Tales of Luminaria review - "A game that begs you to give it a chance (spoiler: it's worth it)"

Because the idea of twenty-one character narratives intertwining into one just felt so darn compelling, I immediately wanted to get my hands on the latest installment of the Tales franchise. I hold all thoughts of Tales of Destiny near to my heart, so when whispers of Tales of Luminaria started weaving their way into the grapevine, I knew I had to have it. The question is, now that it's here, is it really worth all that hype?

The answer, in a nutshell, is a resounding "yes" in my opinion, and here's why.

Table of Contents

• Tales of Luminaria story
• Tales of Luminaria controls
• Tales of Luminaria combat and gameplay
• Tales of Luminaria graphics
• Tales of Luminaria verdict

The story of Tales of Luminaria

Bandai Namco's valiant attempt to break the mold is pretty obvious with its ambitious twenty-one-character narrative lineup, making Tales of Luminaria a standout with that aspect alone. Character episodes are released on a weekly basis, and while you'll start off with Leo's Episode 1, you'll eventually have the option of picking which character story you want to dive into next.

Given that the game just launched, not all first episodes are out just yet, and at this stage, it's still too early to tell what the story of the game is about. For now, everything starts off with an ongoing war between the Empire and the Federation, and the characters you play as will provide you with an intriguing behind-the-scenes look at their unique perspectives about the war.

The game does, however, end each episode with a cliffhanger, hinting at bigger and more complicated things to come - something I've always loved about JRPGs in general. Each episode also starts and ends with a very anime-esque opening and ending sequence, complete with upbeat J-pop music and a fitting "Next on Tales of Luminaria" epilogue. This, to me, is another one to add to the game's very unique approach to the genre, which is an absolute joy to see.

Tales of Luminaria controls

Now, I'm well aware of the game's divisive and controversial nature, with its negative comments from angry fans right after it launched. I wanted to make sure I took the time to get into the game deep enough to see for myself, and while I did enjoy playing it, the controls really are pretty wonky.

The biggest issue players have had with the game is its portrait orientation. With the developers' decision to forego the typical landscape mode, the option to move the camera around had to be sacrificed - and it's a costly sacrifice, at that. Navigating the lush and vibrant environments with a fixed camera makes it a challenge to see things that aren't directly in front of you - in particular, it's just impossible to see where you're going when you're moving horizontally.

The developers have actually explained the rationale behind this, in that they wanted to keep things simple with the one-hand controls. Items and paths you can traverse horizontally are meant to be secret paths that are optional, so if you're not a completionist, all you really need to do is focus on the path in front of you and you're golden.

The thing is that while I appreciate the attempt to keep things casual, having the camera automatically lock on to what's in front of the character might have been a simple solution to the problem. But then again, I'm not a developer, so I have no idea how complicated that kind of work might be.

Still, wonky navigation aside, I do find the one-button controls fairly refreshing, which I imagine would be doubly enjoyable if the game is played on an actual mobile phone (I played it on my tablet, which made the one-hand controls a little harder to manage). You can also customize the positions of the buttons to move around and to attack - I just wish you could also freely swipe your thumb across the screen when moving around instead of having the directional buttons fixed in the middle of the screen.

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Combat and gameplay

As for the real-time battles, engaging enemies out on the field is an exhilarating affair. You'll traverse beautiful environments and tackle foes head-on as you encounter them in the wild, filling up your energy bar to release powerful Artes as you go. Each character has their own combat styles, but you can equip them with the same food items you cook from the main menu (yay, cooking!).

You can also equip characters with weapons and cosmetics you pull from the gacha - something that might not be everyone's cup of tea. Typically, a lot of players expect to score characters from a game's summons pool, but because characters are freely playable as their episodes unlock each week, the gacha is limited to equipment and weapons.

Still, I find that this kind of mechanic keeps the temptation to spend at bay, making this game very F2P-friendly. You can clear episodes with ease without having to scale a huge paywall - at least, for the episodes available at launch.

Speaking of episodes, the very first one that'll be available as soon as you boot up the game is the one for Leo Forcade, which, while it's meant to be a tutorial of some sort, doesn't really inspire confidence in the game from the get-go. I found Leo's episode far too dragging and repetitive - halfway through, I was already yearning for anyone or anything else to play as instead. Leo's story does get interesting by the time the episode ends - there's obviously more depth to his tale than meets the eye - but the problem is that it takes too long to get there, and not everyone's going to be patient enough to wait it out until the other character episodes are unlocked.

Once you do slog past Leo's episode, you'll get access to other more interesting characters to tinker around with. In particular, I loved August Wallenstein's story the most, which I definitely won't spoil here. On the other hand, Alexandra von Sonne's combat chapters were an absolute thrill - every single battle reminded me so much of the adrenaline rush from Dynasty Warriors games, complete with the K.O. count and the taking down of watchtowers to conquer enemy forts.

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Tales of Luminaria graphics

Of course, the battles and cut scenes are only ever as good as the visuals, which are stunning. Dialogue is fully voiced - and properly performed, might I add - not just for cinematic cut scenes but during actual exploration.

As you speed past fields and run down pristine lab hallways, characters in your party will keep up the conversation all throughout, whether they're just exchanging silly banter to help with character development or talking about deep, personal things that make an impact in the story. The music is also a welcome companion in the background aside from the chatter. All these aesthetics definitely make re-doing chapters (costumes you pull will only be visible in cleared chapters) and participating in multiplayer battles more engaging.

The main menu - styled after an actual mobile phone with apps and stuff - is sleek, elegant, and totally nothing like I've ever seen before. It can feel cluttered at times, but I actually appreciate Tales of Luminaria for trying to do something new here, even though a change as drastic as this will likely be met with much resistance from other players.

What's the appeal?

The thing about Tales of Luminaria is that it tries to make so many new things all at once, and it can be pretty overwhelming for players whether they're new to the franchise or not. It doesn't feel very much like a Tales game, but to be honest, I actually don't mind. I'd much rather play a game that's trying to do something different than one that's basically using a reskinned template. That's just me, though - playing too many games on a daily basis makes me favour the ones that stand out from a sea of cookie-cutter mobile RPGs.

Another thing I appreciate about the game is its intriguing story - however, it's a little bit of a letdown to have to wait a full week before the next bite-sized instalment comes in. During the wait, it just doesn't feel like there's enough content to keep me busy until the new episodes drop, and something like this might make a player move on to other titles and forget to return to the game the following week.