Video Game / Ar tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel

Left to right: Finnel, Aoto, Saki

The third game in the JRPG Ar tonelico series and its overarching EXA_PICO franchise by Gust is called Ar tonelico III: Sekai Shuuen no Hikigane wa Shoujo no Uta ga Hiku (The Song of the Girl that Pulls the Trigger of the End of the World) in Japan. Nippon Ichi released this game under the name of Ar tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel in North America on March 15, 2011, with Qoga meaning End in Hymmnos.

This time around, the protagonist is a young steeplejack named Aoto, while the setting is the region of the third tower of Ar tonelico, Sol Cluster, where Reyvateils hold high importance over the second-class humans and control their population, destroying entire human cities when they become too large in a genocidal process called Cleansing, while the survivors are turned into vegetables through a brainwashing process called Purification.

The story starts with Aoto lazying around during his work hours, when a rumble outside his house makes him notice that an old man and a woman are being attacked by Clustanian troops. After helping the woman to fend the Clustanians off, the woman transformed into other girl: Saki, while the old man died from the wounds he sustained, telling Aoto to take care of Saki and giving him a mysterious pendant that looked identical to one Aoto had, telling him to give it to his son. During their run to the air bus station to escape from the village now they were being chased by the Clustanians, they met with a friend of Aoto's, Tatsumi, who helped them escape, not before Saki made her own clothes magically disappear and used some sort of weird power to turn the soldiers and robots into giant pieces of cake. While this leaves them astonished at first, they take advantage of it as a chance to escape from the village. Once they stop to rest outside the village, Saki, now with her clothes again, awakens without any memories of what happened in the village or who the old man that died protecting her was, making Tatsumi suggest taking her to a Reyvateil-specialized doctor that lives in the neighboring city of Eternus Shaft.

However, this only marks the beginning of a long journey where they befriend other characters: Hikari Gojo, the good-natured doctor Tatsumi mentioned; and Finnel, a clumsy Reyvateil waitress that lives and works at the Eternus Shaft. Both of them seem to be keeping some secrets of their own, which Aoto and the others will discover as they fight to find the truth behind Saki's memory loss, the fact she and Finnel have multiple personalities that change their appearances entirely, why Clustania is so keen in capturing her, and the connection she and Finnel have with some incidents that happened in Sol Cluster's past; while protecting them both from Clustania and the human-ruled nation of Archia, the second of which seems to have ulterior motives. This will also take him to discover why the Third Tower was created originally and what were its functions, getting into an adventure that will decide not only Sol Cluster's fate, but also that of the entirety of Ar Ciel.

The game later on got small sequels in the form of Drama CDs, each one giving an ampler outlook on the endings of each individual heroine, while also pulling out a final sequel for the entire series in the form of two light novel tomes in which the casts of the three games join to accomplish a single goal.

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This game contains examples of:

• Achievements in Ignorance: According to Cocona, Aoto is "too dumb to know something is impossible" and so he'll try doing it.
• Action Girl: Akane and Cocona.
• A-Cup Angst: Finnel is very vocal about it. She even says she doesn't want to wear a certain item because she doesn't have the bust for it. Aoto immediately offers to make her some pads. Cocona gets defensive about her size at times as well.
• All Men Are Perverts:
  • You have the option of invoking this when programming Hyumas. After purging to the final level, the player can ask the girl to strip again. Depending on the girl being programmed, she may not object to the idea...
    Aoto: You know, since we've gone this far, let's go all the way...
  • Saki's 3rd Cosmosphere level.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: The battle with Harvestasha and Ciela takes place in those.
• Apologises a Lot: Saki whenever someone attacks her. Noted under Distressed Damsel.
• Ax-Crazy: Soma. Don't worry, she's a professional murderer.
• Badass Preacher: Reverend Gengai. A one-eyed, pony-tailed, air-surfing, fist-fighting, hard-drinkin' priest. The other characters constantly question exactly HOW holy he can possibly be.
