Luminous Plume

Better combat than Tales of Arise.

A very enjoyable game with engaging combat, fans of Tales of series can feel right at home. Love the chest messages as well, i feel like it's a nod to Trails series.

[h1]Smug Aura Mocks Me[/h1] [h2]Story[/h2] The plot is more about the main character's personal growth than any grand adventure about saving the world. In fact, the protagonist already technically got involved in saving the country, but couldn't handle the mistakes he made in the process and basically stagnated. The concept is nice, but I feel like there's not enough closure for the main antagonist or late game interactions with the only village. Instead, the postgame is mainly closure for the secondary antagonist, who turns out to be similar to Raven in many ways. [h2]Gameplay[/h2] The game tries to combine elements of the Ys and Tales series while making the experience harder in some ways, at least in the beginning. Defending is more akin to Ys, due to the Flash Guard mechanic, but it can't be abused as much because you can't cancel attack animations into guarding. To make up for this, the player gets Shield, which gives Raven an aura that weakens his attack, but negates damage in exchange for massive chunks of his AP. It can save the player's current attempt of a round, but using it too much will result in the player having no AP to use techs or defend another attack. The s…

Pretty good! As a Tales fan, I appreciate the combat system; it's criminally underused, and I'd love to see more of this in a sequel or other followup. I'd particularly like permanent party members or playable characters, though Raven's one-man show is a lot of fun. For any fellow Tales fans concerned about being overrun, don't worry; the main character can shield during attacks, so you won't be stunlocked to death because you're outnumbered. The story is a bit short, but pretty decent! I had my doubts because the characters looked generic at first, but they really grew on me. The soundtrack is also solid; there's something nostalgic about it even though I just played it in the last week.

Absolutely an easy recommendation, though its not perfect. Ultimately the price tag is low enough, and the core fun is high enough that the flaws didn't bother me in the least. While Luminous Plume makes reference to Ys and Tales and the inspiration is there... I also found it to build the wrong expectations for the game. This game strips out all of the epic scale of a JRPG and tightens it to a few hour experience. You still get the story, the skills, the combat, and the customization... but it happens alot faster with little filler. This is done by making it purely combat against waves of enemies. Between waves treasures are rewarded and stories are told. Branches in the maps allow you to face the stronger and more rewarding waves, or the easier ones. There's no grinding, no exploring, limited sidequests (AKA one wave fights)... just combat. When combat is the sole focus on a game, its a question of whether it's good enough to carry the experience. In this case, absolutely yes. It takes the basic formula of Tales combat, but adds in timed guards and "Auras" that let you go extremely offensive or defensive. There's a good variety of enemies and mostly well-crafted boss fights …

Interesting RPG that has a battle style similar to 2D "tales of" games. A little lacking in stuff to do, and there's not alot of open worldness to it either, but the battle system and RPG mechanics are fun and worth giving a try. The story ain't half bad either.