Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia is the latest game from NIS America, GUST and Ban Presto. Like other games from these three companies, Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia is a pretty straightforward Japanese role-playing game affair complete with cute anime characters, 2D graphics and a "save the world" plot. There are a couple of elements that make the game stand out from the rest of GUST and Ban Presto's other RPG's (Atelier Iris, Atelier Iris 2 as examples), but for the most part Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia will feel very familiar to fans of those games. The most notable features of the game are the use of "reyvateil ," special characters that use the ancient art of song in battle to heal allies and damage enemies and the "Dive" system which forces players to go inside the minds of these divas to free them of their problems.

But before we get into the Dive system and how reyvateil are useful, let's learn the back-story behind this game. Ar tonelico takes place in the ancient world of Sol Ciel, which is made up of a floating island called "The Wings of Horus" and a tower called "Ar tonelico." The Tower serves as an anchor for this island using ancient and advanced technology. The inhabitants of the tower are revered and somewhat feared by those that dwell below and neither comes in contact with the other very often. The story begins with a young knight that lives in the tower named Lyner Balselt. Lynar is the son of the governor of Platina and a knight of Elemia. At the openor the tower is attacked by viruses, an ancient enemy of the world that is out to destroy humankind. The fight ultimately leads to a realization by the inhabitants of this tower world that someone must go down below and find a crystal that will help save the entire world.

Once Lynar makes his way to the island below (after a crash landing), he heads out on an epic quest to find this special stone and save the world. Along the way he'll meet friends that will join him and reyvateil that will do a little back-up singing for massive amounts of damage. These divas are an important part of the gameplay because they serve as support characters that can sway the battles you have in a major way. Reyvateil stay in the back lines of your party singing a continual song that provides healing or major damage to the enemy - provided you can keep them out of harm's way. Players will spend a good portion of the combat phase simply focusing on this goal. The longer the song goes the more powerful the affect, though you can use it any time you see fit. Reyvateil will sing as long as they have magic and through kindness and the Dive system players can further enhance and grow them to sing even stronger songs that are useful to the party.

The Dive system is an interesting concept though it does feel more like an animated story than a dating sim as some have called it. Basically players talk to their reyvateil to earn their trust and as time goes on they will open up and allow players to "dive" into their subconscious using Dive points at special shops scattered throughout the world. This allows the player to spend earned dive points to deal with the revatail's problems. The biggest problem with this system is that it really is just a series of dialogue screens and isn't nearly as interactive as you might imagine. It does add a new element to the overall gameplay, but it would have been nice if you could do more here than just read a bunch of text and look at some pretty animated scenes. That aside, as you solve these problems within your reyvateil you give them the confidence they need to perform better and use stronger songs to help you out.

Battles are random, so you can expect to spend a lot of time dealing with that in addition to following the plot and interacting with the world's inhabitants. Obviously you'll gain experience, items and earn the trust of your reyvateil in the form of those dive points. In addition to that, this game offers a crafting system similar to the one found in Atelier Iris . There are hundreds of crafting items to be won in battle or bought in shops that can be used as ingredients to craft a variety of weapons and consumables to further strengthen your party.

Like the crafting system, Ar tonelico liberally borrows its art style and overall presenation from the Atelier Iris series, with colorful 2D characters set over static painted backgrounds, large character portraits (during conversations), and the occasional high level attack animation. The game also features some voice work for key moments in the plot line, but most of the time you'll be presented with lines of dialogue delivered under those aforementioned character portraits. The presentation style of the game is light hearted, a little goofy at times and -- when it comes to the Dive system sequences" overtly sexual and juvenile. There is an awful lot of suggestive sexual dialogue in the game, but most of it is harmless fun.