After five weeks and five days, my order finally came in at Kinokuniya. The reviewers on Amazon were right: this book is thick. It's almost approaching a Xenogears Perfect Works amount of information. It even includes an I.P.D. Reyvateil card game, which makes me wish I could buy another copy for popping the cards out and playing.
Hi, I just wanted to complain that:
At long last, I have posted my first column to Heisei Democracy. Be warned that while the column itself is pretty innocent, the site is pretty far on the other side of safe-for-workness. :D
]]>So I'm on my second loop through Ar tonelico 2, because I want to see the Cosmosphere and ending for a different character. This time I'm turbo-buttoning through the story bits and concentrating on leveling up, so that I can get past the stuff I've already seen as quickly as possible. Surprisingly, this second pass through the game is still quite fun, now that I'm learning the secrets of powering up my characters for battle. If I didn't think I'd already missed some stuff that I can't go back for, I might be tempted to try for yarikomi — the level of extreme game completion that would take at least 150 hours for a game like this. I'd see every conversation, craft every item, rescue every I.P.D. Reyvateil, explore every level of every Cosmosphere, and power everyone up to the max.
Usually I am pretty rushed to get to the end of a game, so that I can move on to the next game in my queue. I couldn't really understand people like my roommate in college who went around beating all the Weapons in Final Fantasy VII just for the sake of having done it. Or the mythical players who left their level 99 dudes on the battery backup of RPGs I rented or bought used. But now I'm starting to see the appeal of approaching each new game as a miniature hobby in its own right, something you play and play until you've exhausted everything it has to offer.
Maybe, in this new land of buying fewer games, I should find the few games that I really want to get deep into, and go for yarikomi. The GUST, Nippon Ichi, Flight-Plan, Intelligent Systems, Sting, and Atlus games I'm interested in these days certainly support that approach, or even specifically encourage it.
]]>I have reached a time in my life when I need to buy video games that I will play, and play the video games that I buy.
Traditionally, I have gotten worked up about games and I have buzzed with excitement until I could somehow get my hands on them. The procurement of the game often superseded the enjoyment of the game. If a game was part of a series I considered myself a fan of, or had a particularly attractive package, or showed up at a Shinjuku used-game shop for cheap, I couldn't be satisfied until I had it on my shelf. Sometimes these games became lastingly memorable life experiences. Sometimes they became nothing.
Now I'm not in charge of my own budget anymore. I need to feed, clothe, and shelter two adult human beings. The lady controls our money because she knows better than to let me spend $200 on a Limited Edition game that might end up as a disappointment, or $75 on a game I might not play for more than five hours, or $30 on a game that might never find its way onto the disc tray at all.
Yesterday I was freaking out a bit about how my hobby is kind of passing me by. If I finally get around to playing a game, it's often well after everyone else has already discovered it, chattered about it online, drawn their fanart, and moved on to the next thing. Part of the fun of games for me is participating in the culture and exploring the game along with hundreds of other people around the world. Recently there was a Dengeki poll asking gamers about the best game they played in 2007; it kind of spooked me to think that some games I'm still meaning to pick up and play (particularly Etrian Odyssey and Fate/stay night [Realta Nua]) are now officially last year's news. Of course, that's because I spent the last five months playing Ar tonelico 2, which is also on the list. (Not to mention that I still mean to play their all-time favorite #9, Gensousuikoden II, but haven't partially because I was busy playing #4, Xenogears, at the time.) But I'd like to keep up better than I am.
I mentioned to the lady that I worried when I'd even be able to buy another video game. She hit me with the eminently sensible notion that it's fine to buy a new game if I have finished the ones I already own. This is a completely alien concept to me, but it's clear that with our current resources it's the only reasonable way to proceed. Of course, this means I can't employ my old shotgun method of game collection and then sort through the loot when it's time to start a new game. I'll have to carefully weigh which of the games on my wishlist I really want to play next, then buy it and play it. I won't be playing fewer games, I'll just be spending less money on games that are bound to become shelf decorations... Though I am proud of my shelf decorations.
