Glitches

With the release of Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica in the US, several errors on the part of NIS America have come to light - including ones that previously existed as well in Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia without most players' knowledge. As most people probably have absolutely no idea what's going on when they encounter the glitches caused by these errors, a need for this page has come into being.

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Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia

Soleil Stone

There is a glitch present in Misha's route at the Tail of Reminiscence, when the Soleil Stone can be obtained. A cutscene with Misha will show before you can approach the rock from which you take the Soleil Stone; it is then possible to bypass a second cutscene needed to finish the game if the player takes the Stone too quickly. If the second cutscene is bypassed, Krusche will disappear from the Viola Forest, preventing the advancement of the plot and in turn making it impossible to win the game. This glitch is also present in the Japanese version of the game, and can be bypassed by making sure to view both cutscenes before getting the Soleil Stone. This is done by approaching the rock very slowly and carefully after the first scene - DO NOT JUMP while approaching, as that too will bypass the trigger.

ELMA-DS

While fighting ELMA-DS at the S.P.U. in Phase 2, there is a glitch that occurs after an unknown amount of time (several turns, and the player must be fairly underleveled in order for the battle to drag out long enough, so most players do not see this glitch) that will cause the game to freeze. The reason for this glitch is currently unknown, but it is speculated it may happen when ELMA-DS calls in reinforcements after that unknown amount of time has passed. It can be bypassed by defeating ELMA-DS before enough time has passed for the glitch to occur.

Searching for party members

In the beginning of Phase 3, when Lyner searches for his party members, he will simply state that there is no need to go to the Tenba facilities if it is entered. He'll jump back up and get stuck on a wooden pillar at the entrance.

Additional Bugs

• Two secret cards can't be obtained because they aren't included in any of the Ar tonelicard packs and can't be found anywhere either. One of the missing cards was added in the Japan-only PlayStation Best Of version, but the other one remains impossible to obtain in any way.
• The Refresh Core item has no absolutely no effect.
• Items with high Leaf costs get the cost number running into other parts of the menu text.
• The American localization somehow messed up the routines that display the Hymmnos language texts, making the glyphs so small they end up becoming impossible to read.

Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica

Hibernation

After leaving Lakra's facility for the first time and confronting her after breaking through Cocona's Boundary Gate, there is a chance the game will freeze when Luca stops Frelia from singing "Hibernation" and the scene shifts back to Lakra in the Binary Field. The reason for this glitch is unknown, but it's likely a memory spike caused by the scene switch that can happen on other transitions as well. It can be bypassed by resetting the game and trying again.

Raki

During Phase 5, very near the end of the game, there is a mandatory boss battle with the tower guard robot Raki (and later optional battles with her as well) which can be impossible to beat. On the third Defense Phase of the battle (though sometimes it can happen on the second, or even (rarely) delay until the fourth if Raki's HP is depleted enough), Raki will use an attack called "Fractal Change" which freezes the game. The reason for this glitch is that the index pointing to the attack was changed from 0xDB to 0x165, causing it to point to a zone containing no data instead of where the data block for the attack is located. It can be bypassed through several methods, listed below in order of success.

• Defeat Raki before the third Defense Phase. Success rate: very low.

While this may easily be done for the mandatory boss fight, the chances of this succeeding get lower with every optional battle, as her stats continue to rise. For the mandatory boss fight, the player is recommended to be at least in the 50s in level AND have recruited at least 15% of the I.P.D. Reyvateils into Cloche's fan club. For optional fights, the player should be highly overleveled in addition to having several I.P.D. Reyvateils in Cloche's fan club. Lowering the difficulty to easy is also strongly recommended. There is also a chance Raki will use the attack in the second Defense Phase.

• Deal over 40,000 damage to Raki before the third Defense Phase Success rate: low.

To deal that much damage on the mandatory fight, the player is recommended to be at least in the 50s in level and/or have recruited at least 15% of the I.P.D. Reyvateils into Cloche's fan club. However, there is a chance Raki will use the attack despite the HP drop, or randomly use it in the second Defense Phase instead.

