Luminous Arcimageepoch / Atlus
Review by Anthony
Sometimes when you play a game, you get the feeling that the developers were completely comfortable with making it. They seem to have taken no risks, and that’s okay, they seem to have not bothered to expand on the genre, and that’s okay, and they really make no serious effort towards making a game stand out, and that’s okay too. It’s as if they say “Hey, here’s a game, it’s of this genre, go nuts.” When it comes to strategy RPGs, Luminous Arc seems to fit that bill. There’s nothing bad enough about it to make it bad, nor is it good enough to be good. It’s just kind of ‘there’.
Luminous Arc has you following the story of some young servants to a holy church order that’s bent on exterminating witches from the world, who are seen as evil and bringing upon the world’s disasters. If you’ve played just about any RPG in history, you can probably already imagine where the story’s going. Battles take place in a turn-based 3/4-view strategy field map, and with that you’ve probably already got a decent idea of what the game is like.
What’s good:
- The game is colorful and very pleasant to look at. Character sprites in battle tend to look pretty nice, though the portraits in story section tend to have witches whose outfits and bust sizes stay just a step below Soul Calibur 4. Still, everything looks nice, even if there’s very little of importance going on.
- Everything about the game seems to flow in a way that should be familiar to most RPG players. It gives you clear choices of when to shop or progress the story, you can choose to fight extra battles for experience/money, equipping characters is easy and there’s really no excessive details to be mired in. For those who like things straight to the point, it’s perfect.
- They did at least add a few bits of extra content throughout... Between story scenes, you’re given a glimpse at a strange, non-sequitur plotline called “The Life of Kopin” that follows a generic enemy character through some odd life-happenings. It’s pointless in a way, but it’s a cute aside that doesn’t really take up any time. You can also try to befriend teammates by answering questions after battles for prizes. It’s a bit arbitrary, but again, it’s a decent attempt. Finally, there are a few extra quests available related to some witches, so if you want little bits of back story, you can get it. So I mean, they kind of tried... kind of?
- There’s a pretty solid amount of voice acting, ranging from decent to completely over-the-top. The latter point could’ve detracted from the game, but the whole thing felt so campy that I actually appreciated its inclusion.
- They did at least add a few bits of extra content throughout... Between story scenes, you’re given a glimpse at a strange, non-sequitur plotline called “The Life of Kopin” that follows a generic enemy character through some odd life-happenings. It’s pointless in a way, but it’s a cute aside that doesn’t really take up any time. You can also try to befriend teammates by answering questions after battles for prizes. It’s a bit arbitrary, but again, it’s a decent attempt. Finally, there are a few extra quests available related to some witches, so if you want little bits of back story, you can get it. So I mean, they kind of tried... kind of?
- There’s a pretty solid amount of voice acting, ranging from decent to completely over-the-top. The latter point could’ve detracted from the game, but the whole thing felt so campy that I actually appreciated its inclusion.
What’s neutral:
- This is a strategy RPG that’s basically devoid of... well, strategy. As a basic rundown of what you need to know: characters can attack, use skills/magic, or unleash some powerful attacks once charged up or paired with certain characters. Oh sorry, did I say basic rundown? I meant complete rundown. That’s it, really. Sure, you can be strategic in proper use of stat-altering spells, which characters to bring, and timing your attacks versus healing... but what game isn’t that the case for? There’s no customization to be found and not too much difficulty to be found either. If you can’t smash through an enemy yet, it’s probably not strategic mistakes, you just need to go back to get a few levels. There are no optional characters or monster collection, and you’re linearly given your party as the story progresses. It’s all incredibly basic. That said, I can’t call this a bad point either, as I’m sure some people hate being mired down in endless menus of customization. It just plays more like a turn-based RPG that’s set in a strategy-RPG field.
- The music would’ve been a good point as it has a good composer behind it, but basically every time you choose to advance the story, you get the same tense sounding music that immediately accompanies whatever is going to go wrong in the scene. As time went on, I was rolling my eyes that they couldn’t do something different with it each time.
- They included an option for collecting items that can be used to forge stronger weapons/equipment, but it was kind of vague overall. You only get vague hints from characters on what recipes work, you can’t really tell which areas drop which items without practice, and you have to spend money to appraise the items you get, too. Most folk will just hightail to a guide to save themselves the trouble of attempting to figure it out solo.
- This is a strategy RPG that’s basically devoid of... well, strategy. As a basic rundown of what you need to know: characters can attack, use skills/magic, or unleash some powerful attacks once charged up or paired with certain characters. Oh sorry, did I say basic rundown? I meant complete rundown. That’s it, really. Sure, you can be strategic in proper use of stat-altering spells, which characters to bring, and timing your attacks versus healing... but what game isn’t that the case for? There’s no customization to be found and not too much difficulty to be found either. If you can’t smash through an enemy yet, it’s probably not strategic mistakes, you just need to go back to get a few levels. There are no optional characters or monster collection, and you’re linearly given your party as the story progresses. It’s all incredibly basic. That said, I can’t call this a bad point either, as I’m sure some people hate being mired down in endless menus of customization. It just plays more like a turn-based RPG that’s set in a strategy-RPG field.
- The music would’ve been a good point as it has a good composer behind it, but basically every time you choose to advance the story, you get the same tense sounding music that immediately accompanies whatever is going to go wrong in the scene. As time went on, I was rolling my eyes that they couldn’t do something different with it each time.
- They included an option for collecting items that can be used to forge stronger weapons/equipment, but it was kind of vague overall. You only get vague hints from characters on what recipes work, you can’t really tell which areas drop which items without practice, and you have to spend money to appraise the items you get, too. Most folk will just hightail to a guide to save themselves the trouble of attempting to figure it out solo.
