Luminous Arc DS
Metascore
70 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 25 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 25
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 25
  3. Negative: 1 out of 25
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  1. G4 TV
    40
    The lack of character customization is another issue, with fixed classes and no input allowed on individual skills, attributes, or spells other than purchasing armor, weapons, and accessories each time you visit town.

User Reviews

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User Score
7.3 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 15 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 4
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 4
  3. Negative: 1 out of 4
  1. mckenzo
    2
    So where should I begin...
    Well, I will start off with the good so that people reading this review won't think that I am criticizing this gam    e because JRPG doesn't suit my taste when, on contrary, opposite is true. I appreciate Japanese TRPG like Tactics Ogre, FFT, and even more recent series like Disgaea; Luminous Arc is no where near sufficient to meet the standards for JRPG like the ones I mentioned.

    For those who liked this game, I'll give you that this game has above decent music score (composer being the same man who worked on Crono Cross), the character design is effectively aimed for the specific audience without having it to be too flamboyant about it (well, except for that witch with the ginormous pair of melons), the voice acting is annoying but I can appreciate how they were trying to please that said audience, and some dialogues were kinda funny whether it was intentional or not

    The plot for this game is nothing we haven't seen before: a naive protagonist being manipulated by their own organization to believe their lies. (see FFVII, FFX or any other JRPG involving religious power, or "evil" corporation) It is so mainstreamed that I often wonder if the writers were even expecting players to be surprised by its utterly obvious plot-twists.

    And even if the story isn't "that bad," the whole game only like 10-15hrs long at the most.

    The advancement of the story is linear as it can get: the point-A-to-B style. Despite of being provided with an open world view, allowing you to travel back to previous town, there simply isn't a reason why you should do that other than to needlessly level-grind your characters for a very very easy game (I'll get back on that later) The previous town doesn't offer better equipment nor does it offer any special events, QED: pointless feature.

    Each of the characters have "titles" like Warrior or Cleric but it all means nothing because there is no Job system in the game. Because being able to change the job and having the ability to customize your own squad would mean more variety depth and we can't have THAT now, can we?

    The battle tactic is heavily relied on "who strikes first" mentality; just wait for the enemy to come within your attacking range, let your archers/magicians whale on one enemy and let your melees finish it off.

    And if that doesn't make the game any easier, how about that broken, unbalanced warrior and the protagonist who can unleash a stupid amount of firepower while being able to soak up so much damage. Or how about that cleric who can buff up the defense/attack of 4 characters in one turn. Or maybe having all characters to be able to use items so there won't be a need for healers, ever. Or maybe having that unnecessarily overpowered Flash Drive attacks which you'll not likely to even use unless you got items for it or something...

    And if healing up to full HP/MP every time you level up doesn't make this game easier enough for you, while taking into account of everything I said just now above... I suggest you stay away from tactic game entirely.

    And what is a anime-influenced game without very flat, uninteresting, and cheap character development? I am of course talking about "intermission" system which is basically a badly written dating sim between protagonist and a character of your choice which occurs after every battle. And I wouldn't even call it a dating sim because there is no substantial dialogue between the two; it is just one character says a single line of text and protagonist needs to choose a fairly obvious "right answer" from the given three choices. Do you mean to tell me that writers were too half-assed to even write a simple conversation?

    And I can't even turn the camera view during the battle... WHY WHY WHY!?

    Those who are reading this might be thinking, "Stop nitpicking, it's their first game that they developed so cut them some slack..." and I would've agreed with you if they hadn't been making the character-oriented game that aims for the shallowest group of gamers who approved of this garbage (I'm looking at you Nintendo Power and Gamespot. Balanced gameplay my ass...) and they are quite shameless about it seeing from how they have made, not one but, two sequels to this.

    While those who are fan of anime, but just don't care for quality in game enough that you wouldn't shell out more than 10 bucks, then this is for you. Still, in my opinion, there isn't enough moe in world to save it from this level of atrocity.    … Full Review »
  2. Bustergundam4
    10
    This game of ATLUS is awesome because it takes on a RELIGIOUS view and how the church conduct their plans under everyone's noses and by the end,you will feel on the top of the world (metaphorically of course!) 10/10

    *Voice acting made me laugh because the voices were so funny with the vulgar language I grew up with ^^ *    … Full Review »
  3. FaustL.
    8
    Luminous Arc has an interesting story and tons of hours of gameplay, the versus mode gives it added value and is an overall good game.
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