• Cheat. Success rate: medium to high, depending on how it's done.
  • To fix the glitch itself, a Codebreaker can be found here (membership required), and an Action Replay code can be found here.
  • There are various codes that will allow the player to level more quickly, which would certainly help. There is also a Codebreaker code that will give the player an unlimited Attack Phase (phase switching can be triggered by holding Select to drain the turn bar, and this does not affect the time of the Defense Phase), but does not allow the extraction of song magic or raising of skill attacks to level 3 that phase switching triggers. It is, however, useful if the player does not mind a drawn-out battle with the use of only level 1 and 2 skills and level 1 song magic.
  • Download and apply the fan made patch here, then apply it to an ISO of Melody of Metafalica. The success rate is very high, but it is only useful for players with a modded PS2.
• Using blue magic to extend the turn phase Success rate: high. A tutorial video can be found here[1] (thanks to ArcadiaLegend). With this method (swapping blue magic between reyvateils just after pushing the attack command), the attack time of the party is extended, wich means you can deal the 40,000 needed damage in less than 3 turns only with the vanguard, given you are at least level 45-50 and deal 2000 to 3000 damage at each assault. This method can also help on the optional version of the boss.
• Get the PAL (European) version.

The bug has been fixed in this version, but only those who have the ability to play imported games or those who have a PAL console can use this method. However, since the PAL version doesn't have the option for 60 Hz, some TVs may not display the game properly without a conversion method.

NIS America has issued a statement on the Raki glitch, but it has been found to be highly inaccurate and does not state any plans whatsoever to fix it. They have stated that lowering Raki's HP by at least 40,000 points and defeating her before the third Defense Phase are foolproof ways to prevent the glitch from happening (see why this is inaccurate in the list of methods above), that this glitch does not occur on backwards-compatible PS3s (an outright lie, as this has been tested by several players with PS3s and confirmed to happen), and that the freeze is caused by "heavy memory usage" (when there are in fact other areas of the game with even heavier memory usage that do not cause it to freeze, and simply looking at the code can disprove this.) Sadly, it seems NISA cannot be depended on to provide any sort of foolproof fix for their own mistake or even give us accurate information on it, and it is up to the player to find their own way of bypassing this glitch.

Later, at Anime Expo, the bug was noted as mere oversight, despite numerous tests - NISA's own testers missed it in addition to Sony's test run because they were simply much stronger than Raki.

Additional bugs

• Raki's stats reset to their original values after using Fractal Change regardless of how many times she has powered up after the sparring battles in the versions where the attack works properly. This was pointed out and mocked by Infel in an issue of the Toukousphere, who said it was to be expected due to the androids of her type being airheaded by nature.
• Raki doesn't shift her stat and AI pattern profiles regardless of how many times she uses Fractal Change in the European version due to the possible values picked at random for her profiles being changed from 0x3 to 0x0. This glitch is also present in the American version but it cannot be observed due to the skill crashing the game.
• Whenever an IPD joins Cloche's fanclub, the IPD calling out for Cloche has her text in Japanese due to the fact that line was never translated in the official localized versions.
• Two instances of Hymmnos text being corrupted due to a two-bit character being inserted in a dialogue using it, as the routine in charge of displaying the Hymmnos letters only works with one-bit characters.
• Due to poor programming, there is a point in which the Hymmnos font doesn't render the numerals in a spell, leaving them as invisible. Similarly, the font can't mix lowercase and uppercase: it instead uses the casing of the first letter in the dialog.
• Corrupted text. Occasionally the game will render a pixel mess instead of legible text, one instance of it being when only one Reyvateil is in the party while triggering a battle with an IPD.
• At one point in Frelia's Cosmosphere, the voice and the name of the person who is supposed to be talking do not match.
• Croix's portrait abruptly changes at some points from his casual clothes to his knight armor.
• At one point in Frelia's Cosmosphere, the choices for proceeding and getting booted out from the Cosmosphere are reversed.
• Several graphics (the writing on the metal plates that appear upon making contact with an IPD, the Battle Log background, the colored writing for Req. Burst and emotional trends in the Song Magic submenu, and a few others) don't display correctly due to having a damaged palette or alpha channel.
• The Gaea map is unveiled from the start, despite it being intended to be completely covered in darkness at the start and begin unveiling every time the player triggers an event in the Infelsphere. Similarly, the notification that popped up anytime a new area was revealed in Gaea doesn't appear for unknown reasons.
• Even if Cloche is chosen in Phase 1, Jacqli says, "You will not be able to save Luca because I will stop you." Additionally, Cloche will later say that Luca sacrificed herself and became part of Gaea.
• When the Tower to the Heavens is finally revealed, the directions given by the "Current Objective" menu option to get to it are incorrect. Instead of saying to go to Bell Strike Hall, Shun says to go to Promise Hill, which is already inaccessible by that point in the game.
• Occasionally, the words run out of the text box.
• The opening video in the localized versions has poor syncing because a small part that displayed the logo with Japanese text was cut off.
• The Dolby Surround version of the game attract movie is damaged in the NA version.
• The Hymn Crystal sprites that appears on the flashbacks to Cloche's download of Metafalica during Phase 2 and 3 correspond to the Implanta and Despedia crystals. The proper Metafalica sprite is only used in the scene proper but in none of the flashbacks.
• The boss key button only shows the loading screen image in the NA version, while in the JP one showed four different images at random. The images are still there in the NA version, so most likely all pointers to them were removed.
• Using the item that eliminates enemy encounters in an area and then getting into an event-triggered battle or activating a switch causes the encounter bar to reset to how it was before using the item. However, this is just a cosmetic, as the encounter bar still is reduced to zero and no battles can be fought until leaving the area.
• Various other glitches can be found here.

