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Lux-Pain Review for Nintendo DS

Lux-Pain Review for Nintendo DS

Plain-Sux

Let me just start off by saying that I had absolutely no exposure to Lux-Pain before I received a copy to review. As with most games that I’m unfamiliar with, I’ll take some time looking over the box in an attempt to deduce what to expect before jumping headlong into playing the title. Based on the moody looking anime scene represented on Lux-Pain’s box, I narrowed my expectations down to either some sort of an RPG or an action game, with a slight leaning towards an RPG.

Lux-Pain screenshot

Checking out the back of the box only solidified my preconception of it being an RPG, or so I thought, showing screens with large characters conversing through the use of dialogue boxes. However, after popping the game into my DS and playing it for countless hours, I’m still not quite sure how best to label this title.

On one hand, Lux-Pain is a lengthy experience complete with a long list of characters, tons of dialogue, a confusing storyline, and even some leveling up. However, while all of these things would normally be telltale signs of an RPG, Lux-Pain turns out to be something else entirely. What that something else is I’m still not particularly sure, but I can definitely say without any shred of doubt that I did not enjoy most of my time spent with Lux-Pain for a variety of reasons.

The largest and most detrimental obstacle standing between me and enjoying Lux-Pain was its story and how it is told. The story revolves around the game’s main character Atsuki Saijo. Atsuki is a member of an underground task force known as FORT, who is seeking out some sort of evil known as SILENT that is responsible for a rash of unexplained suicides. To get to the bottom of this threat and prevent more deaths, Atsuki needs to make use of his, ugh, telepathic powers and must, double ugh, go undercover at a local high school to gather information.

Lux-Pain screenshot

Lux-Pain actually has you traveling all over Kisaragi, although you typically won’t really have any idea why you’re going to any of the game’s locations. One minute you’ll be talking with a little girl and a dog in an alley about some guy who has been killing animals and the next you’re being confronted by two drunken girls in front of a hamburger shack who really have nothing useful to convey. But sadly, even if there is no valuable information to be had within this, and many other similar exchanges throughout the game, you’ll still be forced to sift through the plethora of these idle conversations regardless.

In fact, these discussions make up about ninety-five percent of Lux-Pain’s “gameplay.” So, to make sure you know exactly what you’re getting yourself into, I’ll describe the process of “playing” the game in better detail. First, you need to use your stylus to choose a quadrant of the city, usually whichever place that happens to be illuminated. Next, you’ll choose a more specific destination such as a cafeteria or the front of the school. After this, a random anime character will confront you and it is up to you to wait for their dialogue box to fill with text and then tap it to continue on with the conversation. You’ll often need to repeat this last step for a good five to ten minutes depending on just how longwinded your current companion happens to be. This becomes even more frustrating when you factor in the numerous pointless conversations that constantly transpire as well as the ones that do attempt to progress the story but are so convoluted and confusing that reading them does no good anyway.

Lux-Pain screenshot

Your occasional treat for suffering through these countless chats is that every so often the dialogue can be followed by a sigma symbol appearing on the screen. Tapping this letter from the Greek alphabet will allow you to take part in a tiny, timed mini-game where you’ll be searching for Shinen. Shinen are worms that reside in environments and characters that need to be extracted so that Atsuki can use them to gain insight into the current situation.

These worms are found by scribbling back and forth on the touch screen as though it were a lottery ticket and, once they’re made visible, need to be touched for a few seconds to be removed. These worms then turn into a small phrase such as “Suicide Incident” or “Hate Being Alone” that are then reinserted into wherever they were taken from to reveal random chunks of text relating to your previous conversation. After completing this, you’ll be given experience points based on how many worms were collected and how long the process took that will eventually lead to Atsuki having more time and scratching ability during later worm hunts.

Lux-Pain screenshot

While the game’s confusing story and sheer lack of gameplay make Lux-Pain a pretty abysmal package overall, it does have a few good things going for it. For one, the graphics are actually quite pleasing. The anime characters all have an appealing look, as do the game’s mostly static backgrounds. Different effects such as the pulsating backgrounds found when reinserting worms and the way the screen looks while scratching away at it are pleasant surprises. Another astonishing addition to Lux-Pain is just how much voice work they were able to cram into a tiny DS cart. Not every line of dialogue in the game is voiced but there is definitely more present than one would expect. Of course, while it is delivered fairly well and the total amount is impressive, it is also all pretty poorly localized, often not matching its accompanying text. This is a small gripe but it does serve to further confuse anyone actually trying to follow the game’s mess of a storyline.

In the end, Lux-Pain just ends up feeling like a confusing, boring, and poorly localized novel with occasionally interactive pictures. The game’s story is tough to follow, even if you aren’t struggling to pay attention, and even tougher to care about since it is literally all over the place. This is also unfortunate considering the story appears to be the main draw here due to the fact that there really is no gameplay to be found. Unless you are a huge fan of constantly scratching your head and only occasionally scratching your DS’s touch screen, you can do much better than Lux-Pain when looking for an entertaining experience.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 3.7 Graphics
Although most of the backgrounds are completely static pictures and characters’ animations become very repetitious, Lux-Pain still looks pretty good overall. 2.5 Control
The controls work but are virtually non-existent. Perhaps this game should have been called Let’s Tap, since that is pretty much all you’ll be doing as you make your way through countless dialogue boxes. 4.4 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
There is a ton of good quality yet poorly localized voice work squeezed into this DS cart, and the music is fairly enjoyable as well. 1.0

Play Value
Most of Lux-Pain’s gameplay is derived from wading through innumerable dialogue boxes by tapping the stylus or pressing a single button. If this sounds like fun to you, save yourself some money by buying a book and arbitrarily clicking your mouse 1,000 times while reading it.

1.5 Overall Rating – Avoid
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.

Game Features:

  • Investigate your surroundings and gather hints by conversing with characters in the game.
  • Explore the massive world of Kisaragi City.
  • Use your stylus to conduct autopsies of Silent worms found throughout the game.
  • Psychic Powers enable you to save potential victims from Silent. Use your stylus to find the parasite before it reaches the heart of the victim.

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