Game Feature: Lux-Pain
SILENT MUST DIE...
Finally finished playing Lux-Pain, a visual novel game released for Nintendo DS yesterday. Normally I don't do reviews for games as they are too much of a hassle, but this is exceptional.
It's a story of a young boy, Atsuki Saijo, whose family has been murdered by Silent infectees and now works for an organization, FORT in order to exterminate the Silent. These Silents are parasitic worms that feeds on the negative emotions of humans, and amplifies them to the extent of madness. This basic premise of the game holds a lot of promise, only that it does not live up to them. The reason?
BAD LOCALIZATION, BAD BAD BAD.
First of all, the voice acting does not match up to the text for 80% of the time. It was as if the voice actors decided that they didn't agree with the script and started paraphrasing as they go along. This is just sad as the voice acting is actually good, and they reflected the characters' looks and personalities perfectly.
If you think you can just turn off the voices and read the text instead, you are in for another shock.
BAD GRAMMATICAL ERRORS, BAD BAD BAD.
I don't even know where to begin with the godawful script. It is understandable to a certain extent, but half the time the grammar mistakes and sentence structures were so poor that you get more and more confused as the story goes on. For instance, the writers can't even decide whether they want the story to take place in the London or Tokyo, what with half the time the characters say London and another half they refer it as Tokyo. Characters genders are also confused, (he) becomes a (she) and (she) becomes a (he). Oh God...
Not everything about this game is bad though. I was able to finish it due to the suspense the story provides admid the horrible grammar and convoluted sentences and the pretty art. The characters are drawn beautifully, with personalities and backstory to match and this invokes a feeling of familiarization and empathy as the game goes on. Most of them have their own problems to deal with, and the game itself involves issues of social neglect, suicides, animal abuse, and bullying.
Not really recommended due to the BAD BAD BAD LOCALIZATION though. IMHO, the whole team should to be fired for not even proof-checking their own script!
Now I need to reread storybooks to regain my English... and then on to Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume!