Luminous Arc 2

[Perversion]

I know it's not new, but I finally managed to snag a sealed copy with the CD at one of the three Gamestops within 5 minutes (by car) of my workplace (meaning, it took me about 15 minutes to walk there, a bit further from the Circuit City I was checking for last minute deals).


I'm really glad to see Atlus is focusing on the DS and releasing VERY high quality stuff like this. When you first load up the game, there's a 3-4 minute FMV with a song in Japanese that, quality-wise, looks and sounds exactly like the title sequence from any given anime.


And I've only played about an hour and twenty minutes, and there's already been at least a good 10 minutes of fully-voiced 2D cutscenes. Granted, the quality of those, especially noticeable with headphones, is not at a high bitrate, but it doesn't sound BAD. And yeah, the voice acting is a mixed bag, but no worse than a lot of the anime I've seen (when, on the rare occasion, I've chosen to watch it dubbed).


The storyline so far actually is holding my interest. It's no great shakes yet, but it's kinda innocent and 16 bit nostalgic (well, what I'd imagine to be 16 bit nostalgic, as I'm only now playing some of the classic 16 bit RPGs). And it's got hot witches. It seems to be a fairly standard SRPG so far, but for some odd reason, this is holding my interest more than FFTA2 as of now.




If Atlus continues to keep putting out quality stuff like this, I'll keep supporting them.

[John Mora]

Re: Luminous Arc 2

It seems to be a fairly standard SRPG

VERY HIGH QUALITY

[Perversion]

Re: Luminous Arc 2

Are you mocking me, or are you being serious? Sometimes I can't tell with you.



But the battling so far is nothing I've not seen before (granted, I've only been involved in 2 battles). I'm just wondering how the character customization is, because for an SRPG, this makes or breaks a game for me. Micromanagement FTW.


EDIT: When I said, "standard SRPG," I meant in terms of gameplay. 3/4 isometric grid-based battles are 3/4 isometric grid-based battles. When I referred to the quality, I was referencing the look, feel, and design of the game. Yeah, a lot of that is window dressing, and doesn't much matter if the core gameplay isn't there, but I've played enough of these types of games that one really needs to do something to impress me to continue playing, and this one so far has done so.

[Karim]

Re: Luminous Arc 2

When you first load up the game, there's a 3-4 minute FMV with a song in Japanese that, quality-wise, looks and sounds exactly like the title sequence from any given anime.

Yeah, this is pretty much the entire problem with the first game (and I'd assume this one too.) it's like playing through a really mediocre anime like Slayers, boob jokes included.

[Cosmic Jeff]

Re: Luminous Arc 2

From what I played, I really did not care for this game much at all. The story is not at all engaging, the characters are mostly obnoxious, and the combat is plain rudimentary strategy. The game itself is competent I suppose, but there is nothing of interest I could find that compels somebody to complete it. I can only imagine playing through it out of sheer habit. "Well, I play RPGs, and I already started this one, so I may as well finish it."

[Toaster]

Re: Luminous Arc 2

Oh, man.

That's really sad (partly because I've done that with a game or two in the past).