I love Gust. Big surprise, I know. I can safely say they're my favourite game developer now; INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS got dethroned.
And I'm glad that I've tried most of their major IPs. These games differ quite a lot from each other, allowing them to branch out and try out things that are unacceptable elsewhere. The extremely dark settings of Surge Concerto is a stark contrast to Atelier, BLUE REFLECTION and even Nights of Azure. I have conflicting feelings about these games. On one hand, it really isn't the kind of story I can stomach (I'm patting myself on the back for enduring this for 5 months); on the other hand, it's a story with vast worldbuilding and (somewhat forced) emotion binding that makes me unwilling to leave it behind. It's a well-made story, balanced just enough not to make me despise it for being sad and gloomy.
Ciel nosurge is the first game; Ar nosurge had a small part that takes place 2 years prior at the beginning, but when the game's focus switches to Ion for the first time (Phase 1, P1-17), it takes place right after Ciel nosurge's end. Both games, collectively the Surge Concerto series, serve as prequels to the Ar tonelico series; both series take place in the EXA_PICO universe.
All spoilers unmasked due to the DX games being Japan-only and I don't think anyone reading this will play them.
Some overall background information here:
Ciel nosurge, Ar nosurge, and the various surrounding supplementary materials (
genomirai.com,
World Setting Documents, comic, 2 light novels, Gust account mailbox and more) are made with in mind the concept that the games are inter-dimensional communication devices that connect to worlds that really exist somewhere outside of our universe. Through technology discovered in the Surge Concerto world, they could connect to a world at a different position on the 7th dimension axis — our world. There is an ongoing crisis in that world, and it is up to the player to resolve the issue with the people there.
As the story takes place in a completely different universe, a lot of things (biology, physics and technology in particular) are vastly different from what we understand of our world. Gravity can be controlled, parallel world jumping is possible (with heavy limitations), and souls can be preserved. In this world, everything has consciousness, including planets and the universe itself; and a type of organism, the genoms, are born out of the will of the planets who are capable of what we see as outright magical, but they need to have singers (usually humans) to carry them out. This is called song magic.
One concept that shows up often is the higher dimensions: the 5th axis of possibility, the 6th axis of collectivity and the 7th axis of universe. The right kind of song magic with the availability of (a very large amount of) energy can allow movement across these dimensions, but the energy requirement often means such movement is essentially impossible. Beings from beyond the 7th dimension have the ability to subconciously "see" from the 7th axis, and thus know of different points in time and different parallel worlds.
Surge Concerto's story follows Ion (pronounced "aeon", not "atom with electrical charge"), a young woman capable of making hardware who made a connection to our world.
Ciel nosurge: Requiem to a Lost Star DX
シェルノサージュ〜失われた星へ捧ぐ詩〜 DX
Background informationCiel nosurge was originally released on 26 April 2012 on PS Vita, with rather negative reception mostly due to the
graphical glitches, and the fact that it's an episodic game with only Chapter 1 on physical media, while Chapter 2 has to be downloaded and Chapters 3–12 and the Terminate Pack are paid DLC. On 21 February 2013, Ciel nosurge RE:Incarnation was released on PS Vita, containing Chapters 1–4 on physical media, Chapter 5 as free DLC and Chapters 6–12 as paid DLC. These versions are online games, with the time being server-synced, and the microquasar (for unlocking stuff) being shared across all players.
On 2 October 2014, Ciel nosurge OFFLINE was released on PS Vita, adding the ability to keep more Sharls (creatures who repair Ion's memories), adding more character interactions (while removing some others, overall making Ion more pleasant to talk to), changed the time and microquasar mechanics to being completely local to the player, and changed to use manual saves.
On 4 March 2021, Ciel nosurge DX was released on PS4, Switch and Steam. This version was adopted to be a standalone, platform-agnostic title (like most other Gust games), removing PS Vita-specific functions like barcode scanning and touch screen controls, replacing the former with a barcode entry screen and the latter with button controls. It also removed Gust account support, instead adding the mailbox as an in-game menu item and using the host console to detect Ar nosurge save data. 10 fan-submitted images are added.
None of these games are localised. They're all Japan exclusive.
CharactersIon's world:
Ion — Full name Ionasal.kkrr.Preciel (Preciel is a title for an empress candidate; not a surname). The empress candidate from an organisation called the Tenmon, who was actually abducted to this universe as part of the Tenmon's conpiracy. As a being from a different 7th dimension location (different universe), she is able to use her overseeing ability which allows her to see through time and possibilities under the right condition. After being summoned, she was subject to biological testing for about 2 years before being sent to the ground to start her 3-year trial to become Ra Ciela's empress, and only had Renall on her side as her supporter, who couldn't do much besides nudging things in her favour in small ways.
Prior to being summoned, she was known as Nei Yuuki, a university year 1 student from (an alternate-possibility) Earth with an unusual affinity with electronic and mechanical work. Her family did not approve of her interests, but her hard work eventually convinced them to let her pursue her own path. Unfortunately, not long after that, a machine she crafted caused her to be kidnapped to a different universe. (Details of her origin can be seen in Ar nosurge and the light novels.)
Nelico — A mysterious woman who appears in Ion's world and runs a grocery store. Although she looks friendly and is knowledgeable about the player's world, there is something off about her: she would hesitate to answer questions on what has happened to Ion and the nature of this world, and would aggressively encourage the player to befriend her and bring the player VR cards so that they can date. She would even officiate their marriage if they want to get married. The reason behind her actions are revealed in Ar nosurge.
Ion's memories:
(1)
Pari — The Tenmon side leader of Dreamsphere. Coolin's childhood friend; inspired by Ion and Kanon's example of overcoming factionalism, she married Coolin later.
(2)
Coolin — The Chimon side leader of Dreamsphere. Very hot-headed, and was disappointed at Pari when their leadership style apparently differed until they realised there was miscommunication between them.
(3)
Clacket — Ex-Genomirai researcher whose work led to Ion's abduction. He tried to undo the damage, but died stopping Revelt.
(4)
Neptool — Sarly's father and Griecoff's friend-turned-rival after Griecoff found his research went too far. Worked with Nero and Zill in exchange for a cure for Sarly. Died after Nero's failed attempt to take over Ion's body.
(5)
Sarly — A genius scientist and programmer who is Cass's childhood friend and Shirotaka's online friend. Terminally ill, until Nay stole Zill's virus to cure her by turning her into an incarnate.
(6)
Griecoff — Cass's father who worked with the Chimon in an attempt to protect Cass, which unfortunately didn't get Cass's understanding. Died along with Neptool.
(7)
Cass (Casty) — Delta's girlfriend. Due to the scientifically-minded friends around her, she felt insecure at times, but she was an important factor in their eventual success.
(8)
Telefunken — Ion's genom partner. Grateful of Ion for saving his life, but always feels he's a hindrance.
(9)
Delta (Ta-bō) — The first person to provide Ion shelter after her descent to the ground. A straightforward, if easily incited hero type.
(10)
Ruray — Delta's mother who provided shelter for Ion and her friends. Though tough on Delta, she has an iron resolve just like Delta does when it comes to standing their grounds.
(11)
Pram — Delta and Cass's friend and a bright engineer. The three would hand out together in a secret base until his untimely death. Shirotaka's brother.
(12)
Ion (child) — Nay as a child, before she was separated from Ion's body. Appeared only in Nay and Ion's dream world as part of Nay's memories, and unfortunately, her curiosity led her to learn about her eventual, cruel fate.