• Beam Spam: Tyria loves this as it manifests in all her spells.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Aoto and Finnel, though they're probably just playing around more than anything.
• Beyond the Impossible: When the Rinkernator is open, Reyvateils can't use Song Magic because the systems that make it possible are disabled. Cocona can cast anyways because she is connected to Infel Phira (back at the Second Tower) instead of the Third Tower whose Rinkernator was open at the time. There's a cutscene showing the energy transfer through space.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Three: Ayatane, Raphael, and Ar Ciel. Ayatane is trying to Kill All Humans and free Clustania from the Archia Think Tank's Sword of Damocles. Raphael is trying to evolve humanity by merging them with the Antibodies. Ar Ciel is the planet itself, and is really just trying to preserve it's life.
• The Big Guy: The military instructor Mute, as seen here. Her other form, not so much.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • The story EXEC_FLIP_FUSIONSPHERE/. tells in its Hymmnos lyrics is arguably more interesting than the song's context in the game.
  • It's at the same time the most beautiful and the most depressing thing you'll hear. Song here, Lyrics here.
• Bittersweet Ending: The normal and bad endings. Get the bad ending? Finnel and Saki both die and all life will be killed by the Antibodies. Get the normal ending? The heroine you didn't choose dies. Not only that but with the state the planet is in, the Will of Ar Ciel itself, Ciela, will die in a year. Without Ciela, the other Wills would die too, and without the Wills, the Planet is dead. So either way, everyone will die.
• Bodyguard Crush:
  • Inverted at first as Saki and Finnel show signs of affection to Aoto before the player chooses a specific girl's ending route, thus choosing Aoto's specific romantic interest.
  • Also plays a huge role in Tyria's Binary Field, where you essentially get to play through a Visual Novel with yourself taking on the role of the Bodyguard. Exactly how crushy it gets depends on your choices, but for the Best Ending... it'll need to get VERY crushy.
• Body Horror: Rev. Gengai gets turned into the Reyvaroid, a grotesque human-Antibody hybrid. Fortunately, he returns to normal after the heroes defeat the monstrosity.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Many characters occasionally become very aware that they exist inside a JRPG, typically during synthesis. Cocona seems to be perpetually aware of this fact.
• Breast Plate: Sakia Lumei's armor can become this.
• But Thou Must!:
  • If you pick the wrong choices in Tyria's Binary Field, it sends you back through the levels.
  • Also in Finnel's RPG-style Cosmosphere level, if you choose not to help Finnel, she'll keep asking until you choose to help her.
• Captain Ersatz: Soma's costume looks like some sort of demon Nightmaren.
• Cast from Hit Points: EXEC_FLIP songs draw power from the singer's own life energy, potentially killing her. Saki and Finnel both have one, which are heard as part of the plot, aside of Saki's constant use of her Miracle power, which is a form of EXEC_FLIP as well. As for if they are killed from singing them, that depends on which ending route you're in.
• Cat Girl: Filament has cat ears under her nun habit.
• Clothing Damage:
  • Exaggerated to the point that you can't do a powerful special attack (especially when purging) unless one of you has been stripped down, even to the point of bearing your underwear!
  • Literal in Filament's case. The more that she is purged, the more tattered her clothes get.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Tyria; somehow every other thought ends with 'fried bread' or some other random topic.
• Combat Stilettos: Every female in the game wears something with high heels but this trope is concerned with Cocona and Richa who are the only ones to melee fight in them.
• Continuity Nod: Most of them are provided by Cocona AKA Tatsumi.
  • Herself of course.
  • Her mission to deliver the Heart of Gaea.
  • Remarking on he similarites between a dress made in synthesis and the Floral Dress from her game.
  • Snarking when Roto wants to add "Maximum Penetration" to his new weapon, as that was the battle quote Croix said when he used his EX technique.
  • Her dislike of Sol Cluster's baths references the Reyvateil power up system: "There's no one to talk to, no toys and no bath oil. What a boo bath!"
