This worked nicely until the game viciously removed Heath from my party after a mere couple of chapters, leaving me stranded with a reasonably strong character and a bunch of under-levelled losers. My playthrough started in a fairly normal and unremarkable way: I fought a couple of battles, noticed right away that everybody but Heath and Alph sucked big time on the battlefield, and decided thus to focus the bulk of my level-grinding efforts on the aforementioned pair and to make them my main battle assets. And work for me it does indeed, o yes precious. This post is not about the awesomeness of the DS, but rather about how I broke, twisted and remodeled Luminous Arc's gameplay beyond recognition in an over-enthusiastic attempt to make the game work for me. Guess I should play DS games more often then - all the more so as my DS library is by a long shot the largest of all my game libraries. I wouldn’t call anything in this title groundbreaking, but it’s nice to have something fun and lighthearted to play, especially after all of the lackluster SRPGs we’ve been playing lately.Boy, is it good to be reunited with my beloved DS at long last! It's been nearly a whole year since I played the system last, and the wave of giddy joy that washed over me as I rediscovered the DS' unmistakable graphical style and low-fi touch made me realize that I missed the system a whole lot. The game play is solid, and the story in between battles is charming. For some reason, this engagement is accompanied by a dreamy image of the engaged female in a wedding dress. In the cases I’ve seen so far, he nabs their elemental power (fire, light, water) and applies it to his combat style, making for a powerful one-time attack. The most notable one is the “engage” mechanic, where the main character, Roland, engages with another of the characters on the map, enabling him to borrow some of their power. Game play is very similar to its predecessor, with a few new changes. The title opens up with a lovely anime video introduction, and I hoping more video like this shows up later in the title. Maps are still on the small side so far, but they look great. The character art for the dialogue is pretty as ever, showcasing plenty of busty girls - or witches in this game - with big hair and bigger attitude problems. The visuals and art are very nice in Luminous Arc 2. Maybe it will get deeper, but I’m totally fine with it as it is now. The story is fun and lighthearted, but it seems to be heading into “interesting” territory. The story is nothing too spectacular so far, but the characters are engaging enough that I’m enjoying their tale. Again, you can navigate all of the menus without ever using the stylus, but this sequel actually gives you a choice now. The overall game menu presentation is nicer now, too. After I finally tried it, I haven’t gone back: you can tap your position on the field, access menus, and attack targets, all with simple stylus movements. As review code doesn’t always come with an instruction manual, I went through about 2 hours of game play before realizing you could use the stylus for full battle control. You can opt to play the game without ever touching the bottom screen, but if you prefer, it can be used, and it works well. This Nintendo DS SRPG game sports some noticeable improvements from Luminous Arc. But playing through the review code of it’s sequel, Luminous Arc 2, I can say that they’ve turned things around. Even the predecessor to this game, last year’s L uminous Arc, didn’t do that much for me. I’m a sucker for them, but lately the releases have been pretty disappointing to this fan. Ah, Japanese anime-ish tactical strategy role-playing games.
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