Going to try to keep posting regularly, I figure this is something I’ll do pretty often.  Just talking about what game I’m playing most of the time at the moment.

Game:  Ar Nosurge :  Ode to an Unborn Star

Genre: RPG

System: PS3

I’ve been really excited about this game for a while, because as far as I could tell it was going back to the original battle system that the first Ar Tonelico game used.   For anyone who does not know, this is a prequel to the Ar Tonelico series of games.   If you’re going, “Ar Tonelico, what’s that?”  Then you should go out and find a copy of Ar Tonelico for the PS2 and play it.   I loved the game, it has an amazing story,  an interesting battle system, and a whole lot of comedy tied in to the game in both game-play and story.

Back to Ar Nosurge though,  when I got into a battle for the first time I was glad to see that it seemed to be right.   You have a female character in the back row who is casting a Song Magic that you choose at the beginning of the battle.   As time goes on her song gets stronger and stronger until you choose to release it on the enemies.   As for the character in the front line you attack using a combination of attacks, you get a certain number of each and they are tied to the buttons on the controller.  It’s something like the system from Xenogears except that it doesn’t take from a set amount of points for the turn, each attack has a counter of its own.

I was so happy until the defensive round came, and I had to defend the girl in the back row by pressing a button and raising a shield, timed defense just like the second game.   I hated that change they made for that.   If I’m playing a turn-based game, I want a turn-based game, not some amalgam of turn-based and action.    Fortunately it’s more forgiving than the second game’s battle system though.

Anyone who knows me knows I love playing RPG Maker games, because it’s a chance to see what someone came up with on their own.   Usually there are a lot of amazing stories out there.  That said, I can expect at least some issues in those games.   Sometimes they have a window open up incorrectly, the game crashes, a character says the wrong lines.   Something like that, and I’m not surprised.   You just report the error and the creator will fix it and re-release the game.   What I don’t expect is to see those issues in a game like Ar Nosurge.   The translation quality is so much poorer than the first two Ar Tonelico II games.    Sometimes an NPC obviously says the  second part of their conversation before the first part.   Other times an NPC is obviously saying what another NPC should have been saying.   It’s really annoying.

All of that aside though, it still mostly feels like Ar Tonelico and I’m loving it.   This isn’t a full review though or I’d tell you more about the systems in the game.     I would definitely recommend this game to anyone though, even if it is a little on the “unfinished” side.  I might do another post about it once I’ve gone further in the game.