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Lux-PainBy Marlon Esmeralda - 04-15-09 Print  EmailLux-Pain is a very interesting game. The most interesting part is how this game actually saw release outside of Japan. I didn't really know much about Lux-Pain, until like a week before its US release. My first impressions of it was that it would be a point-and-click adventure title. Turns out that its not really like that. It is an adventure type game, but the style is more of a visual novel, a style not many western gamers are accustomed to. The story of Lux-Pain revolves around Atsuki Saijo, a 17 year-old-boy, who is part of a secret underground organization called Fort. This secret organization is dedicated to the destroying of SILENT, a mental parasite that feeds on the negative emotions of humans in order to multiply itself. Those infected will slowly become enraged by the parasite, causing them to become more violent and suicidal. Fort was established to help stop the spreading of SILENT, and to eliminate it by using specially skilled telepaths. Atsuki is one of these telepaths. And through a special ring called "Lux-Pain," Atsuki is granted the power of Sigma, which allows him to alter the thoughts of others and to eliminate SILENT from within them. Fort's recent investigations leads them to Kisaragi City, where Atsuki must pose as a typical high school student in order to find those infected with SILENT, and to eliminate it from their mind. Its a pretty dark story, and a very lengthy one. There are lots of characters with various personalities in this game, and being able to read deep into their thoughts, will cause you to know much more about them. You may even be driven to the point of actually caring for these characters. The story is full of many twists and you may be surprised a bit at some of the events that occur. I certainly enjoyed this story. Enjoyable as it was though, it certainly wasn't too easy to understand as first. This could mostly be due to the many errors found in the text. Like having "she" put down as "he" many times. The game also can't decide if it wants to take place in Japan or America, with lots of text implying one or the other. Another thing that bugs me is that the text don't even fill up the dialogue boxes. They cut off like in the middle and start again on the second line, when there's plenty of room left over on the side. Because of this, you will see lots of instances where the game will use "&" instead of "and," misspell certain words in order to shorten them, and even bunch words together by not spacing them. Its a shame that the text was poorly done in this game, being that its the main thing that holds this game together. It should also be pointed out that this game can be rather complicated at times. Along with the bad text, the game fails to update the player with what's going on. Once you begin Lux-Pain, you're already lost, and you get no tutorials on how the game is played. The player is really left alone, and is expected to learn everything themself. This is one game that I would recommend you read the manual first for. Being that Lux-Pain is visual novel, there isn't much gameplay to be had in the game. Most of the time you'll be reading dialogue and moving to various locations, and talking more with other characters. There will be some instances where you will be given choices to answer a question or select a specific emotion to react to something, in order to interact more with the characters. You can also ask them questions as well during certain situations. And depending on the choices you make towards them, will affect how close to the character you will be. This isn't no dating-sim though, as you're not trying to get any of the characters to fall in love with you. Any gameplay in this game will come when digging up the thoughts of the people you're interacting with. In special situations you will be able to trigger your Sigma ability which will allow you to dig up the "shinen," or thoughts, of people. These "shinen" are referred to as worms, so in a way you're digging up worms from inside the minds of people. Anyway, once Sigma has been activated, you will be able to do extract the worms from the inner minds of people. You perform this task by scratching away fragments(via touch screen) of reality in order to find the worm hidden behind it. You do have a time limit to extract these worms, and also a specific amount of how much erasing you can do. Once you capture worms, you are then able to see the thoughts of the person it originated from. These certain scenes appear on the top screen of the DS and will show words flying around in various sequences, and then forming sentences. These sentences represent the inner thoughts of the host and gives you more insight on how they're feeling. Since the letters are flying everywhere at times, it may be a bit difficult to keep track of everything. So don't be surprised if you miss a couple things due to so much going on at once. Things change a bit when you're fighting against SILENT. I suppose you can call these the boss battles of the game, as they require the most interaction from the player. In the early stages of the game, you battle these SILENT parasites by tapping glowing points on the screen in a timely manner. As you progress further, these battles will get a bit difficult as you will need to do more in order to destroy them. When recovering worms and SILENT, Atsuki will gain experience and level up when a certain amount has been reached. You're not really given a specific amount of when you'll level up, so these moments occur kinda randomly. When you do level up, certain stats will be upgraded, which make extracting worms a bit easier to do. One thing that I really liked about Lux-Pain were the graphics and audio. The world of Lux-Pain is featured in a nicely-done Anime art style. And since I liked this particular art style, I was fairly happy to see that a free art book was included with the game. I was a bit disappointed that the art book was taped to the box, so my book got damaged a bit when trying to take it out. As for the art in the game, well it was nicely animated and you can clearly recognize the character's emotions. Also adding more feeling to these characters is the great voice-acting. It too bad the voice-acting wasn't for the whole game, but there is a high amount included. The only problem is that most of the time, the voices won't match the text of this game, and it may confuse you at times on what's being said. This is no problem for the voices though, as the bad text is the main cause. And lastly, there is the soundtrack of the game. I really enjoyed it, even if it was just a bunch of melodies and themes, aside from the game's opening Japanese song. The tunes really drew me into the scenes. The game is pretty lengthy and if you can tolerate the bad text throughout, you're looking at around 20 hours of playtime. In addition to the story mode, extra scenes can also be unlocked once you get close enough to certain characters, allowing for more time with the game. There are also three endings in the game for you to achieve, and which ending you get is based on the choices you make and whether or not you were able to extract the SILENT from those infected. A new game + will be available to those who choose to do a second round with the game, which may not be so bad since you will miss a lot of things on your first playthrough. Lux-Pain is a pretty simple game, that mostly consists of talking to various characters and then having to dig up worms from them. This simple premise may not appeal to everyone due to the small amount of gameplay in the game. If you don't like reading text after text of continuous dialogue, then this game isn't for you. Even those who can handle games like this, may still not enjoy it due to how bad the text is done. It's not at the point of being unreadable, but it may ruin the experience for some. I still enjoyed the game quite a bit and was able to experience a pretty nice story, and one that I wouldn't mind playing over again. If you're a person who can handle reading a lot of text(full of many errors) and wouldn't mind a game with small amounts of gameplay, then you may come to like Lux-Pain. It's really a game you'll either enjoy or hate, and in this case, I enjoyed it. Ratings |
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