• Conveniently an Orphan: Aoto and Cocona. Of course, the pureblooded Reyvateils couldn't have parents to begin with, as they are Artificial Human.
• Creepy Good: Even after Soma makes a Heel–Face Turn and start helping the heroes, she's still creepy as hell, due in no small part to her spectacular Slasher Smile. Her Limit Break in particular is disturbing. Of course, it helps that she's a Monster Clown.
• Deadpan Snarker: Aoto sometimes, but mostly Tatsumi/Cocona. Looks like she picked it up from her big bro.
• Death from Above: All of the Flipsphere attacks are some variant of this. Depending on what Reyvateil and Persona you're using, the thing raining Death from Above can be anything from cake, to words, to cats, to energy-beams, to plain, old, boring meteors.
• Declaration of Protection: Aoto says this often to Saki and Finnel. Deconstructed as the strain of protecting someone from two superpowers with only a drill and a handful of friends is so great it drives him to a breakdown.
• Desperation Attack: Saki's Miracle power works like this. It turns people into cake.
• Distressed Damsel: Phase I is more or less keeping Saki away from Clustanian forces and rescuing her when it happens. Lampshaded in a Phase 2 talk topic: "I'm sorry I got abducted multiple times."
• The Dulcinea Effect: Aoto to Saki in the first 5 minutes of the game. Not so much because of Saki herself (at first), but because it was a dying man's^* who turns out to be Katene's father, Dr. Kiraha, who took her away from Archia a decade ago. final wish and his keepsake piqued Aoto's curiosity further.
• The End of the World as We Know It: In the non-true ends, the planet will die.
• Evolution Powerup: Each Persona in the party has a mind guardian and they have three stages of evolution. Each time a Purge is done they change physically and their attack range and power increases.
• Eyepatch of Power: Gengai. At least we think it gives him power.
• Fanservice: Undoubtedly the most blatant in the series which is saying a lot considering the last two involved a Modesty Towel costume. Also, there's a trophy that's literally titled "What's wrong with being a pervert!?"
  • Changed in the English version to "Return to Innocence"
• Fantasy Pantheon: The Wills of the Planet. They are sixteen (initially fifteen) consciousnesses that work to keep Ar Ciel's physics and/or living organisms in balance. Over the course of the game, the party gets to meet ten of these Wills. Saki, Sarapatra, and Filament were placed into Sakia Lumei's body during her creation; while Finnel was initially born with Yurisica, Soma, and Suzunomia (who the Planet had exiled into the void because she lost her purpose) possessing her body. Finnel also gets possessed by a newer Will named Ar Ru, created by Ar Ciel for the sole purpose of wiping out every living thing on the planet. The final three Wills that appear make up the final boss of the game, representing the Planet's anger and forcing the party to fight for forgiveness.
• Fantastic Racism: Reyvateils of Clustania "cleanse" human communities (read: destroy) and "purify" individuals (read: brainwash) It turns out that most of them are fairly nice, if snobby, and the ones causing problems at the start Heel–Face Turn. The true villain is one more human who sees Reyvateils as disposable dolls.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Finnel's stockings don't match.
• Finishing Move: Ultra Supermoves and Flipspheres.
• Forced Transformation: Saki has the power to turn humans into cake.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When you Dive into Saki, you'll see her Hymn Code is written: SAKIA_FEHU_TILIA_HARVESTASYA. Guess what it means?
  • Both EXEC_REBIRTHIA=PROTOCOL/. and EXEC_COSMOFLIPS/. are effectively summaries of an in-universe book which talks about an interstellar refuge ship and a lifeform named Cosal who saves mankind... ...hmm... though this version ends with a Downer Ending in which everyone in the ship dies and their remains turn into a biotope that starts the cycle of life in an inert planet, as well as the fairy-like Sharl being replaced with monsters made from plasma called the Ru.
