Review Lux-Pain Developer: Ignition Entertainment Publisher: Killaware Co., Ltd. Genre: Adventure Release Date: March 27, 2009 Platform: Review by Ray Ivey April 30, 2009		Buy this game at Trade for this game at:

A drum I’ve been beating loudly recently, to anyone who will listen, is the viability of the Nintendo DS as a premier platform for new adventure games.

After the last Japanese adventure I played on the DS, Time Hollow, I was even more encouraged.

So I picked up Lux-Pain, despite its title, with lots of good will.

I fired up the game and was immediately pleased by the production values evident in the game’s visuals. This may be an even prettier game than Time Hollow was.

Alas. After that first moment of eye-pleasing goodness, virtually everything else about the game was off-putting.

First of all, it’s one thing to have to endure yet another lead character in a Japanese game who’s a young man with a strikingly beautiful but feminine face, but it’s quite another when the very narration of the game explicitly describes him that way.

This young man, Atsuki, seems to be some sort of spirit-hunter, on the prowl for evidence of a Typhoid-Mary-type spreader of a vicious psychic (and psychological) virus that’s sweeping the city.

Okay . . I realize looking at the sentence I just typed that I’ve just made the premise of the game actually sound compelling.

It’s not. Or at least, it wasn’t to me. Perhaps it would draw you in if, in addition to being an avid gamer, you were also a suicidal Gothic Lolita girl on the streets of Tokyo. Because that’s who this game seems aimed at.

I’m sorry . . . I said “game,” didn’t I?

Oops. Lux-Pain isn’t actually a game, though it’s being sold as one. What is it, then?

It’s a really pretty, partially animated, slightly interactive manga.

Lots of Japanese games have extensive cutscenes, but Lux-Pain is a cutscene. With occasional bits of gameplay which consist of . . . are you ready? . . . scratching the touch screen of the DS with your stylus. Over and over. Like an eraser.

Oh, and sometimes you get to tap the screen, too!

And, to be fair, every now and then you get to make some boring choices in dialog trees.

Yup, them’s the gameplay elements.

The longer I spent with the game, the more incredulous I became. When does the actual game start? I kept wondering. Text screen after text screen after dialog after dialog . . . .

What’s worse is that what’s going on in front of you is utterly incomprehensible. You have a pile of different characters thrown at you, and they all talk . . . a lot.

Really. A lot. And in between there’s a lot of narration.

The sad fact is: this game suffers from a toxic case of, forgive me, Crazy Japanese-ness.

Now, I love lots of Japanese games. Hell, I love JAPAN. It’s a beautiful country and Tokyo is an amazing city.

But it’s also full of stuff that’s just batshit. Like the fact that the city is such a labyrinth that frequently even taxi drivers can’t find the restaurant you’re going to, even though they all are equipped with GPS devices.

And here’s one: When I was there, my favorite children’s magazine was called, I kid you not, FUCK. (I have the photos to prove this.)

I think you’d really need to be a Japanese teenager to understand, or be interested in understanding, this opaque and utterly grim storyline.

Also, the game suffers from a very sloppy localization, so that frequently the voice over work (yes, there’s lots of it) doesn’t match what the subtitles are saying. And even when they do, you’re frequently left thinking . . . “Huh?”

Not only is the atmosphere of the game pitch-black, full of suicide, murder and insanity, but like so many Japanese games it’s populated by people that look like children. And that’s just creepy.

Baffled and disheartened, I eventually cracked open the game’s manual.

It’s 41 pages long.

A 41-page long manual for an adventure game.

The manual goes into exhaustive detail about the backstory, the characters, and what the main character’s goals are. Buried in there somewhere is some information about the afore-mentioned gameplay element, but you have to be pretty dedicated to find it.

Why is this a problem? Well. For many years now, all games (and particularly console games) have been moving toward the idea that the game teaches you how to play it. The manual, particularly for an adventure game, should merely be a reference. Something you might go back to now and again when you forget a detail of how the interface works. You shouldn’t have to study it for hours before you can make sense of anything that’s happening. I’m not interested in doing a book report; I want to play a game.

For my money, it’s page 32 of the manual which most perfectly sums up everything that’s wrong with Lux-Pain. On it is a grid that shows a possible range of emotions you can choose from when conversing with other characters. The emotions are Angry, Surprised, Stunned, Cold, Sad, Smile and Happy. Each of these labels is above a picture of the game’s main character demonstrating that emotion. But here’s the hilarious thing: They all look almost exactly alike. Particularly guffaw-inducing are Happy and Smile, for which the character is not smiling at all.

I will say this. This game does seem to be tapping into some sort of general spiritual angst afflicting urban Japanese youth. This game is extremely reminiscent of a 2007 game which I also hated, an RPG from Square-Enix called The World Ends With You. So it’s entirely possible that I’m all wet, and that the pitch-black sensibility of Lux-Pain will appeal to you. But I really cannot recommend it.

This game should have stayed in Japan.

Final Grade: Left off in the name of kindness (find out more about our grading system)

If you liked this game, then Play: The World Ends With You (DS) Read: Perdido Street Station by China Miéville

System Requirements:

Nintendo DS and an extreme Emo/Goth sensibility

This review is copyright Ray Ivey and Just Adventure and may not be republished elsewhere without the express written consent of the author. Republication of said review must also contain a link back to Just Adventure.