Ar tonelico: Difference between revisions

The first game, ''Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia,'' originally titled ''Ar tonelico: Sekai no Owari de Utaitsudzukeru Shoujo'' (''The Girl who Continues to Sing at the End of the World'') takes place in and around the first tower, in the region of Sol Ciel. This is where the series gets its name: Ar tonelico is the name of that tower. The story starts in the city of Platina, during an outbreak of enemy creatures called Viruses. The protagonist, a Knight of Elemia named Lyner Barsett, goes to investigate with fellow knight Ayatane, and the tower administrator, Shurelia. Unfortunately, they rapidly discover that the Viruses are able to turn intangible, rendering normal defeat impossible. Shurelia therefore sends Lyner on a quest for the only thing that can help them: the [[Mineral MacGuffin|Hymn Crystal Purger]]. Taking an airship, he travels down to the Wings of Horus, the [[Floating Continent]] that surrounds the tower. More accurately, he crashes thanks to an attack from a dragon, which complicates matters extremely.

Tropes about the sequel, ''[[Ar Tonelico 2 (Video Game)|Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica]]'' can be found on its page. Ditto for ''[[Ar Tonelico 3|Ar tonelico III]]''.

Aside from ''Elemia''-specific tropes, examples provided by the series as a whole can be found here, as well.

* [[Bishounen]]: A lot of the guys count, but Flute also counts under his hat and mask (he's ''very'' pretty).

* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: The normal ending {{spoiler|where you choose to never awaken Shurelia [[Heroic Sacrifice|after she sings Suspend]].}}

** ''Stronger'' song magic and ''very'' extended lifespans (Betas have about 150 years and the Origins are over 700 years old each, implied to be immortal for as long as the towers exist). Oh, and the Diquility Installation is pretty much equivalent to a first time.

* [[Brainwashed and Crazy]]: Happens to either Aurica or Misha, depending on who you chose to sing Purger, when Mir invades their Cosmosphere. They get better, though.

* [[Double Entendre]]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoODv8LVib8 Oh Aurica.]

** And that's among many others.

* [[Dual Age Modes]]: {{spoiler|Misha}}

* [[Earthshattering Kaboom]]: The reason the sea of death is there in the first place.

** Mir destroyed half of the land on one of the towers.

* [[Emotionless Girl]]: {{spoiler|Mir originally, which was what her creators wanted, but she grew out of it. Later, Bourd tried to find a way to make Reyvateils into this.}}

** The endings where {{spoiler|Shurelia isn't revived,}} thanks to the supplementary material's ample [[Fridge Horror]] quotient. Total death toll: {{spoiler|the entire population of Metafalss once Frelia burnt herself out trying to keep them aloft. Even Metafalica wouldn't have saved them: power from Ar Tonelico is necessary for the EXEC portion of Metafalica.}}Of course, some argue there would have been [[No Endor Holocaust]]... At least for the first tower, since at the absolute minimum, {{spoiler|all of Metafalss would have died.}}

*** {{spoiler|Part three makes all ends where Mir is not freed an [[Inferred Holocaust]]: Without her involvement in the second game, the Heart of Gaea wouldn't have reached the third tower (at least not in time), thus dooming the entire planet.}}

* [[Godiva Hair]]: {{spoiler|Mir.}}

* [[Goggles Do Nothing]]: Krusche.

** To top it off, {{spoiler|the only remaining bit of bad blood Jakuri has against Lyner is completely unrelated to him stopping her century-long plans: She's angry about him rewriting the ending to her game.}}

*** {{spoiler|Well, she also dislikes him for being an [[Idiot Hero|idiot]].}}

* [[High Altitude Battle]]: The first game features a battle with a giant dragon while riding an airship. But then, all three games are based on floating continents (and/or a massive tower) due to the Sea of Death covering the world.