(13)
Shirotaka (Leolm) — An otaku that is a fan of Nay's stage performance as Pretty Berry. He is also supportive of Ion's action since Pram's death and Ion's action to prevent similar tragedies.
(14)
Nay — A dancer from Planetary Maison. She is actually the original Ion's soul put into a Sharl's body, and she deeply resents the Tenmon for this.
(15)
Kanon (Kanoyeel) — Chimon's empress candidate. Originally tried to compete with Ion so that the better of the two may become empress, but later worked with Ion against the corruption of both factions.
(16)
Renall — Ion's carer since she was abducted to Ra Ciela. She appears cold and obedient, but was actually trying to fight Tenmon from the inside.
(17)
Nero (Ulyliyha) — A girl from another universe summoned to serve Ciela 5000 years ago, and was killed with no chance of reincarnation after they no longer needed her. She absolutely hated the EXA_PICO universe as a result, and would try to return at all costs.
(18)
Zill (Zillillium) — A Genomirai scientist raised in a conservative Chimon background. She is the lover of Undu, another scientist who shared her views, until she became such an extremist that she wanted to forcefully merge all of humanity into a single soul.
(19)
Empress — The empress of Ra Ciela prior to Ion's ascension. She appeared traditionalist, but secretly believed the unusual approach of Ion's is the key of breaking out of their situation.
(20)
Revelt — Tenmon's leader, Renall's father and the main villain of this story. Extremely racist against the genom, and got even worse when his wife was killed by one in retaliation.
Story(The version here is highly simplified. For details, see the less-simplified
TV Tropes page; but my experience differed from what TV Tropes described. As far as I know there is no indication in-game on Undu being a genom, Nay being related to Renall or Revelt, or that Revelt's wife (Renall's mother) was a previous empress.)
Chapter 1 — Ion lives in a small house in an isolated world. She does not know who she is nor why is she there, and the world's only other inhabitant, Nelico, told her that is how things have always been. Ion does feel something is off though, having had the same strange dream of being in a ceremony where the empress announces something.
Starting the game, the player is greeted by an amnesiac Ion in her room, who has just obtained a strange terminal lying around outside her room. After repairing that terminal, it connected to an external being — the player. Under the player's encouragement, Ion started to collect materials and make items, and one such item, the outfit she wore in the ceremony in that dream, evoked a small part of her lost memory and triggering the terminal's function to explore Ion's dream world.
Ion's dream world consists of two parts: the Sharls' nest and a series of doors that lead to Ion's memories. Ion's memories are broken, so it's up to the Sharls to repair them to they can be viewed. And it appears that Ion's history goes way beyond what it looks like.
Ion was an empress candidate selected by a political faction called the Tenmon. She was sent from the palace to Manjusara, the empire's old capital on the ground of the planet Ra Ciela, to experience life as a commoner for three years, alongside the other candidate, Kanon, from the opposing political faction, Chimon. Whereas Kanon spoke confidently about her ambition to improve the lives of the people, Ion was completely shaken, did not know what to do, and ended up escaping from the initial speech she was supposed top deliver. She was picked up by Delta, a young boy who happened to be around, who invited her to his mother's shop and home for shelter.
She learned about Delta's friends, Cass and Pram, and their cielnotron project where they created their own custom cielnotron, a device considered indispensable at the time like our world's mobile phones. Although as Tenmon's candidate she should have used such a device too, she found a genom she found who would die if left alone, and harmonised with him instead.
Ion and heard news that solar bursts were coming for the town. As empress candidate, this was the chance for her to gain credibility if she does something about it, but she was too pressured and got too little help from the panicked populace to get anything done, while Kanon has been trying to evacuate people. Eventually, and unfortunately after seeing Pram die from one of the bursts destroying his region, she finally mustered enough confidence and persuaded enough people to lend their cielnotrons, chained them together and made song magic potent enough to create giant lotus leaves that protect the town from bursts. Feeling indebted to her new friends, Ion sets foot to her next destination, a colony called the Dreamsphere.
Chapter 2 — In Dreamsphere, Ion met Nay, an energetic girl who works as a dancer in Planetary Maison. She learned that her own goal and Kanon's weren't fundamentally different, despite being from opposing factions, and that the CEO of the company that produced cielnotrons, Neptool, was involved in schemes that would kill those aligned with Chimon by intentionally disabling the gravity supporting their areas, while framing it as Tenmon's fault with their cielnotrons drawing power away from the gravity system.
Chapter 3 — Neptool wanted to invite Ion to his company, but Nay had another idea: they would first go to Planetary Maison for a rest. It's an entertainment district, and Ion attempted to publicly express her thoughts via a contest. The process was a mess as Ion was not good at public performer, which lead to her conflicts with Nay. (This was revealed much later, but unbeknownst to Ion, Nay was torn between continuing her mission to take Ion to Neptool as Zill commanded and turning against Zill.) In the end, it's with the help from Nay's fan, an otaku called Skirotaka, that Ion could perform via song magic programmed by Shirotaka and an online friend (later revealed to be Sarly) using a last-generation G2-tron.
Chapter 4 — With their rest over, they went to Neptool's Tube Company, where it was revealed that the centralised system that power cielnotrons, REON-OS, was powered by Reon, who was put in the central server without a physical body. It was also shown that Neptool has kidnapped Cass to lure her father Griecoff, and Delta went after them to save Cass. Reon attempted to take over Ion's body to escape, but it was eventually foiled by Nay. The company was destroyed in the aftermath, and Neptool's repentance came too late as both he and Griecoff died with the company.
Chapter 5 — News of the company's destruction was misconstrued as Ion and her friends' conspiracy, and they were captured by Tenmon's military arm, PLASMA. They were taken to the information colony of Almetica. Ion met Kanon there, as she was investigating rumours that she was not a legitimate successor. The two exchanged information on how both Tenmon and Chimon are conspiring on plans beyond their understanding. PLASMA have caught up on Kanon with the intention to arrest her, which Ion put a stop to. Now charged with treason, Ion returned to PLASMA's HQ and Kanon entered Genomirai herself.
Chapter 6 — Escaping PLASMA with the help of an anti-PLASMA organisation Quantize, Ion's group ended up in Four Seasons, the colony where Cass used to study. It turned out that Quantize operates there, and their leader is Sarly, Cass's childhood friend and Shirotaka's online friend who is terminally ill.
Also in Four Seasons is Zill, a scientist who saved Nay, whose soul was put into a Sharl's body, by giving her a virus needed for her to stay alive. Zill has blackmailed Nay into helping her on something. Although Nay struggled on how should she treat Zill, upon learning that Zill only cares about her own goal, she turned her back and helped Ion's group steal Zill's research data. Sarly's life was preserved by using Zill's virus, which turns her into an incarnate, a human-genom hybrid that can use song magic on their own. Ion and Sarly escaped to the Genomirai lab, while Zill caught Nay.
Chapter 7 — In the Genomirai lab, Ion and Sarly met Dr Clacket, the mentor of Griecoff and Neptool and an ex-Genomirai researcher who seeks to undo the damage his work caused. It turned out Nero (Reon's name as a person, as opposed to a system when trapped in the server) and Ion are beings from 7 dimensions beyond, and their very presence are causing instability in their space. Kanon had her own shocking revelation too: she was originally an orphan from Manjusara who was taken to the lab to be experimented on in order to inherit Nero's genes, and she was the only one surviving after 228 previous failures who all died.
