port would be fine too.

Thank you for the review, i played all the 3 games and have similar review like yours. And i do agree that Ar Tonelico 2 is the best out of 3. anyway, i played AT2 twice because i love it so much but i'm always stuck at Cloche route because she's the best and i have to watch the playthrough for other girls to see the other endings lol

I love ar tonelico series, i hope this series will come back in the future

Really enjoyed the video!

I'll just throw this in there for anyone still stuck. You don't have to beat Raki within 3 turns in Ar Tonelico 2. You have to prematurely use replekia within those 3 turns. If you use it on the 2nd turn, it's like a normal battle at that point. I know because I couldn't win in three turns so I just activated replekia to try and win. And when I was waiting for the inevitable crash, it kept going. And the strategy always worked. So yeah, just do that.

Ciel Nosurge and Ar Nosurge are coming back and it still doesn't feel real

How nostalgic... Ar Tonelico / Ar no Surge are some of my most favorite JRPG...

just found this video and sure it bring lot of memory. back then I play it right after finish play Atelier Iris 3, thought it another Atelier series because of called AT Project. AT =ATelier lol. Right on Opening it struck me awed by soundtrack. it leave so much impression it introduce me into Visual Novel and Dating Sim, thank you Legendary Diver Lyner! sure the gameplay and difficulty basically can beat it while scratch head but the soundtrack, revtail, magic song really draw me. to point when it announced there Ar Tonelico 2 I waited for English ver with zeal! reduce VA kinda disappointing when I watched playthrough on KZfaq from MasterLL. why they choice cloche eng VA sound like that? still its enjoyable overall~ never have chance play Qoga only on KZfaq playthrough. btw the naming item scene iirc it from Atelier series, Aurica naming sense

53:20 that's because it's a sample from demo disc (that I, unfortunately, don't remember title of) The very same sample was used in "Shudder" from Einhander

I remember creating a build for Lyner. Each normal attack has multiple elemental damage xD

Ar Tonelico started my Akiko Shikata addiction. I finished my Civilian!Croix cosplay last year and actually had someone ask to take my picture! I'm excited for Surge Concerto DX, and hoping, JUST hoping, that someone gets the already conveniently formatted Synthesis dances trending on Tik Tok :P It might be a pipe dream but I'd be interested to see what they could do with remakes and updated character designs/mechanics. For example there being a mini cargo "air cart" as the one part of Gungnir (the one Lyner crashes) that's salvageable (or being one of the first things you can grathmeld spare parts for, recipe card from the user manual) and have that be summon-able at save circles to get camping or grathmelding supplies out of.

I’ll never forget that NIS America did a piss poor job with Ar tonelico 2 that the second to last boss ( I think it’s second to last boss been a while ) has a glitch that if you don’t kill her in a certain amounts of turns she does a move that freezes the game. I how brute force my way to win.

1 hour video, I just had to give it a thumbs up before watching it

Yass king, I love this game so much! I really wanna play surge concerto etc but it's hard to find an english version! :(

Replaying Qoga right now. I don't know why it gets so much hate. Ar No Surge is so much better but I still love it.

"Breasts are temporary" stopped the video right there.

Great content, Tarks! Would love to know your insight on Time and Eternity hopefully in the future. I've had a copy in my shelf but never got to dust off my PS3 after when PS4 era started.

I love the Arc Tonelico series, to think I stumbled upon the second game by chance on a used video game store

Man, I have such good memories of playing ar tonelico 2 and 3! Are tonelico 2 was one of the first games I bought with my own money. I played a lot and especially remember that my younger brother couldn't pronounce the name 🤭 so instead of asking me if I was going to play AT, he asked me "will you play the penetration game?" 😂 Gosh my parents must've cringed every time they heard that 😂😂😂 my brother called it the "penetration game" because of Croix's ultimate attack, where he loudly yells "MAXIMUM PENETRATION!!!" with zero shame 🤭 Years later, I got ar tonelico 3 and loved the story, but the gameplay where your characters strip to become more powerful was just too much for me. I finished the game because I wanted to know how the story ended, but I always played when nobody was home and with a super low volume 😂 and it felt illegal to play to me (I was 13-ish when I got the game and very much NOT exposed to anything to do with nudity and innuendos) I couldn't find are tonelico 1 for a decent price and haven't to this day. But I got gifted my brother's old gaming PC and it's able to run an Emulator! It took a lot of work to get it working with my PS2 bios files, but it works! I just started to play AT1 and absolutely love it! ❤

Honestly my experience of the first game so far has been "Really enjoying myself but god Lyner is as thick as a sack of bricks"

I’ve played Qoga enough to get all 8 endings and I enjoyed it. If someone reading this liked the other 2 and is discouraged from playing Qoga I’d tell you to try it out. Maybe not as good as the first 2 but I still had fun with it. And you don’t HAVE to play them in order but I would argue that it’s more rewarding that way. It was nice to see familiar faces as cameos and to have big characters from previous games be in your party. I feel like you’d miss something if you didn’t know the back story of these characters already.

Catherine's coming to switch in a couple days time, you dropping a review on that?

