Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica

Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica, or Ar tonelico II: Sekai ni Hibiku Shoujo-tachi no Metafalica (The Girls' Metafalica that Resounds throughout the World, with Metafalica meaning "Song of Creation"), is, obviously enough, the second game in the Ar tonelico series.

Taking place in the desolate land of Metafalss, a tiny continent built upon the rim of a tower much like the first game's Ar tonelico, it revolves around two opposed factions: the ruling Grand Bell, which has recently declared war against the Goddess Frelia; and the Sacred Army, who believe that the Goddess enables Metafalss to exist. This ire against the Goddess stems from a failure centuries past at creating Metafalica, a paradise-like land spoken of in legend, which was interrupted by a vicious attack by her defenders. In addition to civil war, Metafalss is ravaged by outbreaks of I.P.D, a Reyvateil-specific disease which causes the victim to execute song magic uncontrollably and do much damage to herself and her surroundings.

Protagonist Croix Bartel, a knight of the Grand Bell, is regularly tasked with stopping the harm done by those afflicted. It is while on a mission to contain one such outbreak that Croix, together with his adopted sister Cocona, is put in quite a different situation. The Holy Maiden Cloche, the Reyvateil who leads the Grand Bell in the war, has come under attack by the Sacred Army. He is soon entrusted with protecting her while they escape. While attempting to hide from the Sacred Army, they encounter Luca, another Reyvateil who has known Croix since childhood.

Croix is soon to discover that neither the Grand Bell nor the Sacred Army are what they seem- and nor are Cloche or Luca. Unable to trust anyone except each other (and sometimes not even that), he and his companions struggle along their own path to thwart those who would manipulate them, discover the truth about the Goddess Frelia, and achieve the seven hundred year old dream of Metafalica.

A Manga adaptation exists.

A retranslation of the Blind Idiot Translation is in the works here for those who care.

Being as this is the page for the second installment, more general series tropes go on the Ar tonelico page.

Tropes used in Ar tonelico II include:

