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Luminous Arc 2
North American box art
Developer(s)	imageepoch
Publisher(s)	Marvelous Entertainment Inc. (Japan) Atlus (North America) Rising Star Games (Europe)
Designer(s)	Shuetsu Kadowaki (director) Kaito Shibano (designer)
Composer(s)	Yasunori Mitsuda Akari Kaida Shunsuke Tsuchiya Yōko Shimomura Yoshino Aoki
Platform(s)	Nintendo DS
Release date(s)	JP May 15, 2008 NA November 18, 2008
Genre(s)	Tactical role-playing
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer, online multiplayer
Rating(s)	CERO: A ESRB: T
Media	128-megabit Nintendo DS Game Card

Luminous Arc 2 (ルミナスアーク2 ウィル, Ruminasu Āku Tsū Wiru^?, Luminous Arc 2: Will) is the second game in the Luminous Arc series of strategy RPGs. The game was featured at the Marvelous Entertainment Inc. booth at the Tokyo Game Show 2007. It was released in Japan on May 15, 2008 and North America on November 18, 2008.^[1] The game includes a bonus music CD insert.^[1] Those who preordered the game at selected retailers received an art book named "Luminous Art", which offers content from both Luminous Arc games.^[2]

[edit] Gameplay

A screenshot of a battle: the top screen shows units' status and information, while the touch screen displays units' positions and turn order.

Luminous Arc 2 is a strategy RPG in which characters can be moved across an isometric grid. Each character can be equipped with weapons, armor, items, and magical "Lapis" gemstones. Characters learn special skills by level up and are able to use a "Flash Drive" special attack upon attacking or defeating enemies. When a character's hit points reach zero, they are removed from battle, but are able to be revived.

[edit] Plot

[edit] Story

In an age when magic supports everyday life and civilization itself, peace is maintained by the queen's knights and the Rev Magic Association. Sixteen years before the game's story begins, monsters called Beast Fiends started to appear, destroying everything in their way. Mattias, leader of the Magic Association, used the evil Demon Blade to try to seal the source of the fiends, but was sealed away himself by the elemental witches. New Beast Fiends have been appearing, and the Kingdom of Carnava overextends its forces trying to protect the entire kingdom. Meanwhile, Fatima, a powerful witch of the Association with control of the rare Shadow Frost Magic, goes rogue and starts a conflict with the Association, causing more trouble for the Kingdom.

Trying to solve the crisis, the Kingdom starts a clandestine research project to produce an easier way to use magic. The story starts at the point when the Kingdom had just successfully completed this tool, the "Runic Engine". Roland, a knight in training, is accidentally imbued with this new power, and fights the Beast Fiends, Master Mattias and the Shadow Frost Witch. In the course of the game, he discovers that the Rev Magic Association had covered up Mattias' turn towards evil. However, they did not realize that Mattias did this to try and save the world, rather than destroy it. He later discovers that Bharva, king of the Fiends, was manipulating events, and joins with Fatima to prevent the Mage Queen Elicia, creator of the Fiends, from overrunning the world with them.

The player has a choice of having a romantic relationship with Fatima or Althea, and parts of the story, including the ending, will change depending on the player's pre-battle dialogue choices.

[edit] Characters

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[edit] Manga

A manga based on the story of Luminous Arc 2 has begun serialization.^[3]

[edit] Development

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[edit] Reception

Famitsu gave Luminous Arc 2 28/40.^[4] The game sold 41,000 copies in Japan in its first week of release.^[5]

For the US release, the Metacritic aggregation^[6] currently stands at a 75% with 11 reviews being averaged. IGN and Destructoid gave the game 80% scores, praising both the humor and characters. 1UP's gave the game a B-. The 1UP review bemoaned the lack of innovation in multiplayer over the previous game, but the reviewer enjoyed most of the other updates to the game over the previous version.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official English Website
• Official Japanese Website (Japanese)
• Luminous Arc 2 Discussions (Japanese)