Ar tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel

• Holding the triangle and L2 buttons within any Cosmosphere will allow access to the debug menu. NIS America has removed this feature from the NA release.
• In Tyria's first Binary Field level, if the Elemia Island DLC is downloaded it causes the first scene at the shrine to act as if Aoto has been there before, thus preventing the acquisition of the Hyuma Nam.
• Towards the end of Tyria's third Binary Field level the vocal audio would come a line or two ahead of the text when the player is taking the path of the good ending. This will continue until the player completes the level.

Ciel nosurge: Ushinawareta Hoshi e Sasagu Uta

Given the large number of glitches this game suffered, a separate page detailing them has been made here.

Ar nosurge: Ode to an Unborn Star

• If the player doesn't talk to Undou after Delta and Earthes meet up at the Genomirai Church during Phase 2, there is a high chance that the game won't trigger the events needed to advance the plot when the player reaches the Center of Ra Ciela, requiring to start the game anew if the player doesn't have a backup save file at the point mentioned before. This issue was fixed in the 1.01 patch update. (JP version only).
• Several audio volume issues were apparent in the game's initial release. They weren't completely fixed until the release of the 1.03 patch update. (JP version only).
• In the Western-released versions of the game, the NPC texts were completely mixed up, making impossible to follow the conversations. This was fixed in the 1.01 patch update.
• The Lv. 1 TxBIOS slots don't work at all due to a programming oversight that causes the TxBIOS to activate at a Harmonics level higher than the one they are equipped at. This bug hasn't been fixed at the date of writing this article, and it is also present in the PlayStation Vita version Ar nosurge Plus: Ode to an Unborn Star.
• There is a high chance that using Delta's Delay Burst skill will cause the game to severely suffer from lag, even to the point of causing the PS3 to crash and shut down. There is no way to know for sure when this bug will trigger, but it seems to be particularly highly likely to happen when fighting against enemies that have Jamming abilities. This bug hasn't been fixed at the date of writing this article, and it is also present in the PlayStation Vita version Ar nosurge Plus: Ode to an Unborn Star.
• The stats of the first and second fights with the 8th Dimensional were swapped, resulting in a large difficulty spike at the start of Delta's Phase 2. This bug hasn't been fixed at the date of writing this article, and it is also present in the PlayStation Vita version Ar nosurge Plus: Ode to an Unborn Star.
• Several important glossary entries were dummied out in the Western-localized versions due to the linkage they had with the game's dialogues being broken, rendering them impossible to see unless the player uses a resigned save file from the Japanese file that has them unlocked. This bug hasn't been fixed at the date of writing this article, and it is also present in the PlayStation Vita version Ar nosurge Plus: Ode to an Unborn Star.
• Delta and Cass are shown with their initial outfits instead of the ones they get in Phase 3 in the FMV after Class::DISTLLISTA; is sung if the player has the voices set to English when they get to that point. This happens because the localization used a prototype version of that FMV instead of the final version, which can be seen if the player sets the voices to Japanese as well as in the original Japanese release. This bug hasn't been fixed at the date of writing this article, but it did get fixed in the PlayStation Vita version Ar nosurge Plus: Ode to an Unborn Star.
• In Ar nosurge Plus: Ode to an Unborn Star, the Dianthus Tree map shows a Heart of the Planet floating high above it from the first time Delta and Cass arrive at the area, despite the fact that the Heart should only appear briefly during a couple event scenes. This bug has not been fixed at the date of writing this article.