• Absolute Cleavage: Part of Misha's Spy Catsuit in Frelia's binary sphere.
• Adult Child: Frelia, although she apparently is supposed to look young, but since she's a Goddess...
• A God Am I: Infel and Nenesha claim to be the world's new Goddesses at the end of the game.
• Alien Sky: There's two moons, one with rings, and the sky itself occasionally has an artificial-looking ring visible in it. The rings are actually part of the tower, however, instead of something surrounding the planet.
• All There in the Manual: The settei book goes into certain details regarding character histories and more of how the plot came to happen, etc.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: Lots of them. But they're a bit subverted, as you're the one who activates this through Synchronity Chain and Cloche's Replekia.
• Amazon Brigade: Cloche's I.P.D fanclub is refered to in terminology as an elite bodyguard unit.
• Amplifier Artifact: Dualithnode crystals.
• Anime Hair: Alfman has what can only be described as gravity-defying hair.
  • Frelia's hair is pretty crazy, too.
• Assimilation Plot: Attempted twice; first with Hibernation, second with Sublimation.
• The Atoner: Jacqli/Mir is this, particularly if you take her path. If you don't, she likes to pretend she's not... but she still is.
• Battle Couple: A game mechanic. Every knight and reyvateil team is also a romantic couple; including the protagonist Croix.
• Badass Adorable: Cocona. She's about ten years old or so, four-foot-nothing, wears her long hair in pigtails with two absurdly large hair ornaments, and is the main character's adopted little sister. She is a very cheery girl who is always willing to help her big brother and often pouts in the cutest way whenever he's late. Turns out that she accompanies her "big brother" on his knight missions, and fights by taking her hair ornaments off and using them as a sort of transforming baton weapon. Despite her size, she keeps up with the adult frontline fighters, including her older brother. And the kicker? She is a Reyvateil, a species that is usually kept in the back lines far away from the physical fighting.
• Bare Your Midriff: Luca's standard costume, Cocona, and Jacqli's Long Skirt costume.
• Barrier Maiden: The goddess Frelia certainly qualifies, as her support is required to keep all of Metafalss afloat above the Sea of Death.
• Berserk Button: Jacqli is revealed to have one in a radio drama. When Spica gets hurt when they're doing some antics, she goes nuts. She doesn't go back to Kill All Humans but she does get pissed.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Raki, whose noticiably hacked when you see her the second time.
• Beyond the Impossible: Justified near the end of the game. The game likes to mention how only one person at a time can dive into a reyvateil with two person dives a big deal that only the most skilled therapist can perform. Jacqil says Frelia can handle four people at once. Everyone shouts how impossible this and normally this would be the case but Jacqil reminds them that Frelia is a goddess and so can handle it easily. Croix' response is pretty much "oh yeah....I forgot..."
• Big Bad: A tough call. Laude opens the game as a villain and definitely causes trouble for the heroes but also works for the Grand Bell and helps them create Metafalica. And he is killed by hacked!Raki in Phase 4. The Sacred Army, and its leader Taragana, oppose the heroes from the start and most of the game's conflict is with them. its resolved when they Heel Face Turn enmass and form a united government with the Grand Bell. Finally there's Infel. whose spoilered because they do nothing for the bulk of the game but are the final boss.
• Big Badass Wolf: Shun.
• Blind Idiot Translation: This is becoming far more apparent now that a bunch of outraged fans have taken it upon themselves to retranslate Metafalica. Certain characters just come off completely wrong due to NISA not translating things properly or just not putting in the effort to wrangle Japanese puns into something that makes sense in English.
• Break the Cutie: Poor Jacqli. And even though Cloche didn't go to such extremes, it shows when you figure out why her Cosmosphere's so messed up...
  • The concept of I.P.D. is simply a breakdown of cute girls who more or less get sent into some kind of prison/therapy/mistreatment just like how it's shown in the prologue, demonstated by Croix himself, and what happens to Cocona when she goes berserk.
• Broken Bird: Jacqli, who actually uses the imagery of a bird as a metaphor for herself in her songs.
• Buffy-Speak: "It is a bomb, just unique and charming with machanicalness......"
• Bunny Ears Lawyer: Cloche, a Maiden, just loves her some Gergo products.
