Lux Pain for Nintendo DS Reviews by Gamers

this would have made a good anime, not a video game.

This is my first time writing a game review so hopefully I won't be too bad at this.

I'll say that first of all, I actually really liked this game. However, you'll need to have a lot of patience. The story/plot is very interesting and the characters are a nice break from the dark and gloomy happenings of Kisaragi City. However, the dialog, as this is a visual-novel game, suffers from terribily poor translation. And I mean really terrible.

Female characters are often called 'he' or 'him' and vice-versa for male characters. The voice-overs hint that the story takes place in America, while subtitles say Japan. Even names were often mispelled. Like 'Atsuki' Saijo, the main character of the story, was called 'Akatsuki'. All of which make the game rather difficult to follow in some parts, and even when the subs and VOs all match up, you're left thinking "What the...?".

The gameplay is basically using the DS pen to 'erase' (scratching & tapping the touch screen). Worms from Silent infected the character's minds. I love a challenge, and, although this was almost painfully easy (you'll most likely never see a 'Game Over' if not once), I thought it was addicting and fun. There is also no tutorial in the game, which is odd for a visual novel, so you'll have to read the manual.

I also have to say that the artwork was really well done in this game! The background music was also wonderful. It fit each scene or battle I encountered perfectly. Whether it was another spontaneous day with your friends or a dark forboding encounter with a Silent infectee.

I think Lux-Pain had the potential to be a spectacular game, but was sadly dragged through the mud by poor translation and localization. I've already beaten the game last night, and I'm ready to give it another go! I highly recommend renting it first, to see if it's worth buying. Lux-Pain is truly a diamond in the rough. If you can get past the bad translation, then I'm sure you'll love Lux-Pain.