Scratch the surface of dark anime mystery with Lux-Pain DS

There was a time when pretty much any weird Japanese game would be lapped up by western audiences. But as gamers become less hardcore we've become more picky about our oriental fancies. Still if there's enough of an angle, whether sex, violence, bizarre plots or funky graphics (or all of them – Killer 7, No More Heroes, Madworld, etc), there's usually plenty of interest.

When it comes to DS games, however, the available graphical grunt as well as the audience tends to be a bit lacking. But that doesn't mean there aren't any trailblazers; they just tend to be tucked away.

One such is Lux-Pain. Certainly it's got a name that catches the attention. The game itself is tantalising, too. Seemingly one part Phoenix Wright to two parts Hotel Dusk: Room 215 plus a dash of Trauma Center, it's a dark text-based paranormal anime-styled adventure based in a Japanese high school – and you don't get many of those to Yen.

Oh yes. Just check out the official description:

"A powerful mind parasite known as SILENT is spreading throughout the city. It infects humans and pushes them to perform horrendous acts by controlling their minds. Atsuki is a member of FORT, a secret organisation devoted to eradicating this parasite. Despatched to Kisaragi City as an undercover student, he has a special skill that can gain him the advantage against an invisible enemy: he can see SILENT."

As this is a DS game, Atsuki's special skill is unleashed as you talk to the various characters in Kisaragi, scratching over sections of their body on the DS' bottom screen depending on what you see on the top screen. This destroys SILENT and revealing more clues about what to do next. And that's the reason developer Killaware calls the game a 'pen-touch action' game as well as an 'active adventure'.

Of course, this being a text-based active adventure, the branching plot structure is important with characters having up to seven different emotion responses to what you ask them.

Also adding to the overall ambience, Lux-Pain is animated by Robin Kishiwada, the illustrator behind the Japanese anime series Eureka Seven, and features a soundtrack composed by Kenji Ito and Yasuyuki Suzuki who have worked on the Mana series and Space Invaders Extreme, respectively.