  • Jacqli's hobby? Writing scripts. And let's just same some of the stuff she writes is...not what you'd expect from the local Deadpan Snarker.
• Cat Fight: Luca and Cloche twice. The first time is a Crowning Moment of Funny, but the second one is played much more seriously, with both of them dropping reasons the other sucks like bombs.
• Came Back Wrong: Nenesha. Specifically as a Type 2, as her body was destroyed by Raki and only her Heart of Gaea from the failed attempt at Metafalica remained.
• Child Prodigy: Sasha. She runs a shop all by herself and teaches herself academics before bed. She can even read the Pira Theroies.
• Chained by Fashion: Cloche's Victim Pain costume.
• The Chosen One: Cloche, the Holy Maiden. Or so they think. She is still a maiden - just a different type. The second chosen one is Luca, the real Holy Maiden.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Quite a few.
  • Gorgo/Nenesha and Infel, who are introduced as Mind Guardians and become the final villains.
  • Amarie, whose introduced as a mysterious follower and becomes a party member.
  • Leyka/Cloche.
• Church Militant: The Sacred Army.
• Combat Stilettos: Cloche's Victim Pain costume stands out, though there are other examples, including just plain impractically tall shoes.
  • Cocona has something like 4 inch tall platform shoes.
• Combined Energy Attack: Repalica channels the power of singing I.P.D.s to amplify the power of Cloche's song magic.
  • to create Metafalica, Cloche needs to collect their power and pass it on to Luca.
• Clark Kenting: Cloche thinks dressing like a Magical Girl will hide her identity because that's how magical girl outfits usually work despite the lack of masks etc. Croix snarks at this, privately of course.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Cynthia, when she's not talking about love she makes even less sense.
• Combination Attack: Synchronity Chains.
• Continuity Nod: Frelia's Binary Field has three rather familiar Reyvateils playing roles in the Syndicate.
  • Jacqli and Spica talk about Lyner and his harem all the time. Along with those other people that they traveled with, of course.
  • Jacqli also uses Viruses from the first game - her creations as the Mother Virus, Mir - for some of her song magic.
  • A monster called a Nyo? shows up briefly in Metafalica; aside from that, they were only in Elemia.
• Creepy Child: Alice in Cloche's Cosmosphere eventually shows herself to be this.
• Cute and Psycho: Luca, especially if you take her route.
• Cute Witch: One of Luca's costumes.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Mir/Jacqli and Cloche qualify quite a bit.
• Dark Magical Girl: Jacqli fits this trope very well. First her color scheme is dark colors compared to the leads. She's more cynical compared to their optimism about Metafalica. She's an enemy that later has a Heel Face Turn. Her Cosmosphere story has her play this part as well.
• Deader Than Dead: subverted as Infel has been dead for centuries, but due to the technical failures of Infel Phira and her will to carry out her Ascension Project, her consciousness remain within its data banks. When Metafalica is sung successfully, Infel Phira is reformatted and Infel is literally deleted
• Dead Little Sister: Luca's sister, Leyka. Well, except that Leyka really turned out to be Cloche, but she was thought to be dead for a long while.
• Deadpan Snarker: Croix. The man has to comment on every screw up made in synthesis, and even complains about having to complain every time.
  • Even the item descriptions have snarking.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Mir, defeated in the first game, returns as an (eventual) love interest in the form of Jacqli.
• Demoted to Extra: Luca gets the short end of the stick in Frelia's Binary Field story, showing up once with little plot relevance. She lampshades this in a talk. Same goes for both Luca and Cloche in Jacqli's Cosmosphere story as they're playing the "heroines of justice" bit but end up getting shafted because the story is centered on the Dark Magical Girl.
• Despair Event Horizon: Infel passed it 400 years ago when Nenesha died. It lead her to the Assimilation Plot because she gave up on anything better. When shes cheers Cloche on later its a further symptom of her despair; Cloche and Luca's success means her death because it will reformat Infel Pira and defragment its memory, I.E. delete her.
• Detached Sleeves: Luca.
• Damsel in Distress: Every Reyvateil except for Jacqli, at some point or another.
• Dojikko: Jacqli has a bizarre version: while she is only show to slip up in battle, she can do so in a floating mech, which will fall flat on its face.