The Ar Tonelico series or rather the Exa_Pico universe has the most in depth and thought out world building and storytelling in most of the genre and and even many other mediums. Just reading the synopsis of Mir's story on the wiki surpasses the vast majority of works and one would be hard pressed to find another at the quality. They even built their own physics system from the ground up which is almost unheard of. I haven't even played any of the games yet I find myself enamored with their technology, it truly is fantastical. However the misguided and heavy focus on fanservice and ecchi elements hold this series back. The third game even turned off the Japanese audience I heard, which tells you that you certainly went too far. There are elements that I felt were misused which ties into the hyper focus on fanservice issue. Mainly the Dive mechanic. Instead of focusing on the individual's psyche and helping them solve their issues, it instead places too much emphasis on slice of life light novel scenarios with heavy fanservice. The fanservice really does hamper theis series's potential.

Wow coming back to this vid and its over 10000 views, more then usual. You think Ar Tonelico had a bigger fanbase then you thought? Also wonder if any your thoughts in the game changed?

As someone who's shilling AT among various communities already, this was an absolute blast to watch and despite me not yet having peeped into Qoga, because of how infamous it is for the exact points you have raised, I can definitely see and agree with just about all your rankings. There's just one thing that made me sad. In the end you cut out "Indra" right when it got to the best part. Massive crime against IPDs! Kidding of course, great video over all, glad a friend of mine who's witnessed me shill AT a lot sent me this, thanks for, hopefully, bringing AT to more people!

50:40 Now I know why humanity went from purging maidens to being maidenless...

43:38 OOOOOH it had a cooldown. That sure explains a lot

If you hadn't put the voice acting and the music in one cathegory, I would have slapped you the moment you put scores less than a solid 5 for that cathegory on any of the three games. Akiko Shikata's Hymnnoses are some of the most outstanding musical gem in video game history.

will you cover the Ar Nosurge spinoffs?

Thanks for talking about this series . I hope you'll make a video about ar nosurge next time Jaqli best girl btw 😏

My exposure to Akiko Shikata was the opposite. I found her through this game and then a friend of mine was showing a bunch of us Umineko and I was like "why does this sound so familiar?"

Never played the original trilogy. But I loved ar nosurge and i hope the Dx versions come here.

53:00 The rap portion in the track for Audhumla actually comes the song "Put Your Faith in Me" from the Dance Dance Revolution series of games, the other rap samples are likely from other DDR tracks as well. Yes, this game series that is about music, and rhythm literally samples music from Dance Dance Revolution, and knowing that, I assume that DDR is what served as the inspiration for the combat system in the second game. There's a fun trivia fact for you.

28:45 - "Breasts are temporary" - Tarks Senpai

Nice. I only have the third one that I bought at Gamestop. Haven't tried it yet though. Some PS3 RPGs do take forever to load.

The glitch in Metafalica, I hit when I was 12. I’m playing it through again and I’m fairly sure I can get past it now.

Do you have any recommendations similar to Ar Tonelico? Mainly looking for games that go in depth into characters and intertwined with gameplay (romance a plus).

Scoring system without Scoring the Hymmnos songs.. BLASHPEMY!!!

Did you play ar nosurge as well?

i loved these games. i think they should at least be a remaster.

I have not heard of this game before but the art/graphics remind me of mana khemia and I love it.

This was great I only ever played the first game a long time ago and my two takeaways were the soundtrack is amazing and why are their so many innuendos. It certainly made for an awkward experience especially since at the time I was not used to that much blatant fan-service. What’s even more hilarious is some of the most interesting scenes were voiced (I’m looking at you life extending agent) and I can only imagine the outtakes that occurred as result. Fun fact anytime I get to name a female character in a game my first name choice is always Aurica. The character was good, but personally it was because I just really liked the name itself a lot.

One game or series I wish would come back. I understand issues and what not but, I miss games like this, JRPGs are still my favorite, I always go back to ps1-ps3 games. Shame a lot of shit happened but, these were good games.

Qoga's third fight against Ar Ru, set to exec_cosmoflip/., is one of the most memorable fights I've had in my many years of playing JRPGs. It was a tough fight to save her, but it was definitely worth it.

58:30 I used to pre-order most games NISA brought over, and the localization on Ar Tonelico II ended up being the last game I pre-ordered from theme because of how bad it was, and I removed myself from their email list (I used to look forward to them). Yes the game can be "beaten" despite the bug, but it's hard for full completion as there is content that can be unlocked by beating Raki 15 more times, and she gets stronger every time. To actually be able to beat her all 15 times, you have to do a lot of extra grinding, which is a huge chore.

What an apt timing, just yesterday I was checking the music of the series

i still remember the freeze glitch/bug something in AT2 when you fight the secret boss

I only have the PS3 game but I never got that far in it. It didn't grab me. How about the next game in the franchise that is on Vita. Is that any good?

1:04 That applies for the west. In japan, it's Ar Tonelico 3

I feel like a jerk because I forgot to leave a comment :O This is one series of game that I thought about getting into, but by the time I was ready. I could no longer find them in the wild

You bought one of the game from Sherbrooke, Canada! That is a nice surprise

Ar Ronelico 2 ❤❤❤

Man this is a rare series where I can do nothing but praise it for just how unique it is. I listen to the soundtrack all the time, I remember enjoying the battle mechanics of the first two games. But regardless I still never finished a single one of these games, I played all of them other then the third one and I would get about 2/3rds of the way through then just drop them haha. I think they just didn't have any staying power and got more boring the longer you played them. The uniqueness wears off and all your left with is a semi fun battle system and good music. I have only played one game from NIS other then the Falcom games they are now releasing that I enjoyed the whole way through. That is La Pucelle tactics, its all the fun of the Disgaea games without the random generated grinding nightmareness.

i first heard of Akiko from the Tales of Symphonia anime