• Gaia's Vengeance: The Antibodies
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • You can encounter Soma within Finnel's "second" Cosmosphere before discovering that Finnel is Soma during the course of the game. You can also fuse Finnel and Yurisica together in her real second Cosmosphere level and have Finnel fight as her after Yurisica helps you escape from Eternus Gallery (possibly before, as well), but Tatsumi doesn't bring up the fact that the girl that helped them escape from the prison was a Persona of Finnel.
  • The player can also "learn" (if you didn't notice Saki's Hymn Code) Sakia is the true persona instead of Saki from the Cosmosphere before it is revealed in the plot. Aoto seems surprised by the information he already knew.
• Genius Loci: The Will of Ar Ciel is the will of the Planet. Saki and Finnel are two containers for its personae. The final boss is the will of Ar Ciel.
• Girly Bruiser:
  • Clustanian Reyvateils in general, considering they are front line soldiers here.
  • Mute acts like a House Wife in Phase 4 and goes onto put Raphael into a paralyzing bear hug
• A God Am I: "Behold my refined body! The divine appearance of the new age's ruler!" Ayatane after he switches from his Teru Tribe form to his Antibody form.
• Good Morning, Crono: The game begins with Aoto oversleeping.
• Gratuitous English:
  • EXEC_CUTYPUMP/. includes a few English words and phrases.
  • Tyria uses this a lot too and ciao anyone?
• Gratuitous French: Used by Aoto when trying to teach Akane about love in the English version.
• Greater-Scope Villain: All There in the Manual explains that the Start of Darkness of the first game's Big Bad was caused by a man named Ayatane. In this game it's explained that the Ayatane family were the true rulers of Clustania, and were apparently the source of Mir's genocidal dream of Reyvateila. In a bit of a twist, by the time of Qoga the Ayatane family has been reduced to one person and Clustania has a Sword of Damocles hanging over it's head.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Akane, but if you're Genre Savvy then you should have seen this coming a mile away.
  • Mute
• Homoerotic Subtext
  Akane: Lady Finnel, Your Highness... Ever since the night we met, I have been enthralled by your beauteous eyes.
  • If you install the DLC Tsundere personality for Harvestasha, it turns in to a Love Triangle.
• Hospital Hottie: Yurisica's first level purge looks like a nurse and she tease Aoto about it in the Cosmosphere.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming: Aoto is this repeatedly in Finnel's cosmosphere. No one can mistreat his servant but him!

• Improbable Weapon User: Everyone:
  • Aoto's weapon is a combination of sword, giant drill and a giant scissor with beams around it. Tyria Lampshades that Aoto's weapon is illogical.
  • Tatsumi's weapon is called a V-Board; a surfboard with a motor and a beam edge around it. One image synthesis deconstructs the idea: his new V-Board is reinforced with rare metal because the old one broke. These are not supposed to be weapons.
  • Hikari Gojo is the biggest offender. Officially it's a doctor bag, well not just a doctor bag. It's a doctor bag that can: Shoot laser beams, transform into a shield, bazooka, stun enemies with electric, a beam saber installed inside it, DRAGOON beam cannon pods, and a Wave-Motion Gun. A doctor bag has never been this badass before.
  • Cocona's weapon is a V-Board too, since she is Tatsumi but she's a bigger offender because her V-Board can seperate into two beam tonfas. The tonfas can generate a beam wave and beam twister, and by the way it can also float too considering it's originally was supposed to be a V-Board. When she uses her EX-Move she takes her original weapon: her beam sword generating hair clips. Yes, you read it right Beam Hair Clips! Only in Ar Tonelico...
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Amusingly deconstructed.
  Aoto: Hey, there are treasure chests in the Tower right?
  Tyria: Well, no one would bother to come if there were no treasures.
  Aoto: Actually, I think the fact that there are treasure chests inside the Tower is surprising in the first place. Who the hell put such a thing inside the tower anyway?
  Tyria: Why, of course it was me. They were created at the same time as this Tower's creation.