• The Dragon: Oh, Raki. Th enforcer for the Big Bad.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: If you didn't know they were talking about 'Diving' I.E the process of creating song magic in a Reyvateil's mind, you'd think they were talking sex. Also, just like the last game, there is no end of the Innocent Innuendo involved in Installation. A specific instance for this game would be the Therapist organization compared to a brothel.
• The End of the World as We Know It: It nearly happens three times. First, there's the threat of Frelia more or less running out of power to keep the Rim afloat (and she does for part of it). Second, there's what would have happened if Hibernation had been successful, and third, the similar Sublimation, which would affect the entire world instead of just Metafalss.
  • It also happened off screen before the game begins. Supplemental material reveals that Sol Marta doesn't have enough juice to keep the rim up by itself with Ar tonelico shut down. This means that the Rim that we see during the second game is what's left after Frelia was forced to let most of it drop after The Magic Goes Away. Fortunately, it came back in time that she didn't have to let it all go.
• Dysfunctional Family: The Trulyworths.
  • The dad died years ago, and the mom gets killed partway through the game.
  • Luca and Reisha initially have serious issues over Luca being secretly adopted.
  • Luca spends quite a while unknowingly hating her long lost sister for being at the head of the group who killed said long lost sister.
  • Thanks to her Trauma-Induced Amnesia, Cloche is somewhat jealous of her own family for most of the game.
  • And Croix is technically the adopted brother of three of the four love interests.
• Earn Your Happy Ending. There are a lot of hardships and pitfalls but Metafalica is ultimately created, the villains either convert or die, and Croix hooks up with one of four love interests.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Cloche and Luca. But Cloche takes the cake due to her IPD fan club.
• Everything's Better with Penguins: The Pippens, effendi.
• Eyes of Gold: Frelia, one of the three goddesses/Origin Reyvateils, and Luca who is the real Holy Maiden.
• Facial Markings: Amarie who is half-Teru.
• Fan Girl: An in-game example being Cloche's army of IPDs for Replekia.
• Fan Service: There's a game mechanic devoted to girls taking baths, among many other things.
• Floating Continent: The Rim.
• Frying Pan of Doom: Reisha's weapon of choice. she takes out a Powered Armor with it.
• Freaky Friday Flip: Close-but-not-quite; while no actual body-swapping occurs, the one level of the Infelsphere (forcibly) has Luca and Cloche see how each other had to live by having one of them "reenact" certain events of the girl's life. Whose past gets seen depends on which route Croix takes.
• Gag Boobs: Taking a bath finally showed Jacqli "the difference" in size between herself and Cloche.
  • Just to give an idea of the difference: the official data have their respective Three Sizes. Jacqli's 71 cm. Cloche's is 91 cm. Luca's 78 cm. Luca also makes comments about Cloche's chest size in the Infelsphere.
  • At one point, Luca is attempting to find a way for Soope to hide itself from civilians. Luca suggests that it hides in her clothing pretending to be her boobs, with obvious results. The actual drawn sprite of this alone makes this scene more hilarious than it has any right to be.
• Gainax Ending: If you chose one of the other girls, Jacqli's Cosmosphere ends this way. Gets even funnier when Jacqli basically tells you afterwards I have no bloody clue. Fanwank something.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: The "link" system in Metafalica, where a vanguard characters current relationship with a given Reyvateil changes along with a story. Example: when Jacqli learns that Cocona is a Reyvateil, their link changes from "Normal" to "Good." Done for tragic effect when Cloche and Luca use their magic to prevent Reisha's death; it doesn't work.
• Game Breaking Bug: The terrible localization added a glitch in which the game will freeze during the third round of combat with a mandatory boss.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: The game sails past this and lands squarely in Refuge in Audacity territory.
  • Edible Underwear is an item you can make. Jacqli will offer to wear it. "Don't bite my butt!"
  • Bondage outfits for Cloche and Luca. It's up to interpretations whether this is more audacious than the towel and Y-shirt outfits in the first game.
• Girlish Pigtails: Cocona, Sasha, Luca's Pretty Cherry costume, Cloche's Summer Love and Pretty Viola costumes, Jacqli's Pure Ritual costume.
• Godiva Hair: Jacqli's Miros costume.
• God Is Good Frelia really is a Nice Girl, she's just sleeping and low in power so she can't help until late in the game.
• Guide Dang It: Good luck trying to get Jacqli's ending in Metafalica without referring to one of several guides to find enough of her talk topics . . . and even then you can STILL get screwed over.