What’s bad:
- Mages have an unfair levelling advantage over melee fighters. Any character who can cast a buff or healing magic will earn 30 of 100 exp to level in doing so. So, every four turns can be a guaranteed level. A self-buff only earns 5 exp, so melees learning that get the shaft, and otherwise they’ll only get significant experience from dealing the killing blow on enemies. Normal attacks give little in comparison to 30 a turn, and once enemies are lower than you, the amount given is still fairly low when again, mages can level every four turns. Naturally, this makes it pretty easy to over-level the folks with buffs or healing magic too.
- One strong melee character gets taken from you during the game and is brought back to you several chapters later. Except while I’d gained 10 levels in the process, they gave him back to me at the level he left, and referencing the other point, he can’t as easily catch up in levels because it requires him to always get kills on enemies. That’s a pretty silly oversight.
- Mages have an unfair levelling advantage over melee fighters. Any character who can cast a buff or healing magic will earn 30 of 100 exp to level in doing so. So, every four turns can be a guaranteed level. A self-buff only earns 5 exp, so melees learning that get the shaft, and otherwise they’ll only get significant experience from dealing the killing blow on enemies. Normal attacks give little in comparison to 30 a turn, and once enemies are lower than you, the amount given is still fairly low when again, mages can level every four turns. Naturally, this makes it pretty easy to over-level the folks with buffs or healing magic too.
- One strong melee character gets taken from you during the game and is brought back to you several chapters later. Except while I’d gained 10 levels in the process, they gave him back to me at the level he left, and referencing the other point, he can’t as easily catch up in levels because it requires him to always get kills on enemies. That’s a pretty silly oversight.
- While your special attacks gradually charge, bosses typically start with them charged. Often the abilities are so strong that it will kill multiple characters regardless of armor and HP. Naturally, it’s set up that you can’t possibly kill the boss before they use it (the attacks often have huge ranges too), so in later stages, you’ll basically just be guaranteed to lose anywhere from 2-4 characters on the spot when they unleash the attack. Can’t stop it, and can’t do that back.
- Rather than giving quick icons to show if a character has buffs/status effects, it simply puts an ugly white or dark wash of color over the character. So you’ll naturally have to check the menu to see what they’re being affected by. And on the same note, a graphical glitch happens fairly often that will make those colors switch around.
- There’s a one-on-one battle at one point against an enemy who’s stronger than you and starts with a special ability charged. The way to win? Attack, use an item to heal, and attack again until he’s dead. Really? It’s so anticlimactic and again, devoid of any strategy.
- They were really proud of their touch-screen mechanics, but they shouldn’t have been. Two things were significantly wrong with this. In menus, tapping a “blank” area could mean it would actually choose a specific option for you. I actually tried to tap “shop” once but missed the box, so it defaulted to me choosing to continue the story?! Wow. The other problem is the field cannot be rotated in battle, so targeting enemies in a cluster becomes too cumbersome, and most will immediately abandon it for button control. Oh well.
- The story and characters were painfully generic. It was very obvious all along where the story would go, and very little happens to shake that up. And the characters... oy. Within the witches alone we have: the man-eating tough chick, the leader who doesn’t believe in herself, the fight-ready tomboy, the kid who acts mean but cries when hurt, the lazy one, the zzz... oh, sorry. It’s dull, and my hope is that the whole thing was some kind of ironic, campy RPG that doesn’t take itself seriously. But most of it came off like it was serious, so I doubt that’s the case.
- Rather than giving quick icons to show if a character has buffs/status effects, it simply puts an ugly white or dark wash of color over the character. So you’ll naturally have to check the menu to see what they’re being affected by. And on the same note, a graphical glitch happens fairly often that will make those colors switch around.
- There’s a one-on-one battle at one point against an enemy who’s stronger than you and starts with a special ability charged. The way to win? Attack, use an item to heal, and attack again until he’s dead. Really? It’s so anticlimactic and again, devoid of any strategy.
- They were really proud of their touch-screen mechanics, but they shouldn’t have been. Two things were significantly wrong with this. In menus, tapping a “blank” area could mean it would actually choose a specific option for you. I actually tried to tap “shop” once but missed the box, so it defaulted to me choosing to continue the story?! Wow. The other problem is the field cannot be rotated in battle, so targeting enemies in a cluster becomes too cumbersome, and most will immediately abandon it for button control. Oh well.
- The story and characters were painfully generic. It was very obvious all along where the story would go, and very little happens to shake that up. And the characters... oy. Within the witches alone we have: the man-eating tough chick, the leader who doesn’t believe in herself, the fight-ready tomboy, the kid who acts mean but cries when hurt, the lazy one, the zzz... oh, sorry. It’s dull, and my hope is that the whole thing was some kind of ironic, campy RPG that doesn’t take itself seriously. But most of it came off like it was serious, so I doubt that’s the case.
So there you go. To me, this was a generic time-waster of an RPG that was neither boring nor fun, neither good nor bad, and neither memorable nor completely forgettable. It’s just utterly average, and my best recommendation for this is that it’s the perfect RPG if you just feel like playing “an RPG”. It’s very simple to pick up and play, progression is pretty simple, and you just might have some fun pulling off some strong abilities.
But that said, this is a simple, borderline too-easy strategy RPG with little strategy involved. The story is throwaway, but you might get some amusing moments out of it. Otherwise, I’d pass, as it left me very uninterested with checking out further games in the franchise. It’s almost puzzling as to why a game like this was ported over to the U.S., but then I remember that Atlus published it and - oh right, witches have to have breasts.
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