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[ronito]

I've searched for an official thread and didn't find one.

On a lark I decided to try this game out. So far I'm having fun with it, though it's pretty standard SRPG faire. The thing is a little silly with the whole engagement/witch fanservice thing. With it's admittedly passable voice acting it feels like watching a campy anime.

I've currently just defeated

Spoiler

Master Mattias for the first time, I'm sure there will be another

, and like I said I'm having fun in general. But there are some huge annoyances I have with the game.

- The constant appearance of "reinforcements". It would be cool if they did this once in a while, but to do it almost every single freaking battle. Just feels like a stupid gimmick.

- The crazy stupid EXP system. If there was anything that was going to make stop playing this game, this would be it. Gaining points almost exclusively for kills is so 1990s. I absolutely hate having to decide between the right strategic move and the move that will net some under powered character more exp. I understand that there should probably be a bonus for a kill, but when a normal attack nets like 2-4 exp and a kill gets between 10-15 times that much, it makes you feel like you're leveling up one point at a time. Add to that the fact that you have more characters than you can use in a fight and that essentially takes them out of the game. I have a sinking feeling this might kill it for me. But we'll see.

-So far I haven't seen anything that "wows" me. Nothing that makes me think this is anything better than an average SRPG. But if it stays fun then I don't care much.

-Those silly pics of the witches in their wedding dresses are only on for like a second or two so you have to fap really fast.

That aside it seems like Luminous Arc 2 is just an unassuming SRPG. I'll stick with it as long as I have fun with it, but unless the difficulty ramps up or something new happens it seems unlikely I'll stick with it the whole way, much less to get the multiple endings.

 

[jay]

I liked the first one enough to check this one out eventually. Does it also have slowdown issues?

 

[TommyT]

Wasn't this in the last issue of EGM? I read the review and while it sounded down on the game a bit I rather liked the sound of it. They said the EXP system is archaic ala Final Fantasy Tactics, but I really like that system!

 

[DoubleFang]

I played LA and it was great; I'm just waiting to gather more money and I'll surely buy the second one from Play-Asia (LA2 + Soundtrack + Artbook = 35€ ).
It sucks that nobody on GAF is playing it though.

 

[ronito]

I liked the first one enough to check this one out eventually. Does it also have slowdown issues?

haven't noticed any slow down so far.

 

[Ramune]

I have such a massive portable backlog now, so outside of playing the first few battles, I haven't really gotten around to this game yet. Seemed decent enough, so it's no fault of the game from my limited time with it.

 

[bryehn]

I was about to make this thread too.

I never played the first much, but sure like this one. I'm only 3-4 hours in, so the battles are a bit underwhelming (read: light) so far, but I love the amount of VA and think every game should have an auto advance feature. Another nice thing is that it tells you what BGM track is playing during dialog scenes.

Been putting a good chunk into Fire Emblem DS lately cause I blew the cash on importing it, but plan to go back to LA2 as soon as I'm done with that.

 

[Mejilan]

Bought it as a show of support but I haven't gotten around to playing it yet. I should probably finish the first one too, while I'm at it. Oh well, one day.

 

[Etelmik]

It's in my backlog, so I've not done much with it.

Spoiler

"Let those manly tears flow!"

 

[Symytry]

The first game was OK, but not enough to want to make me purchase the sequel. If you guys that are playing the second have been through the first, is it enough of an improvement to warrant the $40 price tag?

 

[FoxSpirit]

Well, I got it, but still have to finish the game.

Biggest flaws: healing gives too little XP, healers are DAMN slow and battles move kinda slow. Besides that, solid.

Oh, and the artbook it got with part 2 is really nice

 

[JKBii]

I really looked forward to the first one but when I played it I was very disappointed so I doubt I will play the second. Age of Empires 2 is next up for me on the DS.

 

[Pureauthor]

Playing it too.

Nice artbook.

Battles are pretty slow-paced, but then again it's a handheld game so it's not that big a deal.

My judgment from the first LA still stands - doesn't do anything particularly wrong, but it doesn't do anything particularly right either.

(Oh yeah, like the other guy said, knowing what BGM is playing in what scene is a nice touch.)

