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Moonlit played her games a LOT over the last few days. 'Cause being sick is really really boring and her DS happens to be on the thingy right next to her bed. <3

Umm... She ended up getting Luminous Arc, and she love love LOVES it.

Moonlit doesn't know how far she is... She's definately far enough to stick a spoiler warning on a rant, but otherwise she doesn't know.

But she thinks she'll avoid a spoily rant for the time being~ -w-

Instead she'll just gush over it. <3

I mean, the opening video already earned 400 awesomeness points from Moonlit before she started playing! I think it was... 100 'cause of the song, 100 for art, 100 more 'cause I can (put it under art if you must give it a category), and another 100 'cause I reset to watch it again before I started playing. <3

It's an anime thinger showing off the characters and whatnot. Like the Tales series has. BUT! Big but! This is the ONLY game Moonlit has EVER seen that keeps the original japanese song for the english release.

...Oh, and did Moonlit ever mention that Luminous Arc is for the DS?

She doesn't think she did but she thinks you mighta guessed...

Anyway!

Moonlit must say she's been fairly dissapointed in Tales of the Tempest's opening since she saw LA's... I mean, they have maybe five total seconds of anime and the rest is just zooming in and out on the character models used in the game. And the sound quality for the song isn't the best. >>; Come on Namco, you can do better than that! I HAVE PROOF.

TotT sorta sucks in general (as much as Moonlit is a fan of Tales of...).

Not worth the import unless you can get it super-cheap like Moonlit did. XP

Back to LA~

Moonlit just found the opening on Youtube. >w< Ignore the gametrailers thing. It's the only video Moonlit could find that wasn't a bad quality thing of someone video-taping their DS... >>;

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ksGAa7iI1So

*fangirls*

And guess what, guess what?! >w<

Some of the cutscenes are voice-acted! On the DS! Moonlit didn't know you could do a lot of that on DS games! o__o I mean, a few voice clips here and there ("OBJECTION!" wink Moonlit can see, but the cutscenes? >w<

'Course, there's a LOT of text, so only a few are done. And usually only certain parts. It's a bit strange, but you get used to it.

Moonlit's not quite sure if the voices are a good thing, though. Some of them are pretty good, but others are sorta...er... Well, Mel's isn't that great, for one. There's this one scene where she starts crying a lot, but it sorta sounds like she's laughing...?

Nikolai can be a little painful to listen to sometimes, but I like to think that he's got some of the best voice-acting once you get used to him. :3

Moonlit might be a LITTLE biased, though. XD She uses Nikolai all the time 'cause he's got some good buffing spells and decent attack power if an enemy happens to come his way. :3 That's usually not going to happen on maps where you've got a narrow path 'cause he can only move 3 squares, but he works wonders on the wide open maps... Oh, and he's got a crossbow, so his movement limitation isn't so bad.

...Oh, Moonlit hasn't explained the battles, has she?

If you've ever played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, you'll be right at home here. Moonlit can't think of any other examples other than the Summon Night main series and the first Final Fantasy Tactics, but she doesn't think those are as likely to have been played... Especially Summon Night. >>;

You COULD compare it to Fire Emblem, but it's different enough that it's a better idea not to.

Basically... You've got a grid-based map in 3-D. Every character has a number for moving and jumping (the standard is 4 and 3 respectively, I think). Jumping is 'cause there's no such thing as a smooth hill in this game, 'cause each space is one elevation and one elevation only. Yay blocky maps! Anywho, you never really pay much attention to jumping as it's usually not a problem (only a few maps have incredibly dramatic changes in elevation), but it becomes painfully noticable when you're trying to get your magic users around...

Just like common sense dictates, you usually have to get in an enemy's face to hit 'im. But, you can also stab 'im in the back if you want to, and that's usually a better choice. Who can say no to increased damage and hit rate?

Spells are usually either target self, target one, or target area. Target area is usually five squares in a + arrangement, though it can be more in the case of a few spells...