Nero regained her body and free movement after the Tube Company's collapse, and Zill wanted to to return Nero to her original world to free Undu, a researcher and Zill's lover who was trapped in Nero's body. From there, several parties clashed as they have different goals:
- Nero herself wanted to go back and would do anything to achieve it, having stuck in this world for 5000 years, most of it without a body.
- Clacket wanted to return Ion first for stability reason, since she was the last to be summoned to this world.
- Ion herself is unsure about returning since she wanted to ensure the world's safety first.
- The Tenmon group, including Ion's carer Renall, lied to Ion about Zill's intention and instead told her she would return herself, Undu and Nero, causing further instability.
- Kanon knew Zill's intention and would help her, but Ion has set to stop her until she too learnt the truth.
- Nero performed a 6-axis shift to shift everyone's mind to a parallel world where Clacket's plan became that of returning Nero first, with only Ion noticing as the only outer universe being.
In this extremely confusing state, Nero ultimately won out, the Tenmon shot Kanon, and Zill's underlings killed Ion.
Back to Ion's world, she was overwhelmed by what she saw and had severe doubt about herself, including whether she was still alive. The terminal (player) had to spend a few days for Ion to calm down, and encourage her to try uncovering her memories again.
Chapter 8 — 2 years after the incident, Zill was seen running the world as a religious leader, convincing people to achieve enlightenment and turn into Sharls, artificial genoms first created by Zill. Her goal was to replace free-willed humans into Sharls, who had a more hive-like mindset. With her were Nay, who Zill kept under control for her ability to control the Sharls, and Undu, who was controlling Nero's body. Sarly and Clacket were in hiding, with the whereabouts of Delta and Cass unknown.
One day, Nay got away from Zill with an excuse, and told Sarly that Ion's soul was preserved. In order to use Ion's ability as an extradimensional being, Nay had to dive into Ion's genometrics (mental world) to get her help.
Nay was revealed to be the original Ion until Tenmon executed their plot to summon a soul, Nei Yuuki, from beyond the 7th dimension. They planned to discard Nay's soul, but a sympathetic member, Fractel, saved her by transferring her soul to the body of a prototype Sharl body Zill created. Nay had resentment towards Ion for stealing her life and identity, and has picked her new name, Nayaflask, meaning "the true Nei", to reflect that. But the rational side of Nay knew Ion was also a victim of the whole operation, and seeing her memories made her realise the extent of horror Ion has went through herself.
Nay connected to Ion's soul and explained the world's situation and her feelings to Ion. With Ion's power ready, Nay hijacked Zill's follower's prayer chants and used the energy gathered to execute her own song magic, course-correcting what happened in the 2 years and went back to the original timeline, right before Nero was returned.
Nero was stopped, and Delta, Cass and Shirotaka were arrested by PLASMA for being Quantize members, and Renall attempted a coup at the Tenmon. Shocked and confused, Ion announced to Renall that she would no longer trust nor work with the Tenmon, including Renall.
Chapter 9 — Delta, Cass and Shirotaka were placed in an amusement park that turned out to be the Tenmon's brainwashing facility, as well as a secretly-made space colony called Soreil. There, they met Nero, who looked like a lost child to them. Cass offered to tour the park with Nero, which makes it the first time in 5000 years she has had such fun, marking the first time she cared about any human being in that world. Sarly, being an incarnate, managed to shield their group from PLASMA's brainwashing. Meanwhile, Zill was offered to work with PLASMA, which she begrudgingly accepted.
Chapter 10 — Zill once again captured Delta's group, but Cass managed to escape. Soreil houses the new cielnotron server, which is now powered by Sharls. It also houses a vacuum tube called the Ar nosurge tube, which is said to support Interdimend, a technology that allows connection to outside of the universe.
After the previous coup by Renall, her father Revelt, Tenmon's leader, caused the Ar nosurge tube to overheat, which began to kill the Sharls powering it. Nay had to use her power to control the Sharls to work with Cass to free Delta, and Ion worked with Kanon to gather the populace's song magic power to save the Sharls and restore the cielnotron server. Nero was convinced to temporarily re-enter the cielnotron server, and Telefunken, Ion's song magic partner, left without a word to Ion, only telling Nay to take his place.
Chapter 11 — Revelt, Tenmon's leader, has stopped to a new low as he tried to transport a small number of elites to a new planet that Nero has discovered, leaving everyone else to die. This prompts COSAL, the king of genoms and Kanon's genom partner, to summon other genoms to try to stop Revelt, to which Revelt replied that the genoms are not needed and should all die. Clacket gave his lives stopping Revelt, and Kanon and COSAL were apparently killed too. Zill and Ion's group escaped, and Ion became the empress as the previous empress transferred the exclusive magical voice needed for powerful song magic.
Chapter 12 — Ion, as empress, announced that a new planet was found and they could get there. The planet was temporarily linked to Soreil, and an expedition team would be sent there first. To Ion's surprise, Telefunken was the genom leader of the team. Telefunken explained that he realised that he was not strong enough to support Ion, so he sets out to become stronger.
Back to Ion's world, where Nelico, the eccentric woman in Ion's world, was uncharacteristically angry at Ion and the player for repairing Ion's memories to this extent. She wanted to see Ion and the player living together for the rest of their days, while Ion, getting aware of the outside world, wants to be equipped to leave it. After building a robot that will allow the player to move freely in Ion's world, the world started to break apart and Ion could repair the remaining memories which were locked out before.
It was revealed that after the expedition team were sent, Nero, still in the server as a result of Revelt's betrayal, tried to take over Ion again. Ion, who was synchronised with Nay after losing Telefunken, cried for help and asked Nay to kill her in an attempt to stop Nero. Nay reluctantly complied, and a dying Ion transferred the voice of the empress to Nay. But before Ion could die, Nero teleported herself, Ion and the new planet away.
After that, the dream world navigator told the player that other memories were collected from Kanon and Nay to give Ion a fuller picture of what has happened. Besides showing Kanon and Nay's troubled past, it was revealed that Zill has once again tried to force the souls of the humans to merge, killing a large number of people before Delta, Sarly and Nay could stop it. They found that Nero has moved 5000 years to the future, but otherwise stayed at the same location on other axes. Ion's friends decided to put themselves in cryosleep to catch up with Nero.
And so everything is revealed. Ion is currently put to sleep by Nero who is making an overseer so that she can return home, the world we see is Ion's genometric, and Ion needs to get out and stop Nero from doing further harm. To do so, Ion needs to dismount the device and put it on the robot she made, but she was worried that this could cut her connection with the player. (If the player has a Gust account with Ar nosurge record or has linked Ar nosurge DX's save file, they can assure Ion that they can reconnect.) After one last date and a hearty goodbye, she cuts off the connection.
(The full story takes 30 hours to listen to. So yeah, this
is a shortened version.)
Story impressionI knew the story would be dark, but it's far beyond my imagination. I have no experience with Ar tonelico, and since I played this game as part of a long-term marathon to try out modern games from Gust, I had other Gust games as a frame of reference. In the background stories of those other games, there are deaths as a result of wars, monster attacks, sickness and old age, and those never involved large numbers of deaths or having named characters drop dead here and there. Maybe BLUE REFLECTION: Second Light counts, but the focus of that game was not on the general populace. Here, though, we see lots of deaths: commoners whose lives are disregarded, villains who could or could not be reasoned with, mentor figures, even children. And that's before considering that the planet Ra Ciela was almost dying before the story even started.