 

[ronito]

So I'm a little over halfway and another big annoyance has come into light. They reuse the same freaking enemies over and over and over. Honestly it's getting more than just a little old. I mean it's either I'm fighting

Spoiler

Mattias

, Fatima and Josie or I'm fighting Rosetta Rosso or I'm in between fighting either of those. By now I've defeated Fatima at least 4 or 5 times just to have her disappear and go all Dr. Claw on me, "Next time Gadget Next time!" But overall I'm still having fun, but it's still really flawed. Now I'm mainly playing because I've put in so much time with it, and while the fights are slow they're still fun.

 

[ronito]

Fatima and Josie have official become the Team Rocket for this game.

 

[noonche]

Fatima and Josie have official become the Team Rocket for this game.

I played through this while traveling during the holidays. I wound up liking it quite a bit. I agree that the experience system is pretty dumb, and that healers are far too slow. But overall I enjoyed the game. I liked the music a fair amount, and the battles get progressively more difficult. The story was alright, parts of it where good, but other parts where really bad.

The game wound up being much better then I expected.

 

[stuminus3]

I didn't pick it up on the account that the first one was complete balls.

This is how I learned to stop buying Atlus USA games just because they were Atlus USA games.

 

[Mejilan]

I've got about 5 or 6 OPs I'm tempted to make, but I just haven't had the time or inclination. That I haven't even finished LA1, or begun LA2 yet, makes a strong case against me too. :/

 

[ronito]

Well, I'm done with it. I really haven't seen all it has to offer, the kopin thing I haven't explored much (though it's also not readily apparent). But as I'm about to set it down here's my final thoughts.

The faults I found with the game in the beginning are never really fixed, in fact they only get worse.

The game is REALLY bad at giving you a variety of bosses, re-using the same characters as bosses 4,5 or more times. And the rest of the enemies you've pretty much seen. The first half of the game is

Spoiler

fatima, josie, mattias and rosetta rosso

and the second half is

Spoiler

Bharva, Gaston and Steiner

and really of those there's two main ones so most of the game you're tracking down one of two bosses. And the rest of the enemies are filler, and you'll fight these main bosses at least 4 times each. It's beyond silly. The Quests you can get at the guild are nice distractions, but they never really get to be more than that.

The reinforcements is a cheap/artificial way to augment the difficulty and the game uses it too much as a crutch and towards the end uses it in a way that causes a large spike in the difficulty. For example in one fight you have to kill the boss (which you've already killed at least 4 times prior) and when you get him within killable range he then uses his huge movement grid to retreat well out of your way, and suddenly about 6 or 7 reinforcements come in and block your way before you can even get close to him. This is after you've cleared the board of enemies. It's essentially putting you back to square one, but now your party hp/mp is depleted.

I guess that could be a challenge but the healers are so underpowered and slow and their movement grids so small they're ineffectual. So it feels as cheap as an SNK boss fight.

The broken experience scheme where you get up to 10x exp for a kill than an attack or spell leaves many support characters (like healers) left lagging far behind in the level area.

Also the medium of stationary characters on a stationary background really shows it's limitations especially towards the end when you're clicking through 10 minutes of cut scenes and it's supposed to be dramatic but it just feels boring. It works for Phoenix and Apollo because they move a bit and they have a few characters with a ton of personality. Here it doesn't you have way to many characters each with perhaps 3-5 poses and all dozen or so characters are trying to get a word in it gets old. Fast.

Still it was an entertaining, if not a little bit campy, romp. The whole "uniting" thing was a bit in the face but it was alright. The characters a bit cliched at times but I had fun. The music was fantastic and the voice acting pretty good. Up until the last few battles the battles, if a bit repetitive, were never really a chore. It was a good time. Luminous Arc 2 is just a game that never really tried to be great. It just tried to be good enough. And that's exactly what it is, good enough. There's evidently a lot of stuff I never even got to, but with people spending 70+ hours to get 100% I'm happy with my 26 hours and far less than 100%.

 

[zoku88]

The thing is a little silly with the whole engagement/witch fanservice thing.

Wait, there's fanservice in this game? Why did I pass this up?

 

[Neko Godot]

The first game reused a lot of bosses too, but I don't think it was as bad as this one.

Late Game Spoilers

Spoiler

Anyways, I escaped from the jail and fought Steiner. Really after the 2nd Mattias fight all the bosses have been pretty easy. I'm kind of upset that Ayano isn't a Lightning Witch or something like that though, there were 7 witches in the last game.