The Tangled Ways of Ar Tonelico 3

I HAVE NO IDEA WHO THEY ARE.

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE PLOT IS...SORT OF.

 

The game starts out pretty simple. In a world where people are forced to live on lone towers, a young boy named Aoto meets a girl named Saki. Since the latter is being chased by some evil corporation, out of the protagonist-goodness of his heart he goes on the run to protect her! But Saki is a Reyvateil, a girl capable of using magic by singing, and she's got multiple personalities that often take over whether she likes it or not.

 

And this is where things go into a spiral. Okay...as far as I can tell, two organizations (and one small group) is trying to do...something. Either evolve mankind or save the world in a way that's not clearly outlined. The multiple personalities of Saki and the second main female protagonist are easy to understand, but not what the two girls themselves are for.

 

What ARE those girls anyway? Aren't they supposed to be just Reyvateils? What's Saki doing in the story again? What about the other girl? So many purposes are tacked to these two characters alone that even if you could read the glaring white, eye-straining text a person can beat the game and still have no clue what's supposed to have happened! And there is so much text to button-press through...one cutscene is enough to strain any gamer's thumb muscles. And brain muscles. And definitely eye muscles. 

 

Ahhhh! So confusing!

 

I ended up playing the game purely to see its little CG animations, special anime screens, and to hear the songs (which, by the way, can be described by no word other than 'awesome'). The feeling that I had to go through any trouble to understand the plot occured to me. Ar Tonelico 3 has complicated every important aspect of the story to the point where I gave up halfway through the first run, and not once had any regrets in doing so.

 

A somewhat odd thing, though. Playing Ar Tonelico 3 gave me the urge to play previous games in the series not because, well, it's a series and one can't just read the final chapter of the book sometimes. Rather, I just wanted to play the previous games for their simpler plots.

 

And for a battle system that didn't involve shaking your controller. That was novel at first, but then it was exasperating.