• Guns Akimbo: Jacqli's Spirit Gunner costume, though the guns are fake.
• Half-Human Hybrid: The half-Teru Amarie, Chester, and Sonia.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Luca's Assault Pain and Cloche's Victim Pain costumes. Note that these are bondage outfits. Yes, bondage.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Cloche is well hated at one point. She's loved again later on though.
• Heterosexual Life Partners: Cloche and Luca, particularly on the Cocona and Jacqli endings.
• High Altitude Battle: The final battle against Infel and Nenesha takes place in a satellite.
• Hive Mind: All I.P.D. are connected at the 8th and 9th levels of their minds. This makes them telepathic with each other and capable of pooling their song magic in a Combined Energy Attack.
  • Hive Queen: Cloche becomes this after Reine starts the fan club, though Reine deserves honorary mention since she's the head of the club and Cloche is the focus of it. Cloche is telepathically connected to the I.P.Ds and can see into their minds and they into her's. Though she doesn't direct their movements, as much as they adore her, she might as well be.
• Hot Chick with a Sword: Cloche has a sword (in both her standard and Oldmodern Style costumes), though she doesn't really use it. Save for her Crowning Moment of Awesome.
• Housewife: Cloche and Luca fight over would be the better house wife in the Infelsphere. Presumably Reisha pre-series.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Cloche and Alfman's mantra in Phase 1.
• Idiot Ball: Most of the plot can be easily avoided if only Croix just remembered that an I.P.D doesn't a have Mind Guardian.
• Improbable Weapon User:
  • Croix - While fairly plausible (a spear with a massive guard to act as a shield with a machine gun mounting), it has rocket boosters on one end that he uses for his EX attack.
  • Leglius - Equipped with what can best be described as a "Chainsaw Yo-Yo" that are the size of shields.
  • Cocona - Equipped with a pair of hair ornaments that are also chakram-like weapons and metamorph into a bladed staff by materializing a stick between the two... somehow.
  • Shun - He's a big robot wolf, so naturally, he attacks with... his horn-like blades and being able to jump and spin like Sonic the Hedgehog.
  • Amarie - By far the biggest offender, she normally has what looks like tonfa or maybe short-swords, but then puts the two halves together, and can turn it into a bow firing what appears to be laser arrows (and in the EX attack, these arrows are supposed to travel faster than light), then she flips it around the other way, and suddenly, she has a lyre, and can hit the enemy with a Brown Note attack... seriously?!
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Jacqli in Metafalica has no nudity taboo, and is convinced to wear clothes by Spica, offscreen between the two games. However, she's not innocent in the slightest, as she revels in taunting Croix by offering to remove her clothing or something equally enticing (like a ribbon and nothing else).
• Innocent Innuendo: Cloche has a Tsundere-type reaction.
• Instant Fanclub: Deconstructed. It takes time for Reine to build the Cloche fanclub but otherwise they fit perfectly. They tell people how great Cloche is, protect her in battle, and provide the energy for Replakia.
• In the Name of the Moon: Jacqli's Cosmosphere for the first five levels; whenever Luca and Cloche turn into magical girls.
  • Fitting considering Jacqli/Mir was also the creator of Shurelia's "Cosmosphere" in the first game. There, Shurelia does it.
• Item Crafting: Synthesis. One common element (where the finished product looks nothing like the componants) is subverted hilariously with Croix's numerically strongest weapon, which is simply the components glued to each other in a hap-hazard manner.
• I Will Wait for You: an interesting variant. Croix makes what amounts to a Childhood Marriage Promise with Luca who agrees to wait until he's a full fledged knight and he comes to take her to Pastalia. However if the player chooses the default ending, Croix says he will wait for Coccona to return from her journey to the third tower.
• Japanese Delinquents: Jacqli's Long Skirt costume draws on the "sukeban" style of female Japanese delinquents.
• Kill Sat: This is amongst Jacqli's power. Luca's final Song Magic may also count, as Sol Marta (Metafalss' server) itself is used as such. And of course, Cloche has Replekia and Infel Phira...
• Lady and Knight: Of the Bright Lady and White Knight variety. Croix is the knight, and Luca and Cloche are the ladies; Phase 1 is about him standing between his childhood friend and his boss.
• Large Ham: Cloche, in battle.