Oh, and that nice young woman you've been talking to for a long time (2 years canonically)? Technically she has killed people too, when the remaining humans and genoms refused to leave the planet to the spacecraft Soreil. She herself was killed or almost killed three times too. (Or four times, if the supplementary background story in a prequel light novel counts.)
This is a world that is constantly in danger, so when I read through the story, I was always in a tensed up state. And there are a lot of times when I wish the player character could help. Of course, these are memories, and from the last era on a different planet at that, so it's not like this will ever work out. Some of the character actions also make me want to scream "no", like when people who should be on the same page show resentment towards each other, or when they walk into obvious traps. Things do eventually work out… 5000 years later, after another set of conflicts.
There's also this constantly sad feeling throughout the game, especially when Ion and Nay's backstories are involved. Both got involved in events far outside of their control, forced to use politics and interpersonal manipulation to get certain things done, tortured mentally or biochemically in various ways, all while not maintaining their own identity and with no idea if things can ever go back to normal.
Of course, it's not just tensions that are in the story. There are relaxed, funny moments too, especially in the extra scenarios, but it's the conflicts that stand out more to me. I can't shake the mentality that I'm playing a Gust game (since the UI and graphics style are still their usual ones), and perhaps because of this, the kind of story I don't usually see from them are the ones that leave me an impression. Not to say it's hard to find funny parts though. Shirotaka's tendency to get excited, Clacket's useless experiments and absent-mindedness and Ion's general stubbornness come to mind.
And I do like how the story shows that people are multifaceted, and that things can be perceived as good or bad depending on context. Zill is an obvious example: what she does is obviously unacceptable, but her motive and backstory are understandable; people should generally avoid her, but she's also the reason why Nay and Sarly are still alive. Almost makes me feel bad to confront her, if not for the fact that what few good aspects of her just happen to be part of her manipulative plans.
The main story is too long. There are quite a lot of it that aren't quite needed and feel like fillers, and I'd argue that they can be made into optional story events. I guess the slow pace does make sense when considering how slow it is to make items, though. This is in stark contrast with Ar nosurge.
GraphicsArland era graphics in 1080p with some clipping and rather awkward facial animation (even in pre-rendered scenes), and some 2D graphics retain PS Vita's resolution. When the terminal is next to Ion's bed and she came home from material gathering, there's a chance she will stand too close to the camera, leading to a closeup on her hair. I've even seen a case where the camera clips
inside her head, which isn't pretty.
Gameplay mechanicsThere are mainly 3 parts of the game: dream world (for viewing Ion's memories), Ion's room and dating events.
In the dream world, Sharls are summoned (by scanning / entering barcodes) to repair Ion's memories and to gather energy from the player's world and send to an energy collection called the microquasar (the importance of which will be revealed in Ar nosurge).
By sending enough energy, various perks will be unlocked, but most importantly Nelico will bring in various dating cards containing VR-like data so that the player can visit virtual dating spots with Ion.
Sharls have elemental types, and the broken memory points will need specific amounts of resources to be repaired. The Sharls have two important stats: LP and repair power. LP determines how many repairs can they do, and repair power determines the number of units repaired per repair. There is another stat for the amount of time needed per repair, but it's not that important in OFFLINE / DX if the player skips time. If the chosen Sharls cannot fully repair the broken memory, they can be swapped with more Sharls to continue the work.
Repaired memory points can be viewed as a short story, usually lasting about 15 minutes. Each chapter has 8 to 15 memory points.
In Ion's room, the player can see Ion's normal daily life, and can talk to her, ask her to gather materials, make items, and even share bedtime stories.
This is the part that takes up the majority of the time. From a pure gameplay perspective, I can ask her to make items, then come back (or skip time) when those items are ready, but it feels kind of cold. I instead opted to check in on her every now and then (I do use the system settings to fast-forward time though). This actually has a gameplay purpose too; there are conversations that don't appear often, so I have to keep talking to her until a specific topic is brought up, without being too annoying. Some conversations lead to getting voice messages in the mailbox, which can be permanently missed.
I do generally like talking to her, although as an unfortunate result of having unbalanced probabilities on which topics get brought up, it's very easy to run into repeat conversations. Ion herself sometimes brings this up too, and blames her monotonic life for a lack of things to talk about.
She does have different thing to say depending on her current action, and the variety is… not good, but not very bad either.
Her bedtime stories are interesting. The player can ask her to rest with them, and gets options to talk, sing or talk about the stories she has read. There are 10 books to choose from, each with 2–4 sections of story summary and short reviews. In real-life meta-gaming terms, these are short stories and commentary made by the Gust writing team, and I feel assured that they do indeed know how would their player base (at least, me) react to different stories. All these stories delivered in Ion's sweet, loving voice make me really like them.
Ion can make various types of items: intermediate crafting items, food, outfits, items for dating, and equipment for use in Ar nosurge. She would comment on the items made, and the player can sometimes respond. The commentaries range from describing how the item should be used, what does Ion think about it, and how some of these are useless in Ion's confined, peaceful life in Nelico's world.
The timing of the player responding to Ion can be awkward, since Ion would keep talking as the response selection UI shows up. This can make the player miss out conversations quite easily if the player responds to early or too late. It's one part of the game that I genuinely don't like.
Ion would sometimes ask the player for a date depending on the story progression. There are also weekly mini-dates and item dates (triggered by showing crafted items to Ion), and the latter is necessary for raising relationship points. There are 9 dating venues (not counting special events tied to certain holidays), ranging from shops selling hardware parts to a café and a school. Ion thought of using these dates to help restoring her memories (usually with little success), although Nelico's original intention is for her to keep dating and forget about the whole memory repair thing.
These dating events are one-time occurences; they cannot be viewed again after the dates are over.
Overall impressionCiel nosurge is designed to be a real-time dating sim, and I honestly don't like the idea of that. Generally speaking, as a player, I wish to be able to interact with my games whenever I want, without them guilt-tripping me for not showing up. It's one of the few things I don't like about Project Mirai, and is a major reason why I don't like online games even if they don't involve being outmatched by other people. Fortunately, in Ciel nosurge (OFFLINE / DX) I have the option not to skip time when I load a save file, and I can change the system time for micro-adjustments.
The character interaction part can be rather boring due to the limited pool of things Ion can say. The story is fixed, dating events have 1-out-of-2 choices that don't affect much beyond the next few lines, and Ion's room's part is just a lot of waiting with the occasional talking, and it's not known if and when will Ion say something new. But it's hard to ignore or get angry at this adorable young woman who most of the time has nothing but love for the player, and I
can skip time (either with an in-game function or by adjusting system time).
Overall, I'd say the room part is mostly boring, but the few occasions with new interactions are worth the grind. It's a real test of patience, and I ended up spending about 240 hours on this game across 4 months, making it the 2nd longest Gust game I've played, after Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists.
At first, I did actually try to act as if I'm really interacting with a real person in an alternate universe, but Ion's action doesn't always feel like that of a real person (even if the game's worldbuilding made some attempts to excuse this) and I eventually dropped this pretence.
The game also makes too much assumptions that I don't really feel like playing as myself; the game assumes the player is male and single (Nelico did bring up the possibility of this not being true), aged between high-school and new-in-workforce, and is not particularly good with Ion's world's electronics. My real-world self only matches the single male part. (I don't want a relationship, for that matter.) There is an in-game reason for this, being that the program is limited in responses to avoid misuse that could endanger the Surge Concerto world, but I'd much prefer decoupling this player character and my actual self.
Doesn't stop me from being emotionally invested in the story, though.
