Title: Luminous Arc 3: Eyes
Console: NDS
Genre: Strategy RPG
Language: Japanese
Company: Marvelous
Summary:
Story: 5/10. Some twists and turns there, nothing special. Nothing so terrible that it’ll make you go “UGH” though. Just… boring :|
Characters: 5/10. I like the previous games characters more… they felt stronger somehow. An interesting thing about this game is that certain things you do and choices you pick will affect how many playable characters you have at the end game…
Graphics: 9/10. Luminous Arc games have always had nice, pretty graphics. One thing I do like about this compared to the other games is more CGs. I don’t really appreciate the turn the artist has taken in terms of human proportions though… Everyone looks fat, especially the main character when he bathes, and the boobs are even fatter >___>; But wryyyyy.
Sound: 8/10. It looks like the big names from the previous titles like Yasunori Mitsuda and Yoko Shimomura didn’t have a part in this game according to the OST credits, but it’s still a solid soundtrack. Seems every playable character has their own main theme, which is nice. Some catchy rhythms here and there that are rather pleasant to listen to over and over again. Which is good, because you’ll really be hearing them over and over again ._.;
Gameplay: 8/10. Similar to the other games. The main character can link up attacks with other members depending on how strong your affection is with them. An option they’ve added is a hard difficulty mode. In fact, it’s available right from the start, but after I started with that and realized it was practically impossible to beat without an ex-game, I had to start a new game on the normal difficult again. Ugh. Other than that, not much of a difference…….
Replay Value: 8/10. I was surprised you literally keep everything you have when you play the ex-game. Most RPGs would usually be like “keep only your itemz and moneyz and affection pointz” but you keep EVERYTHING for this, including levels and equipment. It was like this for the previous games too, but it’s a lot more investment for this game to keep around. Which I don’t mind, heh.
Overall: Didn’t enjoy this as much as the previous two games in terms of characters and story, but I did appreciate the additional challenge somewhat. There aren’t as many voiced cut scenes (a major backwards step for making more sequels if you ask me…), there’s too much filler dialogue, and the story isn’t nearly as enticing.

Seems they were focusing on making it more challenging by adding a hard mode (which is pretty much impossible to survive on the first play) and a LOT more optional battles. Even with the optional battles, I’m finding myself having to repeat many of them just to level up enough for the next stage. It makes playing the game more troublesome than challenging to me. I’d prefer a shorter game as long it kept my interest more, had more voicing and overall more challenge than this 3rd rendition of the series. Eh…

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