Cloche: FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION! Cloche: LISTEN TO MYYY LYRICS!''' Cloche: My love... is overflowing!

• Lethal Chef: Luca and Cloche play this dead straight.
  • In fairness to Jacqli, her cooking is a crapshoot. Half her food is a weapon of mass destruction, but the other half makes up some of the best food/healing items in the game. So what if it was supposed to be a cake, it's still really good sushi! Compared to the other girls, you at least stand a good probability of surviving her meals.
    • Additionally, anything that is actually toxic at least looks the part.
• Limit Break: Requires a series of specific actions to activate.
• Little Miss Badass: Cocona from Metafalica manages to push this to its limits. Wielding her concealed baton and roundhouse kicks, and an occasional magic attack, as her weapons, she not only fights on the front lines, but bodily protects the Reyvateils who are twice her mass and age in spite of actually BEING a Reyvateil herself. Her EX attack involves creating a laser blade from her baton.
• Little Miss Snarker: Jacqli. Except that she's really almost 400 years old and thus only looks like a loli, and Croix definitely doesn't see her as a "younger" sister, unlike Cocona.
• Younger Sibling Fetishization: Coccona is Croix's adoptive sister and very cute. She confides in Cloche that she is in love with him but his only love is as a brother because of their age difference. she's the default love interest.
• Living with the Villain: Done interestingly. Infel, the Big Bad, poses as Cloche's Mind Guardian.
• Lost in Translation: Infel repeatedly makes bad puns. However, these were translated literally for the North American release, which turns Croix's responses into strange non sequiturs.
  • There's also the pun regarding Skycat's name. In the original, she's called Soraneko (while working, anyway), which literally does translate to Skycat. However, Croix mistakenly calling her Seacat loses its humor if you don't know the Japanese equivalent, Umineko, is actually (despite the literal meaning) the term for a type of seagull.
• Love Freak: Cynthia the blacksmith, who makes a brand of 'weapons of love' called 'Cyn Cro Brand'. Nearly every synthesis with her will invoke the Power of Love.
• Love Hurts: Croix doesn't have it any better than Lyner ever did.
  • To be more precise, Croix was almost killed 4 of the 9 levels in Luca's cosmosphere, killed by the sucidal Cloche and squashed like a bug in the third Reyvateil's hate for humanity.
• Love Makes You Evil: Infel used to be like Cloche but a Despair Event Horizon pushed her to a darker goal.
• Luminescent Blush: Jacqli gets this surprisingly frequently. Done hilariously at the end of her Cosmosphere. Normally, it involves a "marriage" ceremony with a speech. Jacqli breaks the rules and has Ayatane forgo this because it's embarrassing (whilst blushing), and her "Costume Get" image, normally with a default expression, has her blushing while rolling her eyes. Tsundere much?
• Mayfly-December Romance: Averted for Frelia and Shun. Shun was a human who willingly transformed himself into a digital lifeform to protect Frelia throughout her 700-year lifetime. However, his bio says that he wants to go back to being human.
• May–December Romance: Croix and Jacqli if you choose her path.
• Meido: One of Jacqli's costumes.
• Mental World: In addition to the Reyvateil's Individual Cosmospheres, there is also the Infelsphere, which is a shared world that Luca and Cloche can enter, though Croix is able to join them with both girls permission at first.
• Mineral MacGuffin: Hearts of the Land. The also function as a Cosmic Keystone for the land because they regulate everything from the cycle of the seasons to the growth of living things.
• The Mole: Amarie, sort of.
• More Dakka: One of Alfman's attacks reveals a Hyperspace Arsenal, and he unloads.
• More Expendable Than You: Leglius sees this as his purpose for traveling with Cloche: Do dangerous recuse missions so she won't. The knights in general are kind of this too.
• More Friends, More Benefits: Slapped down compared to the original - you have to commit to one girl before completing Level 5 of their Cosmosphere (and be able to go deeper and get better song magic), and that locks you into their ending.
• Musical Theme Naming: The Cello and Viola moons.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In her backstory, Infel gave a particularly cruel yet not entirely underserved Calling the Old Man Out toward her foster father Grammul, after it's revealed that his plan for Metafalica require her to be sacrificed. Grammul was soon fired from the Metafalica project and then disappeared. What Infel realized later was that Grammul had created an (long story short) imperfect replacement for the sacrifice in the form of Mimimi, the doll he gave to Infel long time ago.

