Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia PlayStation 2
Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia Image
Metascore
71 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 30 Critics What's this?

User Score
6.8 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 27 Ratings

Your Score
0 out of 10
Rate this:
  • Summary: Journey throughout the world of Ar tonelico to find the key to destroying the viruses once and for all. Partner up with a Reyvateil, a girl who can create magic through songs, and fight your way back up the tower to save your home. Explore a Reyvateil's inner world with the revolutionary new Dive System, which allows you to go on "Virtual Dates" to increase their magical power. [NIS America]… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 13 out of 30
  2. Mixed: 16 out of 30
  3. Negative: 1 out of 30
  1. RPG Fan
    91
    Because of its hybrid nature as an RPG/visual novel, it's quite different from our previous tastes of Gust (in Atelier Iris 1 and 2). And, when you stop and think about how rare the dating-sim, visual novel, and love adventure genres are in the US (some Hirameki titles and a few other obscure releases), it's great to see a game like this represent that faction of Japanese culture, on the PS2 no less.
  2. Play Magazine
    85
    Ar Tonelico pretty much has it all. The story and especially pacing is fantastic; the music is truly special, the battles are incredibly engaging via the Revyatelis, and the art is simply gorgeous. [Feb 2007, p.36]
    All this publication's reviews
  3. IGN
    74
    It's not even so much that the game can come off as a surprising date sim-lite turn-based adventure. It's that a couple of less defined game features weaken a title that would've otherwise been impressive.
  4. G4 TV
    40
    If you like big-eyed cartoon girls and master/servant fantasies, go right ahead and grab this. They’ll even chirp at you in squeaky Japanese if that happens to be to your taste. Otherwise, though, you can rest secure in the knowledge that you’re barely missing anything here at all.

See all 30 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

Write a Review
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 5
  3. Negative: 0 out of 5
  1. MushaS.
    10
    Finally a real 2d turn based RPG. If you like real RPGs this is for you. If you like watching movies then get FF or one of those other 3d games with real time battles that only work in theory.… Expand
  2. Ahrun_Wolf
    8
    Ar tonelico's main flaw is the fact this game is INSANELY EASY. However the game's storyline, musics (and the Hymmnos language used in most of them), world's lore and main characters' development compensates this flaw nicely.… Expand
  3. jessicom.
    7
    Very boring at first but it gets addictive/enjoyable to play spcially when you get a new song/technique for your reyvateil.
  4. seieko_pherdo
    7
    Ar Tonelico is a difficult game to judge, as fan of Japanese things and story I tend to like these kind of things. However my reviewer self is not a kind. This game excels in story, music, and character development. Not going to lie despite all the characters being generic I liked them a lot. I loved the concept of diving into people's minds to know more about them as well as the conversations after making a item. The encounter rate at bottom was a nice and once you killed enough things in a area they would all leave you alone. However the battles themselves are easy and boring. While I don't mind turn based combat this game does not do it well though the song magic was nice twist. However while you acquire new ways to kill foes by singing the you get overburdened with songs most of which you never use. It is quite possible to beat the game using the default beginners magic for the entire game. However I liked the concept of Ar Tonelico and while the combat isn't at all great a lot of detail went into the creation of it's world. While it's all done in sprite based artwork and doesn't look all Final Fantasy fantastic I enjoyed the look of it. Not to mention you can switch over the god awful English voices for the Japanese ones. While it's a nice treat for us fans of Japanese things it's easy to see why someone would get bored of it.… Expand

See all 5 User Reviews