And, well... The rest of it is pretty obvious to anyone who's played RPGs, except that the fastest characters don't necessarilly move first. The characters with the highest move go first, and speed is used to determine who out of the ones in a certain move group go first. At least, Moonlit thinks so. She really wishes she knew this before she blew all that money on stuff to up Nikolai's speed... *sigh*

Nikolai's getting more turns than he used to, but I do wish he could take his turn before all the fighters take off. I wanna buff 'em, first. D:

Oh, yeah. Characters who don't do everything they can in their turn get to go again sooner. Like, if you perform an action without moving, or if you move without doing anything else. Or if you just do nothing.

Annnd, Moonlit thinks that's all she can think of that isn't that obvious...

Anywho, story! <3

It starts off with you and your friends as Garden Children; kids raised by a member of the Luminous Church to specifically fight Witches. 'Cause the Witches and the Church don't agree with each other one bit.

...Yes, this is rather religious. Made-up religion, obviously, but don't play if you've got something against it 'cause the whole game revolves around it.

Anywho. The Garden Children are:

Alph: "You." Um, typical RPG hero, I guess. I never really liked main characters... You have to use him in every storyline battle, but he's a decent fighter and gets a few ranged attacks so it's all good.

Theo: Your brother. He's adorable and he looks up to you. And he's got a bow. Whee! He's pretty useful in the beginning, but not that much once you start getting more ranged fighters and decent magic-users.

Leon: He likes women. And swords. And getting pumped up. And steak. He and Alph get along pretty well. Battle-wise, his range sucks but he's strong and he can take hits. He's a good boss-killer, especially when paired with Nikolai. He even has a self-buff. Tell me that's not useful.

Ceceille: HOW DO YOU SPELL HER NAME. Anyway, she's a priestess in the Church. No, I don't know how that works out when she's supposed to be training to kill Witches all the time. Anywho, she's your typical nice healer, but she doesn't get along perfectly with Leon or Nikolai all the time. >>; It's a little hard to level her up until she gets the MP to cast more than one or two healing spells (once she does, just cast it over and over again on people for an easy 30 exp. People with buff spells can do the same thing, but casting it on yourself will get you a measly 5 exp if it doesn't hit anyone else). But that's okay, 'cause healers aren't that necessary until later, and there's always items.

Lucia: Not a Garden Child, but hey, she joins as their maid. She loves brooms, and refuses to do the dishes. Bossy, a bit rude, and it's obvious she and Alph like each other. *sigh*

After being dragged around a bit by your trainer dude (his name is Heath, he's got a spear, and don't give him anything important), you eventually get sent off with your friends as the Fatal Hounds on a mission to destroy whatever Witches you can find and track down the Lapistier of each element, 'cause Witches can tap into their powers and make stuff go boom.

The group decides that they have absolutely no idea what they're doing, so they decide to hunt down Nikolai, who was one of the Garden Children but is currently off doing research on the Witches.

He's not where they think he is but fortunately they meet up with the final Garden Child, Saki (Saki is a ninja. She tends to die a lot, but I like to use her anyway 'cause she gets lots of turns and is good bait), who is usually off gathering intelligence and happens to know where Nikolai is. Yay!

So, you meet up with Nikolai. After cringing, laughing, or doing both at his voice and his obsession with all things Witchy, Runey, or Ceceilley, you find that he does in fact know what he's talking about and is able to tell you where you should go. Yay Nikolai! ...And Moonlit thinks she's covered him battle-wise (crossbow + area buffs = win).

That's about as far as Moonlit can go without giving away spoilers. And there are indeed spoilers in the time frame that Moonlit covered, but she didn't say them. XP

Anywho. Uhhh... Moonlit loves Luminous Arc! <3333

Moonlit was gonna post some about her other games but the Luminous Arc rant was looong. So Moonlit won't. This time. :3