• Innocent Innuendo: A series tradition: when a young couple uses phrases like 'dive virginity' and 'consensual' and 'you didn't even sweet talk me' it's easy to get the wrong idea.
• Intertwined Fingers: Finnel and Akane do this in the ending, complete with both of them blushing.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Momoko often brutally bullies Finnel, which immediately pisses off Aoto, until you learn the truth. Momoko was merely complying to Finnel's wish to keep being tortured; in fact she genuinely cares about Finnel to the point that she willingly performs a Heroic Sacrifice to save Finnel's mind from collapsing. Even Aoto cries for her.
    Momoko: Baton touch Aoto. From now on you're Finnel's Mind Guardian.
  • Also in Finnel's Level 9 Cosmosphere, old habits are hard to break as evident when Momoko is reborn, picks on Finnel and (optionally) later tells you Finnel's "weak points". She has the best intentions in mind...
• Jiggle Physics: They made an extra video explaining the physics of the different character models.
• Kind Hearted Cat Lover:
  • Saki loves cats and is The Ingenue. She has a song devoted to cats. She also has a cat mask and and known to meow.
  • Filament's purge reveals cat ears and a tail. Her magic involves cats and her mind guardian is a cat.
• Lady Looks Like a Dude: Mute, when powered up. (Katene prefers her that way. Aoto calls her "Butch".)
• Lampshade Hanging: Aoto asked Finnel why Clustenia has Dive Shops because... you know, they have no humans in their town, right? So why bother having dive machines? Even better, why install one in every house? Finnel only says that it's one of Clustenia's seven mysteries, leaving Aoto to wonder about the other six.
  • Synthesis discussions as the character's regularly point out the improbability of wearing dresses as armor, discuss why you'd ever want to build a flame thrower or use a V-Board as a weapon and so on.
• Large Ham: Mute is often shouting and running and calling herself a super hero. Aoto, too, whenever the protection of Reyvateils is concerned or his passion for drills comes up.
• Looped Lyrics: EXEC_COSMOFLIPS/.
• Luminescent Blush: All the girls do this when Purging. This is hilarious in the case of Tyria, since when she's fully purged she's wearing the exact same outfit she always wears when traveling with the party, having dressed up for the battle.
• Lyrical Dissonance: Listen to EXEC_Z/. then look at the lyrics.
• Mad Bomber: Yurisica, who always seems to be enjoying herself way too much when she sets off explosives. Aoto points this out: she's a Reyvateil. She's has magic. She doesn't need bombs in the first place.
• The Man Behind the Man: In Clustania, the reason for Harvestasha's genocidal hatred of humans, as well as her love of turning them into vegetables via "purification" is her being reprogrammed by an Ayatane 700 years ago. Another Ayatane controls the movements of the Great Fang Militia by giving them choice information as Luphan... meaning the Ayatane family basically controlled every event outside of Archia for centuries.
  • The irony is that Clustania itself was under the thumb of Archia. The Archia Think Tank possessed the SH server that all the Reyvateils in Sol Cluster were synchronized to. Archia could use that server to shut all the Reyvateils down. The only reason they don't do that is because the Tower itself will disappear if all the Reyvateils die, as they are what provides the energy to the Tower itself, and the entire region by extension runs on.
• Mercy Kill: According to the "Feelings Contained" within the song XaaaCi, the Will of Ar Ciel intends to do this on a planet-wide scale, feeling guilty for what her beloved "children" have done to the world.
• Ms. Fanservice: Sarapatra wears a suggestive dress and often flirts with Aoto.
• Naked Apron: In the Tyria ending she does this.
• Nobody Poops: Averted. There's a string of scenes involving Finnel being caught on the toilet. Nothing explicit is shown but the dialogue makes it quite (hilariously) clear what's going on.
• Of Corsets Sexy: Sarapatra has one under her dress and is the most sexual of all the personae.
• One-Winged Angel: Ayatane turns into a giant dragon-eagle thing when he fights the heroes.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: Zoi, the Pregnant Dolphin Mermaid.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Saki's Nyamo cat mask. Only the Idiot Hero thinks it'll work and even then his friends think he's just playing along to make Saki feel better.