The DX version feels like a rather simple attempt to preserve the game as-is, with some parts not really fitting its new context as a 2021 home console title. At one point the player lets Ion know that they're using a handheld device to talk to her, and at another point Ion talks about a real-life event that's long over.
And speaking of DX changes, touch controls are replaced with button controls, and parts that involve using touch screen controls to interact with the characters are replaced with a virtual cursor, which is very awkward to control as the player needs to tilt and press the L stick at the same time. Some complain about the lack of touch control, even though the Switch console has a touch screen and the PS4 controller has a touch pad. (The PC version has mouse support.)
The game is also very prone to crashes, even in the DX version. The Sharl selection menu sometimes crashes the whole game (forcing the application to close), and since this can reasonably happen after watching up to 3 hours of cutscene, every time the game doesn't crash I feel really relieved. Crashes can also rarely happen after saving; fortunately this does not lead to erased or corrupted data.
Due to the way Ciel nosurge DX handles Ar nosurge DX data, spoilers are inevitable. Originally, progressing in Ar nosurge leads to bonuses in Ciel nosurge, but this was done through the player's Gust account. Due to changes in how save data is handled, in Ciel nosurge DX, any presence of Ar nosurge DX "Sekai Link" data at all unlocks all extra contents as if the player has reached the ending of Ar nosurge.
Specifically, Nei Yuuki (Ion's original identity) calls the player reporting that she has arrived home before the player would even know who Nei Yuuki is. (It's still a good idea to link both games from the beginning though, since seeing spoilers is better than missing out parts of the game.)
All the complaints aside, I do enjoy Ion's companionship. But I do wish they could do away with the player participation aspect. To put it this way, they created a perfect woman who says she wants to be with you, but it's obviously not going to happen, and there's no meaningful way to interact with her besides what the game allows. It ended up being a disappointment, no matter how well-executed this game is, because it's based on a concept that must fail.
I have to praise the voice acting of this game. It's a
lot of lines to handle for a game that's not even particularly well-liked. It looked like the original game could end early, and it did look obvious it was on a shrinking budget, but they kept full voice acting until the end. Also, Gust deserved praise just for making OFFLINE and DX at all. Thank you for not giving up after seeing its early reception, and for making the game playable in an offline form. *AhemAtelierResleriana*
Ar nosurge: Ode to an Unborn Star DX
アルノサージュ〜生まれいずる星へ祈る詩〜 DX
Background informationOn 6 March 2014, Ar nosurge was released in Japan, after Chapter 10 was released for Ciel nosuge. Ar nosurge's story starts with a short portion that takes place 2 years before Ciel nosurge, after which there is a time skip that changes the focus to Ion right at the end of Ciel nosurge's terminate pack. While this encourages players to play both games in parallel, as an unfortunate side effect this means something from the other game will be revealed no matter which order are these games played in, and playing just one side will lead to missing story details. Ar nosurge was released overseas in September 2014.
Soon after Teminate Pack was released for Ciel nosurge in July 2014, Ar nosurge Plus, the PS Vita version of the game, was released on 2 October 2014, with the overseas version released in July 2015. This version includes the original's DLC, plus purification for Sarly, Nero and Shurelia, new costumes, 3 transferable costumes from Ciel nosurge, touch screen control, and… the ability to poke Delta and Earthes during exploration, for some reason.
On 4 March 2021, Ar nosurge DX was released on PS4, Switch and Steam, including the same usual changes as the Atelier DX games. The resolution is raised to match that of home consoles, and an option to raise running speed is added. The same fan art contest winning entries as seen in Ciel nosurge DX are also added. This version was never released overseas.
Ciel nosurge DX and Ar nosurge DX are also sold in a bundle, with options for premium physical versions. I bought a premium pack for less than what a single standard physical game would cost. I feel bad about it, but it also means these games have excellent cost-performance ratio for me.
Ar nosurge is rated CERO D / ESRB M / PEGI 16. Some of the cutscenes, images and 3D models really do warrant that. This is the first mature game I played start-to-finish.
Characters |  |  |  |
Delta
The player character of Channel 1. Delta has Interdimend installed on him by Undu and lost his memory as a result, but Sarly hacked his connection. Despite losing memory, he still has a strong sense of righteousness and is kind to Cass. | Cass
Delta's soon-to-be-wife. When the controlled Delta opened Felion's gate which led to the first Sharl invasion, Cass stood by his side. As a PLASMA member, she works differently as others as she didn't have song magic besides the one made with Delta. | Nay
The current empress. She took over Delta's restaurant to use as an off-work retreat, as her job as empress is so far away from her personality and the restaurant allows her to be herself. She intended to give it back when the war is over, but Delta gifted it to her. | Sarly
One of the scientists working as a mechanic and supporting various things from studying Interdimend's effect on Delta to restoring Ion's memories. Has feelings for Shirotaka, but did not let it out at first until Cass encouraged her to. |
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Undu
Nay's prime minister during the period when Renall was absent. Undu originally contributed to the creation of the Maternal Overseer, but turned against Zill when he realised that the Overseer would destroy the world. He joined the Overseer trying to reason with Zill, to no avail. | Zill
Human's misguided hatred towards the genoms back on Ra Ciela fueled her extremism, and she seeked to create the Maternal Overseer, a being made by fusing 100000 souls with the ability to oversee the whole universe from the 8th dimension. She would later join it herself. | Prim
An incarnate born out of the mind of Delta when it mixed with Cass's. Because of this, she calls Delta and Cass her parents. She fell under the control of Interdimend, and connected to a malicious entity from Nero's world. | Nero
Nero continues to seek the return to her world, and worked with Zill as her plan to create the Maternal Overseer would create the energy needed to send her home. Further interaction with Cass changed her mind, but the Maternal Overseer would later absorb her. |
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Prime
Delta's genometrics navigator with Prim's appearance and talks like a young boy. As genometrics navigator, Prime guides Delta and introduces how genometrics works, and is usually uninvolved in the genometrics stories. Unlike Prim, Prime is not under Interdimend's control. | Nelico
Nelico's identity was revealed to be a virus applied to Ion so that she could continually create Sharls with the help of the player, and she stopped Ion from leaving as her awakening would mean the end of Nelico. Ion's strong memory of her allowed her to reappear as a genometrics navigator. | Ion
A strong-willed song magic user who acts a lot more assertive than when she was brought to Ra Ciela. Her goal is to stop Nero and anyone else's attempt to destroy Soreil and its inhabitants, and seeks the power of the Seven (close allies from the Ra Ciela era) to do so. | Earthes
The player character of Channel 2. A guardian robot to which the player is connected to. He is waterproof, can fight, and has full access rights to Soreil. Seeks to help Ion and to resolve the conflict between humans and Sharls. |
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Tattoria
A Sharl who works as a pharmacist, even though Sharls cannot get sick. He wants to help the sick humans visiting his area, which is populated by other Sharls and thus lack medical resources. Sharls are genderless (appearance aside), and Tattoria is the only one to look male. | Vio
Tattoria's friend and business partner. Vio was looking for Rin, a girl who was separated and later turned out to have died in the human-Sharl war. Vio acts as the voice of reason to counter Tattoria's unconventional inventions and questionable ways of packaging them. | Felie
A girl who looked just like Rin except for her eye colour. Her appearance shocked Vio, and she was ill with a disease with no known cure. Vio would visit her while Tattoria tried to make medicine for her, and Tattoria eventually managed to suppress her symptoms. | Kanon
Having lost her body in the incident caused by Revelt 5000 years ago, her soul is put into a body prepared by Zill. As a conservative follower of the genom culture, she did Zill's bidding by supporting the Sharl's action to abduct humans until she was expelled by COSAL. |
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COSAL
The king of genoms who regained his body by Kanon's song magic. Angered by the humans' extreme prejudice against genoms, he was fully supportive of Zill's plan to abduct humans, until he learned about Zill's true goal and saw humans who are willing to save Sharls in danger. | Sharls
After Kanon lost her position as the Sharl leader and started a shop by Ion's suggestion, these young customers started to frequent the place. They like Kanon's merchandise, which are both cute and useful. | Shirotaka
Shirotaka and Renall remained at the Hymnesphere to do administration work while Soreil was supposedly sailing to its destination planet. He worked with Sarly under an alias (his true name that his friends didn't know) and was the one who programmed Ion's memory recovery tools. | Renall
Renall set her cryosleep to unfreeze 10 years before others to prepare for Nero's appearance, but Nero saw through this and destroyed her memory. After it was restored by Ion, she returned as Nay's prime minister and served as the group's tactician. |
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Shurelia
A Revatail (artificial organism) who serves as the administrator of Ar Ciel's First Harmonic Tower. Contrary to her appearance, she is something of a troublemaker, and followed Delta around for as long as the situation allowed. She envied Delta and Cass and wanted a lover herself. | Ayatane
The leader of the Teru tribe of Ar Ciel, the planet thought to be Ra Ciela's successor and Soreil's intended destination. His tribe's look is the result of his ancestors merging with Telefunken to counter the planet's disease. Ayatane is a title; his name is Karyou Kirinami. | Sonwe
The planet's channeler who acts as the voice of the planet's gods. She is found close to a device that acts as the heart of the planet. According to her, Ayatane hasn't asked for her service for quite a long time. | Horus
One of the wills of the planet, who talked to Delta and Cass via Sonwe. She rejected Soreil's residents out of concern of potential conflicts, and instead offered to help them create their own planet. Her form as a pink-haired goddess is seen in genometrics. |
After the decision to hibernate for 5000 years was made, part of Soreil's members, including Ion's friends, entered a facility that houses sleeping pods called Felion.
