Ar tonelico 3 coming to the PS3 January 2010

[Starmongoose]

I cannot believe all the comments Kim gets about her reviewing the game, because she is a woman. First of all, have you considered that perhaps there are straight men who do not appreciate the painfully in your face childish humour and unnecessary amount of female objectification? Even if they did enjoy it as a man, and it pandered to their primal instincts - being a reviewer is a purely cerebral job and you must take yourself away from that.

If it was a straight woman reviewing lesbian porn, perhaps then you should look elsewhere for an opinion but frankly, in my eyes, Ar Tonelico 3 is an RPG and should be reviewed with the same standards as any other RPG. If it wants to be porn, classify itself as an eroge game with some gameplay and bits of a story tacked on. If it wants to be an RPG, it has to measure up to the games that came before.

[Kstar]

There's always going to be games that appeal more to certain people than others.  I understand that.  Despite being a niche game, Ar tonelico has a very strong fanbase.  That's awesome.  As a reviewer, though, I can't reward games that don't do much particularly well.  For me, the story had its ups and downs, but the characters came forth to make the experience better.  The gameplay, however, was short by a long-shot of utilizing its full potential.  It did a lot of things quite generically without stepping up to be a solid system.  Out of all the games, I found the second one to be the best in terms of gameplay. although the first stands to be my favorite.  I appreciate that you're able to admit that you know the game was lacking on certain levels.  To be honest, I found the third game to be the one that just didn't measure up.  But in the end, if you're a fan, there's no ands, ifs, buts, you're going to give the third game a spin.

[kyuusei]

I don't recall anyone actually giving this game shit for being an 'anime' game. To me the common complaint, even from the hardcores and even from guys, is that it just doesn't measure up to the first two.

[deathsaber]

Thats where I admit I do not have much perspective as I've never played the first two, so i'm not measuring AT3 based on what the other two games are like, so I don't have any sense of let down or disappointment in that aspect.

Regardless of that, I guess the only point I'm trying to make, again, is I don't think females are the target audience at all with the AT series, which I think one might need to consider when reading this review and decide if the game is for them.  That said, Kim does as good of a job as anybody on this website & I don't wish to belittle or marginalize her in any way, nor somehow invalidate her opinion on this game which of course she is certainly entitled to have. 

Hopefully we are good to discuss these issues in a polite & civilized manner which I think is the real point of these boards & was mostly accomplished in this thread, with the exception of one or two individuals.  However, I don't want to beat a dead horse issue even deader, so I'm done with the whole "gender" aspect of this.

[Cyril]

Females may not have been the target audience of AT3, but I'd make a strong argument they were one of the target audiences of AT2 and AT1 is relatively neutral. AT2 is pretty much all about strong females who take care of themselves. All three heroines, in fact. I know plenty of women and men  both who enjoy the series.  I'm a woman and I fanboy the lore to death, because it's quite brilliant.  I think before you make judgments like that you need to play the rest.

[deathsaber]

I say from many youtube videos I saw, and everything I've read,  your still playing a male character amongst a small harem of girls, fooling around with them in semi-pervy mind games in order to boink (er, I mean bond with them and power up their battle abilities!)

Not saying both sexes can't get some entertainment out of it, or that females coudln't find some sort of ironic humor out of the whole procedings, but I'd say overall series is made for a hetero male audience. 

[Cyril]

Except none of the main females in AT2 really rely on the male at the end.  Two of the females rely on each other to solve their problems and their main conflicts are solved in a special Cosmosphere building relationships between the women.  By the end of the game, the female-female pretty much forces the hero out the spotlight.  Compared to Aoto, Croix has no part in the story, and Aoto even has a small part in his game. Croix is, literally, just the window you're seeing through in the game, comparable to Vaan from FFXII.

Lyner is a bit more interesting because despite having the personality of a rock he actually has a role in the game.

It's very much a game women can enjoy just as much as men.  Again, you shouldn't be making judgments like this without playing the series.  That's like saying Atelier is for men because the main characters of the recent trilogy have been lolis.

[CDFN]

My history with this franchise is:

Loved the first game and played through it several times to get all the endings.
Got bored of the second after a few hours and never looked at it again.
Not interested at all in the third.

For me the second game lost all the charisma its prequel had in spades, specially when it comes to character design.
Though I think that the character designs in the third aren't any better, my real issue is that those strip scenes are fucking embarrassing, I can only imagine what my wife would think if she saw that shit.

[Cyril]

She'd probably think it was hilarious, actually.

[Annubis]

Don't be too harsh on the guy, he's right in a way. Even if a game is terrible, if you are sexually attracted to women and there are plenty of almost naked ones, it won't be completely terrible.
DOA volleyball sold copies because of that very reason.

[Starmongoose]

"Frank, c'mere. This game is garbage. It will never sell."

"Does it have tits and ass?"

"No."

"There's your problem."

[Commander Jubby Shepard]

"Frank, c'mere. This game is garbage. It will never sell."

"Does it have tits and ass?"

"No."

"There's your problem."

This has something to do with your post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6UMtALvbJ0

[ZeronHitaro]

I'll be honest. For all the defending I did for the game I just traded it in today; having only played about 10 hours worth. I wasn't particularly disgusted or dissatisfied with it; but with all the things I want to do/need to do during a week AT3 really didn't justify being something to waste 4+ hours on every so often. Every time I thought about the game I could simply find no motivation or desire to play it. Take that as you will.

[Dice]

I'll be honest. For all the defending I did for the game I just traded it in today; having only played about 10 hours worth. I wasn't particularly disgusted or dissatisfied with it; but with all the things I want to do/need to do during a week AT3 really didn't justify being something to waste 4+ hours on every so often. Every time I thought about the game I could simply find no motivation or desire to play it. Take that as you will.

On the contrary to ..whatever, how honourable to admit that!  I probably wouldn't; I'm a pussy like that who feels the need to save face about such things.  ...d'oh.

I kinda had that with AT2; it was good, just not enough.  I loved nearly everything about it, but the gameplay was such, such, such a drag after so long (I still have it's artbook though haha).

And yeah, the embarassing and perverted strip scenes are enough to make me avoid it.  Likewise, CDFN, for the reason I wouldn't know how to explain that shit to people other than I'm a big freak who wants an anime body pillow.

[Fei]

Has anyone ever seen human pornography before?  How does that make you feel?

I think you just gotta laugh... my girlfriend loves the clothes the girls in Neptunia wear.  Qoga sounds like it's vulgar as hell.  I've got a copy right here, and by now, I'm expecting something rancid.