Luminous Arc Review

Every once in a while there comes a game that, for no particularly deserving reason, captures my attention and grips me despite the lack of incredibly groundbreaking features or creative, innovative mechanics. Atlus’s Luminous Arc, a very traditional strategy role-playing game (SRPG), is one of those games—I’m not exactly able to tell you what it is about the game that keeps you playing it, but there is a special charm that does, and that’s all that matters. Perhaps it is the charming cast of big-eyed, funky-haired, anime-inspired characters. Perhaps it is the game’s shameless simplicity. Perhaps it’s just because it lets gamers experience a story, traditional battles, and leveling without too much hassle.

Luminous Arc tells the story of Alph and his fellow “Garden Children”, young protectors of the Church of Luminous. The gang is sent on a witch hunt, ordered by the church to eradicate every witch they come into contact with. Unfortunately this creates quite a quagmire when Alph and his friends meet and befriend a few witches along the way; eventually there is a surprising amount of depth to the storyline that manages to cram in all sorts of friendly brotherhood themes as well as betrayal, oppression, and corruption. The only story-related problem I have comes from the dialogue—it isn’t bad, and it is voiced incredibly well (see below for more details). This is quite the surprise for a DS game, although the voice-over isn’t used universally throughout every story sequence. The gripe stems from the overabundance of generally useless assertions and statements that the characters say; I’ll call it the Golden Sun Syndrome. Saying this is not intentionally to discredit either game—they’re both great RPGs in one way or another, the conversations just seem to drag on at times. At the very least, some humor is thrown into the mix that keeps things light-hearted in between some of the less light-hearted times.

The battle system is far and wide the most simplistic aspect of Luminous Arc, which makes or breaks the game depending on your SRPG ability and experience. Level designs are much less complex than those of games like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance or PS2 games like Disgaea, but they’re set up in a way that is conducive to the rest of the simplistic action. Most standard SRPG rules apply; you’ll move on a grid that is broken up into squares and attack using the same grid to target your victim. Some attacks are ranged and allow characters like Theo (the archer and young brother of Alph) to be separated from the brutes like Leon and Saki. Magic users tend to have a lot of the same skills, but generally speaking this just allows gamers to bombard enemies with more of the spells that eradicate their enemies. Victory isn’t ever an incredible challenge because Luminous Arc allows gamers to replay any area endlessly, earning experience until the characters are immensely powerful. This flexibility is just another component that supports what I mentioned earlier; Luminous Arc gives gamers an experience that they can enjoy and don’t have to work very hard for. After every fight is an “Intermission” where Alph can talk to his friends—these Intermissions serve as a way to learn the story and also unlock special items, as saying the right thing to an ally will sometimes result in a gift from that person. These mechanics could be criticized into the abyss for their simplicity, but alternatively one could give Luminous Arc credit for being a prime introduction to the genre. That’s the route I’ve chosen.

Stylus control is available as well as the traditional button-based scheme that gamers are used to, and it works very well. The squares are big enough on the screen that you won’t have to have a super-fine aim when you’re tapping them on the map, but I noticed that sometimes your taps simply wouldn’t register correctly. I switched off and on between the two setups, and my final word is that the game works well enough both ways so that gamers can enjoy both styles of play, again without any extra hassle.

There are some strange quirks that keep Luminous Arc from blowing away its competition, aside from the fact that it is so primitive. Some SRPG rules don’t apply; Theo’s arrows don’t need to arch and therefore missing a shot is incredibly rare. Arrows as well as melee weapons can attack through solid rocks that characters otherwise can’t stand on, and I found this to be very strange. As I mentioned before, there are a lot of similar or same spells on different characters’ skill lists, so gamers expecting a ton of variety might be disappointed. The melee characters like Leon and Alph are the ones who will level up fastest because they generally have more movement space and higher agility, allowing them to move in on opponents and defeat them quickly with standard or magically-charged attacks. The result is a set of melee fighters that will most likely be a lot stronger than your ranged characters, but at the least you know that if trouble comes along, you can pretty much bash it into oblivion with these guys (and girls). Lastly, you earn Flash Points (FP) for defeating enemies that can be spent on devastating Flash Drive skills. Unfortunately, by the time you’ve cleared a decent amount of enemies on the map (generally with Leon or Alph), you won’t think to use these Flash Drive skills—therefore, they’re really only important for some of the long-winded boss battles.

I have to give Luminous Arc some kudos for having an epic score; I was blown away and completely surprised by how nice the game sounds. The orchestral music is a perfect fit, of course, but it isn’t just the sweeping background music that will impress DS gamers—Luminous Arc also features an incredibly large amount of voice-over dialogue. The voices aren’t annoying (Theo is sometimes an exception) and in fact do a great job of conveying some emotion and depth. Overall I found the sonic qualities of this game to be some of the most impressive. The simplistic approach to the rest of the game carries over to the graphics, and if it weren’t for the great art design, I wouldn’t have a lot of good things to say. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that this game could have looked a hundred times better than it does, but I won’t complain too much because the sprites and environments do a decent job of reflecting the character portraits and anime-inspired designs. I will say that the sprite detail is very disappointing even when compared to older games like Tactics Advanced, and certainly they’re less impressive than those seen the upcoming DS Final Fantasy Tactics game. Spell animations are also pretty standard and simple, even for the super-powered FP attacks.

Luminous Arc won’t win a single “Best SRPG” award, but it should occupy the time of Atlus fans and fans of these Japanese SRPGs. It is standard, simple, and infectious because of those two qualities—if you let it be. If you are expecting Disgaea-like depth, look elsewhere (like the PSP, which has a Disgaea title on its way). Otherwise, give this one a chance—it might suck away a few dozen hours of your life, too.