* [[Homemade Inventions]]: As mentioned above, Lyner is the party's only real source of equipment, regardless of variety or technological complexity. Everything, including a pocket-version of the massive building-sized reactor built by ancient superadvanced technology that powers more than a third of the remaining civilization in the planet, is built by him, in a tent, from scraps.

** Also, Luca's vague and often-confusing "therapy sessions" appear to suggest that [[Everyone Is Bi]].

** Dualstalls. That is all.

* [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja]]: Misha's shinobi costume.

* [[Interspecies Romance]]: Human/Reyvateil romance is nothing anyone bats an eye at (they're fully capable of interbreeding), but there's also {{spoiler|the human Krusche and the Teru Jack/Harmonica, at the end of ''Elemia''.}}

* [[Invisible Backup Band]]: Whenever one of the Reyvateils sings.

* [[Item Crafting]]: Grathmelding

* [[Joshikousei]]: All the heroine Reyvateils (so far) have a school uniform costume.

* [[Kill All Humans]]: {{spoiler|Mir's goal. Of course, she's just doing it for her fellow Reyvateils' sake.}}

* [[Kill'Em All]]: According to the myths, Sieryek, son of an El nemesys sovereign, killed the King of his own kingdom and some other ruling sovereigns which included his own father. However, he couldn't kill Princess Liarsha due to his love for her, instead telling her go free. In the end, the love that she had once shared with Sieryek turned to hatred and she eventually killed him and then herself immediately afterwards. Obviously, nobody survived.

* [[One-Gender Race]]: Reyvateils, since something in the Y chromosome negates Reyvateil powers.

* [[One-Winged Angel]]: Shadow Mir. {{spoiler|Eventually subverted. They're just Mir's viruses/servants that she can summon. She can summon them in ''Metafalica''.}}

* [[Organic Technology]]: Reyvateils, in a way. The Origins in particular, {{spoiler|during high-level grathmelding, Shurelia will make comments about some of them. In one case, she'll comment about one product being "her brain."}}

* [[Person of Mass Destruction]]: {{spoiler|Mir is implied to be one, with the ability to be a major nuisance even when she's trapped in Ar Tonelico's equivalent of Cyberspace. Not to mention she's as powerful in some regards as the Goddesses of the three towers.}}

** {{spoiler|She's noted that she could definitely beat Shurelia in a fight simply because she knows all the latter's weaknesses. It helps that the former has a stronger up-front personality so she could simply bully the latter regardless.}}

* [[Power of Love]]: The power of a Reyvateil's song is proportional to her [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|"intensity of emotion"]]. Blue Magic, for instance, is more powerful if the Reyvateil is in love with the person she's making it for.

* [[Power of Rock]]: In addition to powering [[Magic Music|spells]], songs are used at several points in the games to inspire the world's population.

* [[Smug Snake]]: The majority of the villains are this, making it all the more fun to slap them around. {{spoiler|Bishop Falss and Bourd Rade from the first game}} are [[Egregious]] examples.

* [[Sound Stone]]: Hymn Crystals

* [[Serial Escalation]]: Just how ''blatantly [[Fan Service|Fan Servicey]]'' can we get the Reyvateils into next time without pushing the T rating? The third game features ''stripping to power up'', so god knows what's next.

** And in the end, the third game got an M rating in the US.

* [[Stocking Filler]]: {{spoiler|Older Misha}}'s standard and shinobi costumes.

* [[Stripperific]]: Whooooo boy. Misha, Claire, Shurelia, Krusche, the president of Tenba... easily two-thirds or more of the female cast of the first game is dressed ''quite'' provocatively, with Aurica being the only one who's somewhat modestly dressed... and of course the player has the option of making her fight in nothing but a towel.

* [[Talking to Himself|Talking To Herself]]: Aurica and {{spoiler|Mir}} share the same voice actress in Japanese.

* [[The Three Faces of Eve]]: The Three Supreme Goddess of Elemia (A.K.A {{spoiler|The Three Origins}})