PS Vita PS3

Ar nosurge: Ode to an Unborn Star

Role-playing (RPG)

Time to beat: about 38.8 hours
Plays offline: Yes

Overview

Ar nosurge: Ode to an Unborn Star is a Japanese role-playing video game developed by Gust and published by Koei Tecmo. Directed by Akira Tsuchiya, the game takes the anime art style of Gust's flagship Atelier video game series and puts it into a science fiction space opera-type setting. While playing as an RPG, the game is very story heavy, with virtually all gameplay mechanics feeding into the overall plot, including many segments playing as an interactive visual novel. Designed with player immersion as a core concept, the player actually plays as themselves, using their video game console as a means to communicate with characters as themselves, while otherwise controlling characters as one typically does in a video game. The game alternates between following two sets of characters - Delta and Casty, and Earthes and Ion, as they work through issues related to the hostile race known as Sharl that are antagonizing the space station that humanity currently lives on, while working through many of their own personal issues of their past.

The game debuted with a worldwide release on the PlayStation 3 across in 2014. An extended version containing all of the game's downloadable content (DLC), Ar nosurge Plus, was released worldwide the following year on the PlayStation Vita. A remastered high definition version, Ar nosurge DX, was released in Japan in March 2021 for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows.