Binding: Video Game Brand: Atlus EAN: 0730865400096 ESRB Age Rating: Everyone 10+ Label: Atlus Video Games Manufacturer: Atlus Video Games Model: LA-40009-6 Platform: Nintendo DS Publisher: Atlus Video Games Release Date: August 14, 2007 Sales Rank: 1772 Studio: Atlus Video Games
Features:
An isometric strategy RPG on Nintendo DS
Create new weapons and equipment with the Vitae Imbusing system
Strengthen your friendship with comrades and improve your attacks on the battlefield
Compare your friends' strategic prowess against your own with Wi-Fi multiplayer
Product Description: 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.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - I thought Atlus was better than this...
I was really disappointed with this game. I am a big fan of tactical rpgs; I bought my DS when I heard they were making a Fire Emblem for the system, and wanted to buy a srpg to hold me over until it came out. There were some good reviews for this game, and I know Atlus has put out some really good ones so I thought it would be the way to go.
First things first; I do not like jpop. So after hearing the opening music, I went straight into the settings and turned the game music off (a nice option). There is a good amount of voice acting, which I guess it cool to have, but the dialogue was sort of cheesy and some of the voices were really annoying (Nickolai, I'm looking at you) so that got turned off too.
Now the game. The graphics are sort of lacking, even by gba standards. The sprites are going for a FFT look, but they just don't hold up (even to gba fft). When units are on neighboring squares, for example, they tend to look like a big blob and you can't really distinguish between them. The animations are really basic "swing a sword". Spell graphics are nothing special. What really annoyed me are the "Flash drive" animations; these are your characters special attacks. Not only are they really simple, they didn't even make them orientable. So you see this animation that is totally unrelated to which direction your character is facing or attacking. kind of lame.
I guess for a game like this, the graphics are kind of secondary so I'll go on to the gameplay. For a strategy rpg, there is not much strategy involved. The maps are tiny (about 20x20 it mostly seemed). The enemy AI is dumb as dirt. I've actually had enemy bosses kill themselves by casting a spell with an area radius on one of my characters that was standing right next to them. There were a couple of hard missions, mostly the optional ones you can unlock (which you get basically nothing for completing), which were only difficult because you are outnumbered and outleveled. So you go and level up a bit, and come back. The fact that you regain all hp/mp when you level up also takes a lot of challenge out of the game; your healers basically never run out of mp, because the gain 30 xp for healing and then regain all their mp when they gain a level at 100xp.
I will also mention that leveling is kind of a pain for anyone but spellcasters. There are squares you can step on and it will sometimes let you choose to fight, sometimes it will force you to fight. But the enemies on these levels never change, even in their levels. So they will quickly start dying in a single blow, giving 1 or 2 xp to whoever kills them. Casting a healing or status affecting spell, however, gives 30 xp to a spell caster always. So they quickly outlevel everyone.
I could go on and on about problems with this game(I guess I already have), but I'll just say find something better. I put it down and went with my GBA Fire emblem (which has MUCH better graphics, and FE isn't really known for its graphics). I'll leave you with my final complaint: the enemies have no equipment in their inventory screen. So their are thieves you will fight, none of them holding any equipment, yet some of them swing imaginary swords at you and some shoot imaginary crossbows at you. wtf?!?
Rating: - Fun story, aggravating controls
Luminous Arc is one of those otherwise good games that gets dragged down by a couple major flaws. I'll get the bad points out of the way first.
The first major problem is gameplay. It's a grid-based strategy/tactical RPG, but that by itself isn't the problem. The stylus control should have been intuitive: Touch the square that you want the character to move to or tap the foe you want to attack/ally you want to heal. The problem lies in the fact that the controls are very imprecise. Often, you'll want to select a villain to attack but the game registers that you've selected an ally to attack instead, and sometimes it'll select the wrong target five times before it gets it right. This is one case where you'll be glad it asks you to confirm your action first. Even more often though, it won't register your taps AT ALL, leaving you mashing the touch screen repeatedly and yelling out in frustration.
The second problem is the imbalance of characters. One character in particular, Leon, stands above the rest as far as dealing damage is concerned. The game tries to balance this by making it harder to level him up (by not giving him any skills to buff/heal others), but this can be overcome by level grinding and using him to kill all the enemies. Once Leon gains a specific skill, he can mow down all but the strongest bosses in at most two hits, taking the "strategy" out of the equation.
Which is a shame, because this is a charming little game otherwise. The graphics look nice, the voice acting is well done, and the story, though a bit cliche, has its own charms. There's a good bit of comedy relief too, usually delivered through one liners or the story's more eccentric characters. The game took special care to give each of its characters their own style and personality.
Luminous Arc isn't for the hardcore gamer, or anyone who becomes frustrated easily by unresponsive and imprecise controls. However, it's well-presented and is a good title to pick up and play, if you don't mind the rather broken controls. A sequel is coming out in time for the holidays this year, and I hope they address the controls. I'm a bit hesitant to preorder it for that reason alone.
Rating: - Greatness
It was a very good game and kept me playing. It was fun amazon.com really helped me obtain what I wanted
Rating: - great game
if you are into this genre of game, tactical rpg, then pick luminous arc up. it is well worth a play thru. an excellent game, cant wait for the second installment.
Rating: - Too simple
I bought this tactical RPG from ALTUS in the hope that it would be "Disgaea" for the DS. It turned out to be Disgaea's cute pre-school age cousin. Sure, you maneuver characters on a grid of squares, do physical and magical attacks for damage, level characters, and can do special combination moves with multiple characters. However, the game lacks any sort of flexibility or depth. The number of available characters in your party is constrained by the story. The number and type of special moves are few, and the combination attacks are both underpowered, and inconvenient enough to not be worthwhile. The story was cutesy, and a bit confused: what you'd expect from a mediocre Japanese RPG. One thing I did like was that every time you leveled up a character, their HP and SP were reset to full strength. This both added a bit of interest to the gameplay, and made the game ridiculously easy to beat.
- I thought Atlus was better than this...
- Greatness
- Too simple
