Luminous Plume

Luminous Plume is the healthy lovechild of the Ys and Tales of combat formulae, with good doses of world building and likeable characters sprinkled in. It is undeniably a product made with, and by love and I'll attempt to explain point by point just why. Gameplay: As mentionned previously LP features a hybrid of sorts between the fluid and high paced action gameplay of a modern Ys game, and the 2-dimensional, ability-based combat of a Tales of. The result is an incredibly intense and fun ARPG where you hack and slash your way through waves of enemies arena-style, and eventually fight a challenging Boss at the end of the stage. Writing: While it's nothing outstandingly unique or revolutionnary, the world building is really well done, without any jarring info dumps that halt the narrative progression, but through the characters' dialogues. The more they talk, the more you paint yourself a picture of how this world operates, what are its rules and what happened to make it the way it is...

Better combat than Tales of Arise.

Notice: Luminous Plume requires a controller in order to play. Playing with a keyboard and mouse isn't supported. I play with keyboard anyway I get hand cramps It's on nightmare mode

Luminous Plume is quite possibly one of my favourite action games to date. Mixing the classic art based combat of Tales with something faster and more fluid in the vein of Ys, the game delivers fast, satisfying, responsive combat which makes it an absolute joy to hack and slash through. With challenging boss fights and a fairly brutal difficulty, which may start to relent near the end, the game offers players a chance to test their skills, especially on the nightmare mode. It also features beautiful art and environments that make the game just as good to watch as play, and an electrifying and unforgettable soundtrack by Aoki Katsumata, Luminous Plume delivers an outstanding experience, and is well worth it's price. I'd put it at an 8.75/10, but considering my scale is considered a bit harsh, that may be closer to a 9.5/10 for most people.

It's hard to add to what other reviewers have written, but it's simply a great game. With deep, engaging gameplay, outstanding music, lovely art, a unique world and a really interesting story, it has pretty much everything you'd want from a game. The pacing is tight too, with no filler whatsoever. Though slightly (and understandably) rough around the edges, this game was obviously a labour of love and certainly gets things right where it counts. I eagerly await future titles from XenoHorizon, and encourage anyone who is interested in fun action RPGs to give this a shot.

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 i...

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. I...

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.