Lux Pain for Nintendo DS Reviews by Gamers

The description was intriguing so I added it to my queue. Unfortunately, I couldn't stand it when it started. Confusing cut scene after confusing cut scene, with no actual game.

I'm a fan of visual novels on the PC but this was horrid. The voice acting was bad and it commonly did not match the text - in fact it almost never did.

There was no explanation of who you were, no set up for the action, and no explanation of why what you're doing is even important. Perhaps it was revealed after a much longer play than I gave the game, but I don't keep hammering nails into my leg hoping one of them will eventually feel good. I felt like I was trapped in someone's very bad fanfic.

I wouldn't even suggest giving it a go. Get World Ends With You if you really need a quirky anime-styled DS game. You'll thank yourself.

The premise of Lux Pain seemed good, but it falls apart quickly. The game itself guides you through where to go, who to talk to, etc. Sometimes it even does it automatically, leaving you with no choice but to just wait it out.

The dialogue is poorly localized and translated. There's spelling errors every other sentence, and mysterious apostrophes appear behind slang such as "wanna" or "gotta". The voice actors obviously tried to improve the poor dialogue by improvising and changing things around. I found that preferable to the drivel I was reading, but that's really no excuse for the poor translation and frequent misspellings. It's obvious that several different people worked on this project, but someone should have checked it and smoothed over the rough patches before rushing into production like a bull in a china shop - and I think that's exactly what happened.

The gameplay is kind of boring. There's not much of a challenge. The only "fighting" you get to do involves scratching the stylus across the screen, tapping, or slashing at the silent - a giant bug that talks to you as you try to fight little white blobs. Unfortunately, you can't be bothered to read it if you're trying to kill the blobs. Whatever, I'm sure it didn't say anything important anyway.

It's obvious that this game was influenced by social issues - parental neglect, drug abuse, suicide, etc. The premise seems interesting, but the game falls flat. I got to the end, but had lost all desire to fight the last boss. It's sitting around collecting dust until I sell it back.

This game really isn't worth your time. It could have been a well executed, poignant and socially relevant game. The art is nice, but Ignition's poor execution killed this title before it even had a chance.