Ar tonelico 2 Visual Guide

After almost two months, I’ve finished two full playthroughs of Ar tonelico 2, and have written everything down, from story notes to synthesis results to talk topics.  I have made sure I got 100% of everything in my playthroughs, which I know now will be in my guide.
Now comes the fun part - actually pulling [...]

Phase IV really is the phase of secret scenes.  My first non-guide playthrough months ago, I thought I was thoroughly exploring things…but only now do I see exactly how much I missed.  And the missable scenes in Ar tonelico 2 aren’t just throw-away scenes, or even just character development; these missable scenes are what put [...]

Phase III is now done as well.  Cloche’s play through is always so much faster, since I don’t have to notate much, and it’s a great double-check on what I found on my initial runthrough.
So now I’m onto Phase IV, which is really pretty close to the end of the game.  I’m already thinking about [...]

Well, my internet has been out since Friday — bad for me, good for the guide!  I was able to finish Cloche’s Phase II write up, and get a good chunk into Phase III.  Now, I say get a good chunk in, but I spent 6 hours writing and noting and I haven’t even made [...]

One thing I just ran into that I think is going to be great for the guide….the fact that the choices you make in the Cosmosphere sometimes have an effect on levels deeper on.  As an example, a choice you make in Luca’s level 3 changes something that happens in her level 5.  I’m curious [...]

Another mock up of a page design; this one took me most of the day to do, and was easily the most fun so far.  I have a soft spot for the IPDs — there is a wealth of personality and quirks inside each of the 100 IPDs, and I think most of it gets [...]

The best way I can think of to make sure I am getting the correct amount of data the most efficient way possible, is trying to put together appendices of the data.  This lets me lay out all the data I’ve found so far into something visual, and I can see what I’m missing or [...]

So the first thing I learned from doing a mock-up of the first page was there was a lot of data I’m not writing down properly in my notes; most notably, item and monster number annotations.  It’s far easier to note everything down as you go than to go back and re-note everything, which is [...]

Well, it isn’t really pretty, but this blog is supposed to be about all your mistakes too.  Finished a proof of concept last night — this was less about design (you can see that is my weak point) and more about making sure I can get in-game graphics pretty easily, and tooling around.
Check it out [...]