Half a year prior to the start of Ciel nosurge, and 2½ years prior to the start of Ion's story. The Sharls launched an attack against the humans, stealing them and putting them into the Flask Sea, a pool of chemical used for experiments on converting life energy to other forms of energy. Delta was takn by Zill, who brainwashed him and had Undu install Interdimend on him, and Delta, seemingly under external influence, opened the gates of Felion to force the awakening of its hibernated members and allowed for the Sharls to take them to the Flask Sea.
Soreil was split into two sides: located in Quanturv is the Genomirai Church located led by Zill, which advocates harmony with the Sharls, and PLASMA in Felion, whose members are from 5000 years ago and retain the ability to use song magic, who continued to resist the Sharls.
Phase 1 — Half a year later, Delta had a weird dream of rescuing Sarly. He and Cass later got a request from the prime minister to find the empress Nay, after which he was allowed to rejoin PLASMA. He was given the task to infiltrate Quanturv and locate Sarly. His dream turned out to be helpful when he had to find Sarly for real, as he could remember the password to the Genomirai Church facility. Sarly was working for Nay, but she skipped through details on what her task was exactly.
Realising that the church knew what they were up to, they started their escape to Felion. Prim was born out of Delta's mind during a break, where he and Cass were resting and their genometrics reacted with each other, leading to the creation of Prim. Back in PLASMA, Sarly devised a plan to get a powerful song magic, Class::CIEL_N_PROTECTA;. Although they found the magic in what was intended to be Kanon's body and successfully downloaded the magic, Zill caught up with them, and told them the song magic she really needed was Class::CIEL_NOSURGE;. Sarly theorised that Zill was headed to the Flask Sea, and when they found her, she invoked Class::CIEL_NOSURGE; to create a large number of Sharls. Delta and Cass were caught and put in the Flask Sea.
The remained there for two years, during which the story of Ciel nosurge took place.
Fast forward to Ion's genometrics, when she has remounted the terminal to the body of the ES-45 Cathode she made. After showing the player the surroundings of her world, Ion confronted Nelico and escaped the world with the robot.
Once outside, Ion found that the robot she created in her genometrics has made it outside. A Sharl called Tattoria found him, and called him Earthes after the part name found written on his head, which has since become his name.
Ion's goal was to gather the Seven — Delta, Cass, Nay, Sarly, Shirotaka, Kanon and Renall — to create song magic to stop Nero. Unfortunately for her, Zill has convinced Kanon and COSAL to follow her plan to abduct humans, while Delta, Cass, Nay and the rest of PLASMA, being on the invaded side, stood hard against the Sharls. Ion's initial attempts to convince Kanon was unsuccessful, and the following events has led her to fight Delta and Cass, and later Nay in an attempt to stop her song magic to eradicate all Sharl.
Meanwhile, Delta and Cass headed for Kanon when they heard of a master Sharl who could control all of them. They learned that Prim was the master Sharl and noticed that Cass's bag contained things they didn't put in before. They then found Kanon and fought her, but was unable to stop her song magic that lead to COSAL regaining his physical body.
Phase 2 — With Nay's magic to kill Sharls failed, the Sharls have started to invade Felion again. Having convinced Nay to help her if she could gather the Seven, Ion tried to look for Kanon again. She found her being rejected by COSAL, who thought Kanon was not good enough for him. On Delta's side, an 8-dimensional being created by the Genomirai Church attacked Felion, and they found Nero and Prim. They had to let them escape as they had to fight the being, and Delta, being led by something beyond his understanding, headed to the Placenta, an area next to the Flask Sea and the energy source of Soreil.
Nero found Ion and directed her to the Placenta, where Zill would attempt to merge both Ion and Nero to the Maternal Overseer, a being created by Zill by merging souls. Zill's plan failed as Cass saved them and Zill herself was merged in, and Ion would reveal that in an earlier meeting with Zill, she mentioned changing Soreil's energy source from extradimensional energy to life energy, which worried the prime minister, later revealed to be Undu. Delta also realised that Ion was there to help them, and apologised for their earlier clash.
At this point, Nero revealed the existence of Interdimend to Delta. He protested against the idea of being controlled, but the previous incidents of knowing passwords and going to specific places were hard to refute. Nero told him of a way to disconnect using the Ar nosurge tube.
With insufficient energy, some of the land in the outdoor area began to disappear. Ion and Earthes would try to change the energy source back with Sarly's help, while Delta and Cass would appeal to COSAL. Ion's initial attempt ended with an error. Delta's attempt was unsuccessful at first, but the corrosion of the land has led to a few Sharls getting astray.
Delta changed priority to help them first and spent a great deal of effort to convince Nay to help. Sarly, who was with the Sharl rescue team for technical support, suggested Delta to go to the Ar nosurge tube to temporarily shut down Soreil so that Ion could change energy source. On the way there, Cass confronted Delta about Interdimend's influence on him, something Nay and Sarly hid from her to avoid worrying her. Delta admitted that he no longer had the senses of sight and touch at that point, and that he intended to disconnect from Interdimend once they got to the Ar nosurge tube.
Once Delta and Cass reached the tube and Ion and Earthes were ready to switch energy source, both sides got attacked: Delta's side by the Maternal Overseer which got intercepted by COSAL to return their favour, and Ion by Prim, who summoned a satellite strike which destroyed Earthes's body. Delta and Cass then cut the Interdimend connection.
