Pardon the background but I got too excited and rushed to take some pictures ^^. After a long two weeks of waiting, my Ar Tonelico Qoga, a final installment of Ar Tonelico series, finally arrived in the mail. Since it was shipped from US through NIS America, it took sometime because of custom ^^;;

I played the Ar Tonelico 1 pretty thoroughly and I finished both Arcs but didn't finish Ar Tonelico 2 because I lost interest in it. Maybe, I will pick up where it was left one of these days since my PS2 just sits there and collects dust ^^;;.

Ar Tonelico Qoga (AR3) Cosmosphere calendar set includes AR3 premium box and a calendar for a total cost of $69.99 so the calendar is worth about $10 which I think it’s a pretty good price for a calendar and it’s a rare item. The premium box itself contains AR3: Knell of Ar Ciel for PS3, an art book and official OST CD. Even without the calendar, the premium box is well worth it considering how much PS3 games cost these days ranging from $59.99 to $69.99 for new games. Most of the time, there’s no extra items come with the game itself.

Finally, will the game worth the price tag considering AR1 was a pretty big success and AR2 was somewhat a flop or so I heard ? For those, who has started the game, what do you think ? is it better than the first two games ? Check what other people says about the game on NIS America official forum before you decide to buy the game.

PS2 is not dead yet apparently so it was a right decision to keep my ps2 around ^^. NIS America announced that Ar Tonelico 2 will be out this December for ps2. Having just recently played Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia back in June, this is a really good news for me because I was worried that NIS America may not release it due to decreasing popularity of ps2.

The battle system is similar to the first one with a new ability called Syncrinity. You are still required to dive in Cosmosphere for your Reyvatails to make them more powerful and get new songs. Syncrinity ties to two Reyvatails in the party so the closer their emotion being synched up, the strong their song magics are.

Check below youtube video for Synchronization.

Source from IGN and Gamespot

Ignorance is bliss you may say but I wish I noticed sooner about this game and not like, a year after the US release. I know it’s sad ^^;; and kinda embarrassing. I spent 15 hours this past weekend playing this game ^^;; and I have to say it’s kinda addictive with all the battle system, synthesizing (grathmeld) and cosmosphere. I managed to finish Phase 1 and currently working on Phase 2 with Aurica path and currently on lvl 9 cosmosphere .

RPG mixed with dating sim is always enjoyable for me like for example, Thousand Arms back in PS one or Persona 3 (too bad I got bored with this after a while for some reasons). The old style of turn based rpg system never gets old on me ^^ and I still enjoy it up to this day, although, more and more rpgs are made with non- turn based.

Any similar PS2 games that you guys can recommend to me ?

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