The battle system has other influences on the storyline too, other than simply who wins and who loses. The engagement can only be used with active units on the map and only once per character per battle, and it only lasts a few turns, but it adds an extra layer of strategy when you’re in a tight spot and transforms Roland from a fairly bland lead to a diverse and powerful attacking force. Your squad leader Roland can also Engage with the mages on your team to acquire their element – Engaging with Althea will grant him the power of fire, allowing him use of the Fire Bullet technique as well as granting extra physical damage to units weak against fire. Each action performed boosts your character’s Drive Points, granting you the ability to increase the potency of your special attacks as well as open character-specific Flash Drive moves, which are super-powerful attacks that can turn a battle around in an instant. There are a few nice tweaks over your usual turns-based RPG system, though. There’s no weapons triangle as in Shining Force III or Fire Emblem, so you don’t need to worry about attacking a lance with a sword, although there is a similar system for magic users, so be careful about using fire magic against water types. Attacking your opponent from above gives you added power and decreases your enemy’s accuracy, so seeking out the high ground is always a good plan, as is attacking units from the side or rear to deal extra damage. Units with higher Move stats move further and receive their turn more quickly, and units can also jump a certain number of squares to travail steep ground. Once you get past the initial barrier of exposition, you’ll find a clever and engaging RPG underneath.Īs in all good strategic RPGs, both sides of the conflict are noble enough to divide the battleground into squares and take it in turns to move. Even then the battle tutorial lays everything on you at once, leaving even the most ardent Japanese RPG fans reeling from information overload. You’ll learn to use L and R pretty quickly in fact, as you’re hit with an absolute mountain of text when you first start the game, amounting to a good ten or fifteen minutes of reading before you get stuck into any battling. In dialogue-heavy moments you can even press R to have the game automatically advance the conversation, or if you’re really pressed for time holding L will fast-forward it all. The interface has been completely overhauled from the original Luminous Arc and feels a lot smoother for it, with fewer menus to navigate and everything generally laid out more logically. There are no free-roaming towns or map sections you select your next destination from a list of options on the touchscreen before selecting an available action such as “gather info”, “go shopping” or “begin quest”. The general flow of gameplay is fairly standard, with dialogue sections, shopping and battles all present in various combinations. As usual in strategic RPGs, you control a squad of differently skilled characters, with healers, archers and swordsmen, but your main character is a knight named Roland who possesses the unique ability to Engage with other magic users to gain elemental spells and attacks, but more on that later. Even worse, a high-ranking witch of the Magic Association has gone rogue, threatening the ever-more delicate balance between good and evil. The game’s story takes place in the kingdom of Carnava, which has seen peace for over four thousand years, but now lies in turmoil as the deadly Beast Fiends have reappeared. The DS has seen some fantastic RPGs released this year, with Valkyrie Profile, Nostalgia and of course Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story, and Luminous Arc II keeps the standard high with a quality Japanese RPG package that is sure to please anyone looking for a tactical fix.
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