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advertisement  "Take control of the Garden Children, a group of fighters and mages trained since childhood and dedicated to eradicating the Witch threat. Discover the mysteries behind their return, their motives, and their history!" Story One thousand years ago, dragons and Witches warred against God for the fate of the world. God's power was triumphant, but it was a difficult struggle, and the deity sent Himself into a deep sleep to recover from the terrible wounds he suffered in the battle. Ten years ago, the Church has proclaimed that a great event will soon occur: God will be reborn, and the world will be led into a new golden age under His guidance. However, this news is coupled with a grave warning: the Witches will soon reappear to begin the millennia-old conflict once again. Take control of the Garden Children, a group of fighters and mages trained since childhood and dedicated to eradicating the Witch threat, and discover the mysteries behind their return, their motives, and their history.
* An isometric strategy RPG on Nintendo DS
At first most will pass this game off as a "Final Fantasy Tactics" ripoff. First of all, MOST games like this are pretty much ripoffs. Now with that out of the way on to this game. The story is pretty silly but fun. The full voices in the game are amazing realizing its only a DS game! There is some text also but most of it is voiced and done well! The voices really fit each character and help breathe added life into them. The graphics are also pretty good for a DS game and while they maintain a strictly anime look they are both crisp and vibrant. The story won't win any awards but it doesn't need to. You play this game for the action not the story really however the story moves along well enough and keeps you fairly interested enough. Hunting witches has been done before but this game makes it work well enough to be interesting and still fun. The gameplay I would say is fairly easy to get the hang of and rewards the player quickly by (grinding) - which is battling over and over outside of the story to level up. Leveling up is quite cool too as you never know which level will give you a new spell to use. It reads from 0-100 and when you hit 100 you level up. Grinding in this game isn't as boring as some Rpgs/rts in the past. There is still quite a bit of strategy involved later in the game also when enemies become harder (unless you grind to very high levels). If you grind your levels up you can pretty much become quite godlike and the game will be quite simple. However, if you play it straight it will be a bit more challenging. It maintains typical shops in order to buy weapons, armor and health etc. You get quite a bit of money after battles so money isn't a problem here. Grind for awhile and you'll have a lot! The other cool aspect of the game is how you can use "Vitae" which you can put into weapons to change their attributes etc. The game focuses on being linear but with this type of game you usually expect this and focus on strategy during battles. You have the typical (spell effects) that do small to large damage depending on your level and how you utilize the spells against each other. You also get a cool feature called the (Flash Drive) which when full can unleash a more powerful attack (shown with cut scene). You can fill it up three notches by defeating enemies and can use it up to three times. One is all I've needed so far to defeat most early to mid game enemies. Also by utilizing certain extra items in your slots you can gain more magic points, stronger attack etc... The music is also quite awesome for a DS game also. Some games just have very basic boring music but here it is quite fitting and enjoyable. However if you don't like music you can turn it down, or off. You can also pretty much save anywhere before and after a battle and can even stall a battle and save it and come back later and finish it. Very cool feature indeed! Some gripe about the stylus controls but honestly I didn't have much problems with it but prefer using button controls. The only two things I didn't like were how when you equip different equipment, weapons etc it doesn't change your character's appearance in game which is kind of minor but the other issue that I didn't like is how each character can only carry one weapon and only buy upgrades for that kind only. Anotherwords you can't have a swordwielder carry a bow also. It is pretty straitforward here with this part of the game and you rarely come across more than one upgrade in each town making the weapon selection pretty dull. The only saving point for this is being able to customize your weapons with "Vitae" later on. No, its not THE perfect game but almost! Atlus put out a very solid game that is worth every penny and hopefully with the next game (be it a sequel or another like this) it will have more variety with weapons/customization etc. For now it is a very fun game to play and one that is easy to get lost in for hours at a time.