• Precision F-Strike: Akane. In her Japanese voice, her dialogue is flat, even during some of the late-game portions which has everyone else go everywhere. However, when during two points in the game when she is betrayed by her superiors, her voice raises an octave and her portrait has the appropriate response. Remember that this is coming from a Reyvateil who's supposed to have no emotions.
• Pregnant Badass: Zoi, Ar Ru's Song Magic, is a literal one, her evolution through each Purge it's just a ever increasing Gestation Period, and attacking with her babies.
• Pretty in Mink: Several of the outfits.
• Really 700 Years Old:
  • Tyria and the Harvestashas, the former being the one of the Reyvateil Origin (albeit the youngest one), while the Harvestashas was created when Tyria was transformed into a tower.
  • The Reyvateil Origins pales in comparison to the personalities that inhabits both Sakia and Finnel's body, as they're the Will of the Planet themselves, and were mentioned in the myths since time immemorial. Ar Ru was the youngest of the Wills, but even she was around six centuries old.
• Same Content, Different Rating: The US version got a M (Mature) rating, while it got a T (Teen) equivalent in everywhere else in the world.
• Self-Deprecation: In the English release (which was published by Nippon Ichi America) we get this bit of dialog when Aoto expresses his disgust over Gergo.
  Aoto: It's just some niche character designed to appeal to hardcore fans. Just like that stupid penguin thing
• Sexy Backless Outfit: Finnel's dress is rather revealing in that area as is Cocona's.
• Sexy Soaked Shirt: Getting wet is the reason Soma's dress is often transparent.
• Shout-Out: Harvestasya has a ton of OS-related references, it seems. The title of her "chmod b111000000/n" song is a slight tweak to a Unix command, and there are two "editions" of her named for different Windows OSes (XP and Vista).
  • Is it cool? Is it fashionable? Is it the real life or or is it just fantasy? -Aoto.
  • In fact, the song servers could be considered shout outs to PC technology in general.
  • XP is the nice Havestasya and Vista is the mean one. On purpose? No idea. Hilarious? You bet.
  • "I've never seen a superhero in shorts, a tank top and a straw hat" - Cocona while synthesizing, as the topic was about what makes a superhero (they were talking about costumes). Aoto replies saying he'd kind of like to see that. Sounds like a reference to Luffy of One Piece!
• Simple, yet Awesome: This is Cocona's preference; she doesn't like her weapons having extra dodads and her supermoves are all based on a simple premise like 'turning' or 'go fast in one direction'.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: This game sends something of a Humans Are the Real Monsters message (what with the "reyvateil supremacy", and such), but does try to balance it. It's still heavily tipped towards the "cynicism" side, since what it does to try to tip it towards the "Idealism" side is rather low-detail.
• Softspoken Sadist: A certain surprising someone.
• Spell My Name With An S: The English version gives us Sarapatra instead of Salapator.
• Split-Personality Takeover:
  • Although the alternate personalities are kind enough to give the body back after they finish up their business... Well, maybe not for Suzunomia, but she got better.
  • Inverted with Saki. While it is later revealed that Sakia Lumei was actually the main persona and Saki an alternate persona, Sakia is the one who assigned Saki as her primary personality.
• Stark Naked Sorcery: Reyvateils connected to the Wills of Ar Ciel can temporarily turn their clothes into more magical power.
• Stocking Filler: Richa, Sarapatra.
• Stripperiffic: Part of the game system.
• Super Move Portrait Attack: Make it Super Move Portrait Animation.
• Sweet Polly Oliver: Tatsumi, who turns out to be Cocona Bartel. Justified since she was trying to hide the fact she was a Reyvateil. Given that all Reyvateils are female, pretending to be a boy was the best way to achieve that goal.