Phase 3 — Ion asked Sarly to temporary put her into hibernation so that she could re-establish Earthes's connection to the player in Nelico's world. Nelico, realising that she could reside in Ion's mind even after awakening, did not stop Ion this time.
Back to outside of the Ar nosurge tube, Earthes was given a new body thanks to Sarly, Tattoria and others. Earthes's old head was taken by Prim to Singing Hill, the space facility where Ion performed the song magic that converted Ra Ciela to energy 5000 years ago. Prim's location was exposed when Nero, who started to have a change of heart, "accidentally" turned on the head's transmitter. When Sarly learned of this information, they headed for Singing Hill, finding Renall and Shirotaka there, but Renall had her memory destroyed just like Ion.
Back in Felion, they found that the liquid in the Flask Sea has raised greatly, and consuming a large amount of humans and Sharls. Undu confronted the Maternal Overseer and tried to resonate with Zill, and managed to lower the liquid when Delta and Cass intervened. However, Undu was unable to hold the Overseer for long, and Delta and Cass were forced to leave. Regretting not being able to save Undu without Interdimend, Delta convinced an unwilling Cass to let him reconnect.
After Renall's memory was restored, she revealed that she has set herself to wake up about 10 years before others to stop Nero, but that plan failed. But because of this, she had a plan on what to do: use song magic that can only be performed by the empress to connect to the original destination planet, and move there. Delta and Cass volunteered to be the first to go there.
On Nay's side, she was depressed from her inability to lead Felion when her pervious failed attempts lead to riots among the people. But while retreating to her restaurant where she could be herself when off-duty, a Sharl customer informed her that, back on Ra Ciela, Kanon managed to use her song magic to extract genom souls from Revelt's microquasar, so the same technique might be able to save some of the souls in the Maternal Overseer. Meanwhile, COSAL, in his meditation ground area, created a heart of planet, a mechanism that can serve as a planet's energy source without sacrificing humans or Sharls, having seen what the Maternal Overseer really was and having realised his mistake in believing in Zill.
On the destination planet Ar Ciel (The setting of Ar tonelico), Delta and Cass met Shurelia and found that there were already people living there, and that one of the wills of the planet, Horus, rejected their request to move there, fearing conflicts. Horus offered to find other ways to help them, and upon learning about COSAL and Cass's bag emitting an unusual waveform from the heart of planet, she suggested that they bring him in to prepare for a new planet's creation. Delta and Cass, having finally realised the shared inventory between them and Ion and Earthes, connected both worlds with Shurelia's teleportation items.
With the preparation of a new planet ready, there was only one thing left to deal with: Prim, who was revealed to be under Interdimend's influence with a player from Nero's world that's far less benevolent than Earthes's controller, was trying to use the Maternal Overseer's energy so send Nero home at the expense of this world. Prim was trying to break free from the Interdimend control, and managed to direct Ion to use that energy to create the new planet and cut Prim's connection. Delta was hesitant as this would have killed Prim, but Ion proceeded, saying she should respect and not waste Prim's wish. Ion succeeded, killing Prim as a result.
In the best ending, an earlier recipe Delta and Cass took as a gift from Ar Ciel's leader would allow Sarly and Nero to revive Prim. Prim would suggest that, according to her Interdimend controller, there is a way for Ion and Nero to go back: by singing with EXA_PICO, the universe itself as a 7-dimensional living being. Although they were hesitant, Ion's friends insisted that they would be happier if Ion and Nero could pursue their own happiness.
Outside of this game, Ion would later contact the player, saying that she has successfully returned her home, which is in a parallel world as the player's. She would continue her study of space and interdimensional theories, and she expressed slight disappointment in not being able to meet the player for real.
That is the main game. There are also the shop events (each containing a story focusing on the shopkeeper and a player character) and genometrics dives. The latter allows Delta or Earthes to take part in worlds generated from their friends' subconsciousness, where hidden aspects of their personalities would manifest as characters in the world. For example, Nay is secretly a thrill-seeking masochist who is over-dependent on Ion and worried about losing support from her people, and her genometrics reflects that as a desert with death-inducing attractions of which she is the owner.
Other people entering genometrics would be affected too. In Renall's world, she is extremely remorseful for her inability to help Ion besides in small ways, and Ion does resent being forcibly transferred to Ra Ciela and gets homesick, so her darkest side becomes apparent here, and this world's Renall is more than willing to repeatedly kill herself, seeking redemption that will never happen.
People with less developed relationship, like the amnesiac Delta and the outsider Earthes, are relatively less affected by the worlds and usually don't act like actors in these worlds.
Story impressionI can't imagine going through this story without Ciel nosurge would be a good idea. There is a glossary system, but without Ciel nosurge, a lot of the context would be missed.
This game relies on a lot of peculiarities related to video games, and attribute it to Interdimend and other systems that connect the game world to the player. It's a rather easy excuse to explain everything, from both parties' shared inventory to the flow of time of the game's world not matching that of real life, to even things like why does Delta move like a game character. I find this interesting, but it does not help with the immersion of the game at all, more so here than in Ciel nosurge. While they acknowledge the existence of a player, their description of this player likely doesn't match that of the actual player. I can see why is this the case; besides the story's excuse of the player being limited by the game program, the writers probably thought making the player even more generic would detach them from the story.
The story is also rather dark and adult-themed at times, in multiple ways. Notably, most of the characters are adults, appearance aside, and they act like such. Ciel nosurge had shades of this too, but this is the most obvious in the genometrics in Ar nosurge. Ion, Nay, Kanon and Renall all showed suicidal tendencies at various points, with Nay and Kanon almost succeeding if not for Delta and Ion's intervention respectively. Cass had rather severe inferiority complex, Shirotaka had survivor's guilt, Ion, Nay, Kanon all secretly grew unhealthily dependent on each other, and there are a lot of examples of suppressed emotions. The overall story reminds me a bit of BLUE REFLECTION: Second Light, but here Ion and her friends have went through worse problems, and instead of a few highlights, both Surge Concerto games would constantly remind the player of how dark the situation is.
I feel mixed about the ending. I think its implications aren't too bad: Cass and Delta, and Sarly and Shirotaka both have improving romantic relationships; the war left many dead, but it's not a worst-case scenario; after the genometrics dives, some of the darkest hidden aspects of Ion's friends were cleaned up; and ironically, as a result of Zill's repeated attempts to kill people starting from those with lower soul levels, the new world doesn't have many immoral people left. Ion gets to contact the player, and did so through the EXA_PICO universe, implying that she could contact her friends there too. It feels unfair to her, but it's a much better outcome than the more realistic "everything got cut off, we don't even know if everyone involved still lives, the end" conclusion (which is what happens to real-life groups drifting apart) which I wouldn't be surprised to see.
Get rid of the whole pretend-this-is-a-real-world thing, and make the player character a completely separate entity, and the story will be much more palatable. This story has a bad premise that is executed very well; it has an inherent score ceiling which it did get near. Thus my mixed rating.
In a way, what I was hoping to see is essentially repurposing the game into BLUE REFLECTION: Second Light. In that game, an outsider enters a strange world, meets new friends with troubled past, repairs their memories and act as their counsellor, and lead them out of the situation by restoring the world. Ao's role there is a mix of Earthes and Ion here. Given that BLUE REFLECTION: Second Light is a much newer game, I'll take this as Gust having already granted my wish.
Also, reading the whole story back, I'm awestruck with Sarly's contribution to the story. Her role is a rather simple "technician of the group", but her knowledge was necessary at almost every single step in the story. She acted as their mechanic, programmer, planner, and could overturn death under the right conditions.