Infel: "Somehow, I wanted to meet Grammul again. However, now that is a wish that can't be fulfilled. Because, he must have passed away already."

• Nice Hat: Infel's hat stands out in particular.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Jacqli thinks a giant killer stuffed rabbit is cute (as well as thinking all the "normal" cute things are lame).
• Not Blood Siblings: If you do not progress past Level 5 in anyone's cosmosphere in Metafalica, Croix gets paired with Cocona, his adopted sister.
  • Croix is raised in the house of Reisha alongside Luca. Even though, for some odd reason, he's never officially adopted despite being a 4-year-old orphan, that still makes Croix and Luca more than just "childhood friends" by any reasonable count. The game very specifically never tries to mention this, probably to avoid squicking the player out of picking Luca's route.
• The Obi Wrong: Leglius is technically Croix's boss at first... but still often takes orders from him after rejoining. Even when Croix is transferred to being directly under Cloche, a woman very much used to giving orders, she takes orders from him, too.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: "Jacqli" is actually the name of her mech.
• Onee-Sama Cloche for Sasha; an elegant, reserved and affectionate big sister figure. Sasha's adoration came be seen in every one of their conversations.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Cloche fits this most.
  • Lampshaded when upon her first dualstall scene with Luca, her dress turned out to be so complex that she didn't know how to take it off herself.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Cloche and Luca. Princess/Pauper, Tsundere and Kawaiiko, Tsurime Eyes and Tareme Eyes, all the way to their hair ornaments; a sun and moon respectively. Heck, if one compares their hair and eye colors, they would notice that they are exact inversions.
• Princess And Pauper: Zig-zagged. Luca starts as the maiden and Cloche as the common girl when they're born, then they both become commoners after Alfman's coup, then end up swapping roles in the opening flashback, then both end up as the maiden, and well...it keeps going from there.
• Princess Curls: Cloche's Pretty Viola costume has her hair in spirals.
• Rage Against the Heavens: Cloche is the figurehead of this movement.
• Rags to Royalty: Luca, given that she's a Maiden.
• Replacement Goldfish: Amarie offers to replace Leglius' dead daughter after he says they're a lot alike. Considering how she warms up to him afterward, one would think she wants him to replace her dead dad.
• Random Encounters: Using the same system as the first one.
• Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Frelia, Jacqli.
• Relax-O-Vision: What did Luca/Cloche do to Croix while he was sleeping in Phase 2? Boing boing!
  • One of Jacqli's song magic spells invokes this effect.
• Robot Girl: Raki and Reki.
• Rule of Cool: Let's just go with all the EX attacks.
• Sarashi: Reisha.
• Save Point
• Serious Business: Gergo products are this to Cloche, especially when Geugo products are brought up in comparison.
• Sequel Hook: One of the post-credits scenes has Jacqli/Mir entrusting a Heart of Gaea to Cocona and sending her off to a third tower.
  • In the Croix/Cocona ending, it's implied that we'll have a She's All Grown Up moment, as an I Will Wait for You is invoked because she'll be gone for years.
• She's a Man In Japan: Or rather, he's a woman in Japan. Jean Ishikawa, one of the characters in Cloche's Cosmosphere and the avatar for one of her song magic spells, was changed to a male in the US localization. This runs into a problem with the associated song magic spell, considering she accidentally cuts off her armor in the attack animation.
• Shoddy Knockoff Product: A couple in universe examples show up in Metafalica. First there are Funboons, a knockoff of Funbuns from Elemia. Then there's Geugo, a knockoff of Gergo.
• He is not my boyfriend: Cloche would like you to know that Croix is her dog and bodyguard, NOTHING ELSE! The fact that she goes on dates with him is completely irrelevant.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Luca refers to it as 'attacking with smiles'. Pretending to be sweet and submissive when she's really luring someone into a trap.
• Slave Collar: Dog collar but it serves a similar purpose. Cloche puts on on Croix in her level 5 as a means to balance her love for him and her public image: nothing wrong with a maiden having a beloved pet, right?
• Spell My Name with an "S": Spellings for names were changed between the Japanese and American releases. Some made sense - Croix and Cloche, as opposed to Chroah and Chroche, are based on French words; things like Nenesha as opposed to Nenesya reflect standard romanization schemes - but others notsomuch. Trulyworth, as opposed to Truelywaath, removes the Hymmnos symbolism of Luca being the real Holy Maiden. Some spellings were stylized (Lakra and Jacqli) despite the originals (Rakura and Jakuri) being written in kanji. Other names were changed entirely for no apparent reason. This is one of the things that drew criticism for NISA's localization of Metafalica.
  • One name that is Woolseyism is Cynthia. In the artbook, her name is written as Sincere.
  • It's made quite clear that one of three things happened: 1) The translator was not provided with a Hymmnos dictionary, 2) The translator was told the players wouldn't have access to an official English-to-Hymmnos dictionary (which is technically true as there isn't an official one), or 3) Both 1 and 2. Truelywaath therefore, would seem MORE lazy to people with passing knowledge of Japanese-to-English translation conventions, despite it being technically accurate in Hymmnos. Trulyworth doesn't lose all of its symbolism, as she still has her "true worth" so it isn't as blatant as, say, Leyka, which loses a bit of the naming scheme since her mother is still spelled Reisha, and not Leysha.
    • And what would be the necessity for an "official" Hymmnos dictionary; if the fantranslated ones actually cover the same as the official JP-Hymmnos one, and furthermore, their URLs are posted in easily accesable sites (such as the Ar tonelico articles in the Other Wiki)? In other words, the lack of an official one doesn't serve as an excuse when the fantranslated ones existed for about six months before Ar tonelico 2's US release.
• Short Dark And Bishoujo: Jacqli.
• The Stars Are Going Out: This starts to happen when Infel and Nenesha sing Sublimation.
• Stepford Smiler: This defines Luca's internal turmoil.
  • Spica is revealed to be this. She gets better, though is eventually revealed to be something of a Christmas Cake in the process
• Stocking Filler: Spica.
• Stoic Spectacles: Croix. The Glasses Come Off for battle (or when in armor) with the very good justification of the dangers of them shattering.
• Stripperific: Luca and Cloche are more modestly dressed. Then you see Cloche's Armageddon outfit, and all that goes to hell. Jacqli is very much Ms. Fanservice, however, and her clothes (and combat entry) reinforce that.
  • Amarie and Lakra fit this well, too, particularly the latter.
  • Cocona as well.
• Sugar and Ice Personality: Jacqli has elements of this, with a few standard Tsundere traits thrown in for flavor.
• Supporting Protagonist: The game follows Croix's actions but his only connection to the plot is his relationship to Luca and Cloche. The plot revolves around them as they save the world; Croix just protects them while they do it. This is acknowledged in the Opening theme, where the girls sing a duet and he's a mere cameo.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: used early on in Jacqli's "cosmosphere" during The Reveal.