• Sword of Damocles: Late in the game it's explained that the Archia Think Tank has the SH Server which contains the lives of all the Reyvateils in the Sol Cluster. All There in the Manual explains that SH Servers really contain the Reyvateil's Cosmospheres (which is basically their mental worlds), and if the servers were shut down all the pureblooded Reyvateils would die while their halfblooded Reyvateil descendents would lose their powers. In other words, Archia could kill off the entire Reyvateil population of Clustania at will. This is why Clustania is forced to accept Archia's independence.
• Take That!: When doing an Item Synthesizing a Rehearshal Frill with Tatsumi.
  Tatsumi: ...Somehow it looks like Goth Loli (Gothic Lolita) clothes.
  Aoto: What is that? Some kind of Gokiburi (Cockroach)?
  Tatsumi: Aoto, with that statement you have made an innumerable amount of enemies.
• Teen Genius: Sasha again, only this time she can create her own personal Hymnnos and a satellite. Even Tyria commented that given another 3 years she may surpass her creator.
• Third-Person Person: Saki switches back and forth, sometimes in the same sentence. Cocona continues her trend of third-person reference from AT2, although she uses it less frequently in this game. The trope itself is parodied inside Tyria's cosmosphere.
• This Is a Drill: Aoto's weapon has one in it. His love for them is lampshaded when you perform image synthesis and create a couple new weapons and Supermoves for Aoto.
• Time Skip: Compare Cocona Bartel◊ and Sasha◊ from the previous game, to Cocona◊ and Sasha◊ in this game. Also Krusche◊ since the first game.◊
• Timed Mission: Defeating a boss called M.Y.U. in a certain time frame determines whether you can go on to get one of the true endings or not. Also, if you don't defeat the final boss quickly enough, a giant sword appears and kills you.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: For Mute and Katene. At least when Mute's in her muscular form. He is a fan of this trope.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Sakia, the sword bearing and armor wielding guardian, has a very cutesy soulspace. When asked about it, she blushes and refuses to comment.
• Trademark Favorite Food:
  • Tyria has a liking toward Agepan (Fried Bread in the English version); sadly it doesn't exist anymore (or so they say, even thought you can buy one from the game's special merchant) so we never get to see her eating one.
  • All the Reyvateils have one that you can give as a present when "programming" in order help make them more agreeable to stripping further.
• Transformation Sequence: The process of Purging, by removing pieces of clothes.
• Trick Twist: Someone's twisted wish... made out of love. Who would've seen that coming?
• Tsundere:
  • Finnel is Type B as she has a tendency to drop the hurt on Aoto when offended, sometimes even calling him stupid beforehand but is nice to everyone else. Her character profile describes her as a 'typical tsundere'.
    • In her cosmosphere, Yurisica says both Finnel and Aoto are tsundere and that's why she deliberately included only one bed.
  • Parodied with the DLC Personality Patch for Harvestasha; installing it will turn her into a typical Type A, even breaking out the infamous "It's not like I ________ or anything." line. Cocona calls her a 'lunatic girl' and the 'booest boo I ever met'.
• Unusual Ears: Saki's hair accessories act like this, to the point where they "prick up" when she's surprised.
• Vapor Wear: Richa. Fitting, considering her desires (or so you can infer). Krusche even calls her "that sexy military chick", so the viewer can relate to seeing it as abnormal.
• Variable Mix: Your Reyvateil's song has different musical effects added in depending on which Hymma you have equipped.
• Virtual Paper Doll: While the clothes each persona is wearing can't be changed, gradually removing them is a central feature of battle.
• Winged Humanoid: Harvestasya, and Ar Ru. Except they're not really wings; they're something else gameplay-related.
• Word Purée Title: Referenced in the page quote for this trope. "Ar tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel" is 7 words long and has two actual words ("knell" and "of") in it, one of which is somewhat obscure. The rest of it is so obtuse that Nippon Ichi Software America released a press release explaining what the title means.
  • Ar tonelico [End in the game's Conlang]: [Funeral song] of [The planet the game takes place on]

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