There's not much to Luminous Arc's storyline. 1000 years ago a war happened involving witches and the church. The witches lost the war. Now, there are rumors that the witches have returned, and soon the church of Luminous proves these rumors to be true. A band of people known as the Garden Knights are dispatched to take care of things. However, the problem lies in the fact that the evilest of the witches has already grown very powerful. It's not much of a story really. There's some political intrigue here, but for the most part the storyline could've been better overall. It's presented through cutscenes in which you view your characters facing one another and talking (similar to Disgaea). The animations are beautiful, and there's even some voice acting. The keyword there being "some". Its rather sad that there isn't always voice acting, but it's more about how the game utilizes it. In the most dramatic of dramatic moments... the game doesn't have voice overs, but in a lot of insignificant moments it does. However, you are getting voice acting at least. Sometimes you just wish there was more of it. The game is played out very simple like. You move your characters around, have them attack other units and whatnot. If you've played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, it's pretty much the same thing here. Attacking an enemy directly increases your chances of missing while attacking them from behind or from the side increase your chances of a successful attack. Part of what does make Luminous Arc a little interesting is the use of "Flash Drives," which are more or less your special attacks. Whenever you attack enemies you'll fill up a flash gauge. When its full you'll gain a flash point. Get three flash points and you'll be able to team up with other characters to devastate your enemies. Much like the rest of the game, it's simple stuff, pretty basic. You can control the game either by using the stylus, or by using the D-Pad. The idea of using the stylus and touch screen only sounds like a fantastic idea (after all, it's perfect for a tactical RPG), but in Luminous Arc it's more trouble then it's worth. For starters, this is an isometric 2D map and on top of that, it uses the grid system. User error is just far too great when using the stylus and moving units around. Sometimes the angle of the map will cause you to select the wrong square. Thank goodness there's always a confirmation menu, but moving around your units is not simple when using the stylus on a 2D isometric map, especially because you can't rotate the camera. There's a lot less stress in using the D-Pad. The stylus is simple, but the D-pad is, in the end, faster and simpler. Another interesting aspect of the gameplay is that you're not drowned out in the story. The story is fairly linear, but there's not a huge abundance of dialogue between missions. In fact, a lot of the dialogue between missions is entirely optional. After battles you have the option of talking to your allies and giving them responses. What you want to achieve with this system is a stronger friendship with your allies. It's a system that helps character development a little. Sometimes your responses can yield items. You don't have to do this, but sometimes you might want to. The good news is that the game never ever forces you into these conversations. If you're someone who does enjoy character development, though, you might want to engage in these conversations, though. On the other hand, a lot of the game feels optional. Even the main storyline at times feels optional. You always know where to go next, but the game never hurries you along to your next destination. Rather than advancing the storyline, you can battle and train your characters some more. There's a fair level of balance here, and your characters gain experience after just about any action they do. Again, though, the main storyline is pretty straight forward and linear. There's really not that much off the main path you can really do. There's online multi-player in Luminous Arc. It isn't available from the get go, however. On the visual side, I already talked a little about the animations, but the in game itself isn't bad looking. For the most part the landscapes and settings that you battle in are really good looking on an artistic level. Not a whole lot of 3D effects are brought out, but a lot of the anime inspired art is really good. The game is also really colorful. As far as how the game just looks, though, it doesn't look that different from a GBA game. So while a lot of the anime inspired art looks good and the landscapes look good for what they are, the DS is certainly capable of more than this. Musically, Luminous Arc sounds absolutely brilliant. It's got a really good soundtrack with a lot of memorable tunes. The sound effects are also good and along those lines, the voice acting (when there is voice acting) is pretty good too. As noted earlier, though, there's not a whole lot of voice acting, and you wish it were involved in some of the more critical moments of the game, but on the bright side, you are getting voice acting, and some voice acting is better than none if it's your cup of tea. For the most part, Luminous Arc is a fun game. It may not do things that differently from your standard Tactical RPG, but it's still a fun game overall and it's pretty engaging. The story isn't the best, but it certainly isn't the worst either. If you're looking for some fun, Luminous Arc delivers. The Good +Gorgeous anime inspired art The Bad -A lot of user error with the touch screen controls |
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