Of course, the first stage of this discipline will be finishing (or rejecting) the 20 or so games in my queue. To that end, I dove back into Ar tonelico 2 last night and finished Croche's path this morning before work. Next I'll go back and finish the secret character's path. Then I'll choose a game I already own and get through that. When I truly own no video games that I still want to get through, then I'll take a look around at the landscape and see which game I truly want to play next.
]]>Background: So, some of the old games I played on the Mac Plus as a kid had a "boss key": some key combo you could hit to make it look like you were working instead of playing around. At a job I had in Chicago, one of my coworkers made a wallpaper image called BUSYBEE.BMP, a screenshot of a bunch of Excel windows, which he'd expose with the handy Windows 2000 "Desktop" button when someone important walked by.
It's here, it's glorious, it's in my PS2 right now. Few things can convince me to get up at 6:30 and come in to the office, but I did it today to have some hours with the game before work began. Here are my impressions, as impulsive as Croche suddenly pulling her sword on someone:
This is a (rather amateurish) translation of Dengeki Online's report of the Ar tonelico 2 event in Akihabara last week. I have included only the images which are unique to the article; screenshots and other such official materials have been left out.
"Enta-matsuri" — Popular Divas Brought Together!
PS2 Ar tonelico 2 Premium Event Exhibition
On a special stage at the currently-running "Akihabara Enta-Matsuri" festival, a premium event was held on October 21 for the PS2 RPG Ar tonelico 2: Sekai ni Hibiku Shoujotachi no Metafalica (hereafter Ar tonelico 2).
On sale from Banpresto starting today, October 25, Ar tonelico 2 is the continuation of January 2006's Ar tonelico: Sekai no Owari de Utaitsudzukeru Shoujo. Set in a harsh world without solid ground, the story of those who travel around a verdant utopia "Metafalica" and battle with gods is told on a grand scale. Its unique system is that of singing in the emotive language "Hymmnos" in order to invoke magic.
Ar tonelico 2 cover (left) and limited preorder item "Official Visual Book" cover (right).
Today's event was divided into two sections: Section 1 "World Part" and Section 2 "System Part". Part 1 was presented as a talk show with members of the development team and the female artists, while Part 2 was an explanation of the system while playing the game itself.
Part 1
In Part 1, the female artists who worked on the musical compositions appeared: Shimotsuki Haruka-san, Shikata Akiko-san, Ishibashi Yuuko-san, and Mitose Noriko-san. In addition to these four, the director of Ar tonelico 2, GUST's Tsuchiya Akira-shi, the producer, Banpresto's Kawachi Atsunori-shi, and Banpresto's public relations manager T-san, presented a talk.
Members of today's event. From the left, director Tsuchiya Akira, Ishibashi Yuuko-san, Shikata Akiko-san, Shimotsuki Haruka-san, Mitose Noriko-san, producer Kawachi Atsunori.
In this work, as director Tsuchiya "wanted to involve the singers deeply in the worldview," there is an artist responsible for each of the main characters. Songs for the heroine "Ruka Trulyworth[?]" are by Shimotsuki-san, those for the other heroine "Kurôshe Rêteru Pastarie" are by Shikata-san, those for Ruka's mother "Reisha Trulyworth" are by Ishibashi-san, and those for the secret character are by Mitose-san.
Ishibashi-san divulged a little-known episode in which it took her four days to record just one song, and she thought her heart would break in the middle of recording. Also, Mitose-san related the story of how she recorded in a booth for hours in midsummer heat of over 40 degrees Celsius, then ended up dreaming in the Hymmnos language.
From there, Shimotsuki-san revealed the story of a request from the director Tsuchiya, "This song is a really apathetic song, so I want you to sing apathetically." Director Tsuchiya engaged the crowd strongly, saying "It really did turn out apathetic! Look forward to it!"
It's hard to work up the motivation to post these days, what with the pee-smelling apartment, many project deadlines at work, and other assorted stressors competing for my despair. But this is exciting enough:
GUST has posted the Ar tonelico 2 trailer. I can totally feel myself outside a game store in West Shinjuku, stopping to watch the trailer loop 2 or 3 times. It's got character voices, four Reyvateils including a secret one voiced by Mitose Noriko, new Hymmnos tracks, and yes, a very special technique for dual-Reyvateil song magic. ~_~;;;