2/5 ★ – Lancey's review of Ar tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel.

I am The Destroyer. I will break games, complain about the littlest detail, and tell you whether or not the game is worth buying. There's a lot of things to be said, but can't due to the 5000 character limit. Ar tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel is one of the most unsuspecting games you will ever play. I say "unsuspecting" because of its flaws in logic, plotholes, bug crashes, missables, and one of the worst combat systems I've ever played, which we'll get to later. The unsuspecting part is you will want to see this game though. It's fantasy-like story will pull you in with it's amazing voice acting, and in-depth conversations which are mostly optional. But make no mistake, there is little-to-no hope in this title. 1. Story The games story isn't all too bad and does a good job at reeling you in. Even the logic of Reyvateil's stripping to get more power was well-done. It isn't until later in the game where plotholes begin to open up. And be careful when doing a New Game+ because by god, you press that circle button even one time, just a single push, it will fast-forward all cut-scenes from there on out until you can traverse the overworld or whatever the last dungeon or town you were in. You get to watch all text bubbles move around as if it were having a computer error, because that really makes more sense than actually skipping the scene..?? 2. Voice Acting Most easily the best part about this game. When the scenes were actually voiced, which is like I don't know... 60% of the time(?) you are hearing angels humming. Each role played perfectly, and I can find no flaws in any of the english voice actors or actresses. 3. Graphics and Visuals The avatar pictures will be more fun to look than the actual character models. Lack of design in every area but towns. 4. Gameplay Gameplay refers to the battle system, item synthesis, cosmosphere, and various areas that you explore during gameplay. Put it all together and it's an epic fail! -Battle System- So sickening! Release this type of battle system for even the original Playstation console and your Playstation would rebel against you and then punish you by spitting the disc out with scratches on it for making you load its awful combat frame rates. So many things are wrong in something that you will have to spend 50% of the game doing, and I can't speak of it all because this review isn't marked with spoilers. The combat system is so simplified that it's uncooked. Every special move your vanguards learn will feel exactly the same. Enemy variety is low, you will spend 30 hours fighting the same enemies the entire game, just with different names. Boss enemies are severely lacking. And the Supermoves for each vanguard is eternally flawed for what happens after. -Item synthesis- Boring, basic, predictable. -Exploration- Empty areas with no creativity other than few early levels. Repetitive beyond belief. -Cosmosphere- This is all we have for gameplay, the only feature that makes the gameplay cut. Cosmosphere is a device that lets you dive into any of the heroines minds and explore a world that they themselves have created through their inner thoughts and feelings. Each time you dive in, you are presented with a sidestory where you yourself must complete in order to get closer to said heroine. This will cause the heroine to become even stronger in the real world, benefiting you greatly, and allowing you to end the travesties- I mean combat much quicker. In order to dive into deeper levels of a heroine's cosmosphere, you have to talk with them in the real world, which can be done by resting at an inn or save point. It feels like these stories were made by a horny highschool teenaged girl with a BDSM fetish. Probably not, but if you say one wrong thing in the Cosmosphere, you're gonna watch a special scene, and then get kicked out of the sphere. You will then have to spend more Leaf and DP to try again, which isn't much of a penalty. 5. Soundtrack I take it back. This is the best part about this game!!! Ar Tonelico Qoga comes with the type of soundtrack that makes you want to make a mix CD of, or finding the music files of it online to download onto your Ipad. Bringing its soothing tracks, outdoor adventures, indoor laboratories, and mood music for cut-scenes, each will play at impeccable timing. If anything makes you come back to this game it will be this. 6. Bugs Crashes The low-rez in this game is torture! My game has frozen twice when doing a purge. It froze once when trying to enter combat. And for some reason saving my game takes an extra minute. 7. Personal Enjoyment I didn't even want to do a New Game+ when it was all over! With story done, gameplay was left (oh no...) Forget DLC, I don't want to play any more