Actually, as a whole, every single ally deserves much praise for their work. Except maybe the guy behind Interdimend, depending on whether their action were considered their own volition or being constrained by Ar nosurge OS. In the latter case, Clacket, Sarly and Shirotaka deserve the credit for designing and implementing the limitations.
Could be just me, but I get the feeling that the Atelier Arland series (especialy Lulua) is co-inspired with Surge Concerto. Arland features towers with administrators who look like young girls, and parallel worlds along with ways to ascertain certain events. It's also home to futuristic technologies that look otherwise out of place in the fantasy world.
GraphicsDusk era graphics, 1080p, no special filtering. Looks pretty good, some clippings aside. There is no camera rotation support on fields and in towns.
Gameplay mechanicsFor the most part, this game plays like an ordinary RPG, with events, exploration, towns, shops, battles — the usual RPG stuff. It is a Gust game and looks like one, so things like UI and graphical style don't look too different. This is actually a bit disconcerting, seeing that the UI and gameplay systems usually associated with casual, peaceful environments are now paired with a story where people drop dead so frequently.
The town map and world map are rather simple. I would say the world map is a bit cumbersome, as the cursor moves slowly and there is no way to quickly move to a specific town.
As a positive, town maps are easy to navigate. The icons make it immediate clear where to find a particular facility.
Events outside of the main story are manually triggered. Shop events usually don't happen as soon as the player character enters the shop, unlike in Atelier.
There are quite a lot of shops, which makes hunting for specific items a chore. Specific shops run by major characters provide item synthesis service. The characters will comment on the items when they are made for the first time, just like Ion would in Ciel nosurge. The stat-raising equipment are important here, as they contribute much more than level ups ever would. This is a Gust game, after all.
Some of the item talks form their own subplots, like Sarly's various attempts to restore Delta's memory. They almost succeeded. And a lot of these items are parodies and pop culture references.
There is also a purification system, used for slightly raising the character stats (using gems from the genometrics) and short conversations. I never bothered with this.
The way battle encounters happen is rather unique. The colour of the bar on the top left indicates the likelihood of a random battle happening, and the number indicates the number of waves of enemies will appear. The player can quit battles mid-fight, after which the remaining number of waves will be randomly encountered again. Once they're all killed, encounters will not happen again until the player leaves to a room without battles or the world map (or zaps to the other channel), then re-enters the area.
The battle system is taken from the Ar tonelico series. Each button (or button combination) corresponds to a simple action, and the goal is to raise the chain by attacking in quick succession. It took some time to get used to, but is generally an intuitive system.
There is a limit on the number of turns available to the player. Run out and the player will be forced out of the battle. Defeat all enemies marked with ! to skip enemy attacks and gain an extra turn. This design makes non-boss battles very easy.
Throughout the game, there are various parts presented as animated cutscenes, such as some of the cutscenes and the Friend Skills. These tend to be very short.
The most unique feature of this game is the genometrics dives, which play like visual novels divided into short parts. Certain choices are required to get the bonuses or to clear the scenario, and some bonuses require out-of-character actions. There is also a system where choices in the genometrics will change the personality of the song magic user (Ion or Cass), which affects their battle voice clips. They move back to normal after a few uses of song magic, making the extreme personalities rather rare.
This game's cutscenes are partially voiced, by the way. This is unlike Ciel nosurge, which is fully voiced.
Overall impressionOut of Gust's games I've played so far, Ar nosurge is the closest thing to an ordinary RPG. But even so, it has a lot of characteristics of their games at the time: maps that look too simple, towns and fields are small (though some of the character comments and NPC lines are quite funny, like one NPC who seems to be two-timing and had to choose between staying with her boyfriend or her Sharl girlfriend, who live in different towns), a heavy emphasis on equipment that makes ordinary level ups basically useless, and things like the level-up system and the general UI. It's essentially the answer to what if Gust makes an ordinary RPG.
Earthes feels more like an ordinary silent protagonist than someone the player role-plays as. If anything, the whole "player intervention" gimmick is now much more apparent with Delta, whose struggles revolve around being controlled.
I wish they could do something more with the game design. With Gust's other games, there were at least some puzzle elements, like time management and fine-tuning of individual items. But there are too few options here, with a more or less fixed optimal build and optimal actions to take, making this game a somewhat glorified visual novel, more so than the BLUE REFLECTION series. The story is what really carries the game; this is something potential players should be aware of.
The bulk of the game involves going through the whole story plus all of the optional dialogs, which is still a lot of contents, but that's about 65 hours of play time total, which is a bit shorter than my expectation (a normal Gust RPG would last 80 to 140 hours with my play style).
The genometrics dives, shop side stories and item synthesis events are filled with references, like one for a wordplay on a oft-repeated Ken Shimura joke, the late dictator from a certain nothern country, a few (now dead) Internet slangs from the 2000s, video game references with bath salt that parodies Nobunaga's Ambition, an action game variant of Ar tonelico and an item creation / time management game called Atelier Sarly, and even a parallel world version of Pippin ATMARK with only kusogē being made for it, resulting in the world's worst-selling game system. My favourite is Silent Green, a food item Tattoria made and refused to tell what its ingredients are.
And I'd like to have a little rant regarding the localisation effort of KOEI TECMO's games in general, but Ar nosurge probably had it worst: why bother making something that's not even complete in the first place? During my research of this game, I found that
the original PS3 release could not be completed in several ways. Ciel nosurge being Japan-only didn't help things either; both stories are so closely related that playing both is highly recommended.
This would have been a single incident, but it also reminds me of how little care KOEI TECMO seems to have for the overseas markets. Remember how the Atelier series didn't bother with English voice (starting with Lydie & Suelle) because they found that players would stick to Japanese voice anyway? This is their own fault; while the Japanese versions of Atelier had full voice acting, the overseas ones are only partially voiced. Their games not getting much attention except from the most devout fans, some of whom just import anyways? Well KOEI TECMO America did next to no marketing, not just with Gust's games, but pretty much their entire catalog across all brands. I get it, their games aren't exactly popular outside of Asia, but they really need to make their existence known in the first place, and single-page official websites and a handful of X posts just won't cut it.
This is probably the longest and most time-consuming post I've made. I questioned the need to lay out the whole story, but I don't really have a good way to further condense it or to express my take on the games without the full context. I had to rely on the in-game history summary to recall the story, since it's quite a lot to take in. Even with this amount of text, there are a lot of finer details I omitted.
I had a lot of thoughts on these games; some good, some bad, and in the end they cancelled out and I'd consider these games generally good but not outstanding, with long footnotes to explain my conclusion.
I played in this order: I started Ciel nosurge DX, and started Ar nosurge DX, firstly to link up both games, but its own story compelled me to play until I got to Ion's part, at which point I realised I shouldn't keep going. So I went back to Ciel nosurge DX and finished it first, unintentionally playing both games in chronological order.
By the way, "Surge Concerto" refers to the Surge Concerto Terminal, the system that controls the spacecraft Soreil where Ar nosurge takes place and acts as a software library for the Cieln type of song magic. "Ciel nosurge" refers to Class:CIEL_NOSURGE; song magic that allows Ion to infinitely generate Sharls using energy from 7 dimensions beyond without draining her life energy. "Ar nosurge" is Ar nosurge tube, the giant vacuum tube on Soreil that allows it to contact outer worlds and convert their energy.
Next up is Dusk DX. I'll probably be taking a break from playing new games first, though.
