You know, I was just thinking, there's this game I like, I've talked about this one both on and off stream, it's Luminous Arc 2. It's one of those Way of the Samurai 4 games that are garbage games that did some things REALLY well but are still very much not good games overall, but that I LOVE. You know how much I love Way of the Samurai 4. I also love Luminous Arc 2, it's not a good game, it's a game that merits 0 playthroughs, and yet I gave it 2 full playthroughs.
With WotS4, I can explain to you what parts of it are genius hidden in an ocean of shit, but I can't with Luminous Arc 2, I've not done the mental homework on that one, so I did this weekend, and...
Luminous Arc 2 executes the Nanoha-style Magical Girl formula very very well.
Now, you may have heard that Nanoha is a mecha show but instead of mecha, there's magical girls. And that assessment is absolutely 100% correct. Luminous Arc 2 somehow distills the purely Magical Girl elements from Nanoha's mecha-magical girl execution and pulls them off REALLY well.
Allow me to elaborate.
Nanoha nails down the Good Fight Scene. Not just in fight choreography, but also, in essence of what a good fight scene aims to accomplish for an overarching narrative as an element in the bigger scheme that you can't just skip. Think about Code Geass for a moment: Is Code Geass a mecha show? It sure has mecha, but it's not a mecha show. You could replace the mecha in Code Geass with tanks and helicopters and nothing would change. In fact, at least one adaption of Code Geass does exactly this. Code Geass is a great show but it's not mecha in its themes and execution. Code Geass is a not mecha show with mecha. Nanoha is a mecha show without mecha. You can't remove the fights from Nanoha without it not being Nanoha anymore, and in each fight, we learn more about the characters, the characters learn more about each other, and even if any given fight does not move the plot forward, it does move the character arcs forward, on top of being fun to watch.
And Nanoha accomplishes this by making the same characters fight each other a bunch. Symphogear also does this. Each fight between the same characters feels different each time, because they are growing in terms of motivations and themes.
Luminous Arc 2 does the same with each of its big arcs. In the optional sidequests, you often just fight some mooks and a stronger, sometimes recolored version of a generic monster. The main story stages of the game, though? You are always fighting someone important or a consequence of someone's important's actions. Initially, you fight an ice witch named Fatima and her cat familiar and companion Josie a bunch. As the plot advances, your rogue's gallery keeps expanding, from the bandit Karen and her gang, who initially seem to be disconnected to the overall plot and is more of a Team Rocket deal, to actual lore powerhouses like Master Matthias and others who I shall omit for brevity. Luminous Arc 2 has three big arcs, and each of these have an evolving cast of reoccurring bosses that you fight for plot reasons, and you get to know each other a lot more with each fight, shedding light on their motivations, and them shedding light, in turn, on the motivations of your own side, which are actually not immediately discernible to you in their entirety.
And this is all really good! You get used to their signature moves, their animations, the way they usually structure their units, a bunch of really cool little things.
And maybe this game is sounding good to you, but make no mistake, it's a pretty fucking mediocre SRPG that you can play with your brain turned off. No cohesion, very little unit identity, incredibly self-indulgent first and everything else a distant second, it's NOT a good game... But what it did good, it really knocked it out of the park.
In terms of getting to know your enemy, their motivations, and how they in turn get to know and let you know more about you... Luminous Arc 2 does it better than most. Which is hilarious because this game sucks in every other department. It's not a good game. I did two full playthroughs and I would do a third.
