Fun for the laid-back, easy-going gamer.
User Rating: 8 | Luminous Arc DS
Even if you've never played a game like this before, I highly recommend Luminous Arc. At first, I felt the story lacked a little depth. But of course, the further into the game you get, the more you find yourself talking to friends about it. There is also some great voice-acting in the game that helps you get to know the characters attitudes a bit more, so it introduces you into their overall persona's that are easily distinguished even when there is no voice-acting to be heard. Soon enough, you'll find out who's the most annoying characters, the caring ones, the naive, the leaders, followers, etc. They are all interesting, and they perpetuate the story gracefully, with quirky innuendo's and all. There is a little bit of adult humor in the game. And the so-called 'eye-candy' some parents like to gripe about, of which is typical from Japanese anime. There is a ton of dialog!! Lot's to read. The characters aren't so much animated, but nicely drawn. 'Course, they blink. That's about it. The art is quite nice, though. The graphics in battle are much different that the story-time graphics. The battle graphics are set on isometric platform, and the characters turn into what I think are cute pixelated chibi's, or sprites. There are some cut scenes with specific attacks that bounce between the pixel sprites (animated) and hand-drawn characters (not animated). Voice-acting is included in battle. The game play is truly a lot of fun. I thought it might be repetitive, and it is, but it's the fun kind of repetition. I guess there really is such a thing as fun kind of repetition. Buying new armor, weapons, accessories and potions every other round of tactical fighting can be tiresome, but not to the point of aggravation. You still have to think about how to spend your coins, so it adds to the game play like any other traditional RPG.
For me, it's not a very hard game to get used to. It's not hard to play, but it has moments where you can't seem to kill off a certain group of baddies. That's when you know to change up your usual tactics. Figuring that out can be a lot of fun. Overall, the game is a total blast. Expensive, but enjoyable. I got it for free, otherwise I probably wouldn't have ever played it. If you have the cash to toss around on a DS game, and you've run out of others you want to buy, definitely pick this up, used, if you have to. Apparently, its going to be one of those games that are hard to find in the future. 