Kuroaki: You...what did you do to Togasaki!? Miros: ......I don't know of such a girl. Kuroaki: Miros...how did you know that Togasaki is a girl...?

• Take That: While Luca disagrees, Spica takes a shot at Moe:

Spica: Sure it is. Anyone who uses the word "Moe" is most likely a pervert.

• They Call Me Mister Tibbs: Inverted. Cloche is painfully aware of her title and this is precisely why she doesn't want her closest friends using it. Everyone else, though, has to call her 'Lady' or 'Holy Maiden'.
• This Is a Drill: Parodied in one of the synthesis conversations. Croix doesn't really get what makes the drill suit 'manly'.
• Timed Mission: Well, not really defined ingame as such, but due to a bug in a certain line of code that the translators apparently overlooked in the US release (and, mind you, patchers came up with just a few lines of code that corrected this), the last fight (and the subsequent optional boss battles) against Raki have a time limit of three turns - on the sixth action of the boss (usually the third round), the buffer overload kills the game if she has more than 20% of her HP. Otherwise, she merely tries to charge at you. This makes it nigh impossible to win later battles (in which the boss gains more HP and stat buffs) and the Last Lousy Point. 'Course, there are legal and not-so-legal methods to get around this. Mercifully, this is corrected in the EU release, though it seems very unlikely that it will ever see resolution in the US.
• Token Mini-Moe: Cocona. Jacqli kinda-sorta counts, too.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Cloche, given that she was taken from her parents at three years old and experimented on because she was a high level IPD. Her first memories were of her being told her new name.
• Tsundere: Who other than Cloche? An attack of Luca's even says so!
  • Infel surprisingly fits this if you go deep enough in Cloche's Cosmosphere and do some optional scenes esspecially when telling that you (Croix) read her diary.
  • Cloche's Level 5 Cosmosphere is this taken to the absolute extreme.
  • Recent Toukosphere dialogue has confirmed that Targana is the 3rd most favorite AT Tsundere character, needless to say he denies it, but when Croix says that he likes that part of him he gladly accepts it.
• 24-Hour Armor: Leglius.
• Underboobs: Amarie.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend / Victorious Childhood Friend: Luca can become either, depending on which ending you take.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: Oh god, Metafalica. Oh god. spreading I.P.D, denying them treatment, lossing part of the world, declaring war on the godddess...
• Vapor Wear: Amarie.
• Wasted Song: Hibernation. Although it's fourteen minutes long, it's extremely unlikely you'll hear half of it unless you intentionally idle.
  • To be fair, the song actually overrides the normal battle music, and so, it's easy to hear it to then end before getting to the next plot point where it gets replaced by normal event music.
• White-Haired Pretty Girl: Lakra.
• Winged Humanoid: Frelia has fairy wings. Cloche's default costume has feathery attachments that resemble angel wings, but they're just part of the clothes, not her.
• The Woman Wearing the Queenly Mask: Cloche, and a major part of her backstory.
• Widget Series: This one has Moe Firepowder, AKA a bomb dressed up like a girl with Girlish Pigtails in a School Swimsuit. What. The. Hell.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Any revytail that becomes the Heart of Gaea tends to go completely nuts.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Infel, who was driven by the pain of losing Nenesha to find a way to eliminate all unhappiness... Too bad her method, Sublimation, happened to be more or less an Assimilation Plot.
• Xanatos Gambit: There's one in Frelia's binary field. The syndicate assigns Kurowaki to fight an enemy of there's and find a lost briefcase. If he obeys and completes the mission, great. If he betrays them again, like they expect him to, then he's likely to find said enemy anyway and try to join her. Even if he runs away at least he won't be a problem for them anymore.
• Yandere: Portrayed in the lyrics to the hymn EXEC_DESPEDIA/. Have a look here, particularly towards the end. It's worth noting that "Rrha yea ra" roughly means "In a trance of happiness that I want to last".
  • Also, in her Cosmosphere, Luca has a string of personalities that want to murder Croix fighting with other personalities that want to save Croix so that they can murder him in the next floor. Cloche's Armageddon self attempts to kill Croix so she won't have to suffer the pain of losing him after their relationship grows closer.
    • Not to mention her spell "Romance" which summons up a cleaver wielding psycho.
  • A sort-of example exists in Infel as well, who was so torn up by Nenesha's death that she decided to put the world through an Assimilation Plot.
• You Shall Not Pass: Immediately after his Heel Face Turn, Alfman does this to the Divine Army so the main cast can continue their climb. After the heroes move, he invokes I Am Your Opponent.
• Zettai Ryouiki: Hoo boy. Luca's standard and Tres Super Bien costumes, Cloche's Standard (in a way) and Metamorole Model costumes, Jacqli's Spirit Gunner costume, and Skycat.