I didn’t have any clear goals when I started this blog years ago, but one thing I knew was that I wanted to give every game a fair chance. I didn’t want to either rush through games or play a little bit just to say I’d played them. Sometimes a game just sucks and I have no choice, but I rarely feel good about it. So after dismissing Luminous Arc Infinity after only one hour, I decided I wasn’t being fair to it and decided to give it another chance. Verdict: It’s better than I had initially feared.
That doesn’t mean it’s good, though. It’s just moved from “Bad” to “Mediocre, but playable.” The crazy amount of talking in every single scene is still a huge problem, but I’ve solved it by skipping all the text in everything except story quests. This means I’m missing out on a lot of “immersion” and “world-building” but I hate that stuff anyway so it’s all good. So that decision alone has cut my stress in half.
Now that I’m about 5:30 hours into the game, the tutorials have all but ceased and more battle options are available so there’s more playing and less reading. These isometric RPGs are always a little slow, and at least Luminous Arc Infinity isn’t as bad as the original Luminous Arc or some others I’ve played. But I still crave a fast-forward button because it takes so long for turns to go round and attacks to play out. Pressing buttons helps a bit, but not much.
The interesting things to note about this battle system are:
1. The singing buffs. Aka “Calling” in the game. An idol stands on a spot and sings and everyone in range gets a buff. Another idol can join in for a duet, or even more for a trio, quartet or quintet. It’s good to spend the first turn of the game when all idols are clustered together getting buffed before moving out. Calling also accumulates Voice Points which you can use to trigger EX Arts and EX Attacks.
However, strangely enough, you don’t get any special music or voice sounds when the idol sings. Just the regular battle music. Which… kind of defeats the purpose of having a game about singing idols. I’ve collected 6 idols so far and haven’t heard a single one sing outside the opening sequence. Stella Glow and Shining Blade did much better in that regard.
2. Duo attacks. That means you borrow attacks from allies standing nearby. For example since Aqua is a water mage, she can’t use fire attacks. But if Xiorker is standing next to her, she can borrow a flame attack to strike an enemy who is weak to fire. Duo attacks also build affection between the girls, which does… something. I forget what. But they’re super useful regardless because elemental strengths and weaknesses seem to matter a lot in this game.
3. Brave clear conditions borrowed from the Summon Night series. You get extra items by fulfilling certain conditions. Usually it’s not healing too much, defeating a number of enemies with the idol of the day, that sort of thing. They’re much easier to fulfill than those in Summon Night but the rewards aren’t that great so it doesn’t matter if you do them or not.
4. The main character can’t fight because he’s cursed. What he can do is fondle the girls to give them stat boosts before battle and pop in with all kinds of supports whenever his turn rolls around. So far it’s just a few things like giving them VP, healing, Aura Points, etc but he’s also been learning status attacks like Sleep for the enemies. And his accessories all decrease his wait time, so depending on how things go, Xird could be a formidable ally after he grows a bit.
Lest you forget what kind of game we’re dealing with here.
5. Characters level up normally, but they also get growths through a skill tree. In theory there are 4 kinds of builds: Variety, Pure, Cool and Beauty, which affect what kind of growths and skills you get e.g. more MAG instead of ATK, that kind of thing. In practice I am told it’s best to leave everyone on their default paths so it’s not as exciting as it seems at first.
My characters are averaging level 17 and don’t feel too strong yet, so there’s still plenty of room for Luminous Arc Infinity‘s battle system to blow me away. Right now it’s just adequate, but adequate is good enough for me when it comes to SRPGs. Really, if they just wouldn’t talk and bicker so much and if they would let me fight more than once or twice an hour I would be quite happy.
Does that mean LA: Infinity has been un-dropped? Eh, yeah, I guess. I’m playing this side by side with Tokyo Xanadu eX+ but Tokyo Xanadu is not exciting enough to deserve my full focus so there’s still room in my heart for an SRPG. Unless something better comes along, I guess I’m playing these two games for the rest of the year.
Glad to hear the game’s working out better for you, interesting to see so many Summon Night-esque mechanic in it, the character build mechanic especially since that’s one of my fav. part of Summon Night 3 and 4. It really doesn’t sound like the main character is very likable though but then I guess the SN MC have their quirks too.
He’s closest to the “I don’t wanna fight waah” heroine from SN3 I guess. But the games are more similar aesthetically (especially obvious in the item designs) than in feel or gameplay. Even the character building is more like FFX’s Sphere Grid rather than the choose-your-own stats of traditional Summon Night.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches, so it’s all good IMO.