[quote name='romeogbs19']Well, sure, I didn't buy AT b/c of the dive sessions (that would be silly -- though let's face it, NIS advertised the game on that premise; I recall the tagline being something like, "you never forget your first.")
There are other reasons to buy AT, but the other reasons are sort of "meh." The first game was super easy so there was little reason to experiment much. The storyline was okay (much, much better than AT2) but nothing to write home about. The battle engine was typical turn-based, random fighting -- and I must say I was quite growing tired of these (esp. after Persona 3 and 4, which I perhaps unfortunately played before picking up AT -- I was running out of JRPGs to play).
Again, I'll keep an eye on the reviews for AT3, but it's hard to get excited about this franchise. AT2 IMHO is probably one of the worst follow-ups I've seen in any franchise.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I vaguely remember the advertising. I think that was the unique hook they were trying to garner sales with, which might make sense from a marketing standpoint. Granted, their audience is pretty niche to begin with, and I've seen reactions from people that started asking about it because of that (if the game had substance behind the heavy innuendo) and people that were turned away from it. It gets people talking about the game, which can get some attention on it and perhaps get some more sales. I'm not a marketing person so I'm just guessing here.
I really enjoyed the battle systems in 1 and 2, because while it is mostly a simple turn based affair for the most part, the protecting the Reyvateil aspect while building a powerful attack was fun, if only to see how much damage you could deal. I understand the lack of overall challenge being a turn-off, but sometimes I just want a relaxing RPG to sit back and enjoy (that's just me personally). And while it's not everyone's cup of tea, I really enjoy the music it has (along with the Hymnos albums they put out after each game's release).
To be honest, while I did enjoy the second game, the localization really damaged my final feelings on it. It made no sense as to how they made tons of errors and even did not supply VA for critical moments in the game, yet had it in insignificant parts(as far as related to the main plot). They as well as everyone who bought it knows that, and I've heard a lot of effort is going into the localization of Qoga as to not make it a repeat of the complete screwup that was the localization of 2. Obviously, we'll have to see if that holds true in a couple months.
Though maybe they're trying to not associate it with the second game by calling it Qoga instead of Ar tonelico 3.