A worthy combination of JRPG elements, decent tactical gameplay mechanics, and cast of quarky, fun loving characters.
STORYLINE:
This game has a ton of characters in it that you'll accumulate as the story continues. This isn't exactly rare in a tactics game, but part of what makes Luminous Arc interesting is the fact that each one as a unique fully developed personality that when clashed together during cut scenes coupled with some voice acting can really make the presentation of it all stand out. In truth, there is not real "main" character as the story revolves around the party as a group rather than the guy, Alph, who you represent during any actual role playing. The story begins with a cutscene of some higher ups in the church, who seem to be the main rulers of the land, discussing plans to eliminate rumored witches that have been plaguing the land. The scene the cuts to Alph and the rest of the knights being asigned to do just that, but the group of trained witch slayers are still very green, so the begining of the game is mostly about them trying, somewhat succesfully, to do their jobs. Eventually however, the story takes a couple of turns to where the witches slayers find out that they may be getting in WAY over there heads as more facts about the witches origins are revealed.
GAMEPLAY:
The gameplay isn't new by any means if you've ever played a tactics game before. Combat is styled very similarly to the Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Disgaea titles only a lot less involving as far as any character customization goes. Most of the characters level up automatically gaining stats and skills in a railroad type fashion once they gain enough experience. The only modifications that can be made to them involve equiping armor and weapons. Battles are all on grids and traveling between the is pretty linear, and displayed on the "world map". Basic old-school JRPG/Tactics style.
For those who are unfamiliar with any of this, think of it this way. Every time you move from one selected location to another you are given a clip of story of challenged to play a Tactics" battle what I tend to think of a version of extremely complicated chess. It's fun, if your into stategy gaming, but it takes some getting used to.
SOUND:
The sound was good enough to keep things interesting, but the voice acting was very hot or cold depending on the voice. For instance, whoever played they lazy witch Vivi was perfect, but whoever played Venessa was terrible and shrill. GRAPHICS:
Old 2D Anime stuff similar to what they've been doing in Playstation JRPGs years before, but the characters and cutscenes are drawn with obvious talent and display themselves nicely enough.