Ignition Entertainment has been active in the gaming world for almost a decade, but it’s only recently that they’ve begun to make a name for themselves by localizing obscure or idiosyncratic Japanese games for the American market. Their recent DS offerings run the gamut of genres, including a shooter (Metal Slug 7), strategy-RPG (Blue Dragon Plus), and platforming (Boing! Docomodake DS). Lux-Pain looked poised to be another quality release – an adventure title with a dark, mature storyline, an attractive anime aesthetic, and unique gameplay. And while Lux-Pain does possess all these qualities, it’s a confusing mess of a game – so much so that it’s nearly unplayable.

Lux-Pain takes place in Kisaragi City, Japan, where there have been a string of bizarre violent incidents – everything from murder to suicide occurs there with alarming frequency. Apparently, these events are caused by people infected with “Silent,” a worm-like parasite that feeds into people’s darkest fears and emotions. Players take on the role of Atsuki Saijo, a member of FORT, the top-secret agency tasked with combating the Silent outbreak. By infiltrating the local high school Atsuki hopes to get to the bottom of the epidemic, as well as gain closure for his parents’ death at the hands of a Silent-infected killer. So far, so good, right?

 
Atsuki searches for Silent victims in the city,
while his contacts at FORT headquarters assist via radio.

The game’s story becomes an incoherent mess before gameplay even starts. Atsuki’s got a golden eye and some kind of magical ring, and somehow you’re supposed to begin investigating someone or something in a dormitory. Pretty soon new characters and terms are being introduced with no explanation, and you’re somehow supposed to make sense of it all. The actual moment-to-moment writing isn’t too bad – no broken English or fractured grammar – but the game never stops to explain what any of it means. In an adventure game like this, where working your way through the storyline accounts for much of the game, this kind of disregard for clarity is the kiss of death.

 
Too bad you’re never told who or what the Target is, or why it needs to be investigated.
Good luck trying to get this game to explain things to you.

So what about the gameplay? That’s the game’s other major problem: there doesn’t seem to be much, and what is present is just as poorly explained as the storyline. As the game takes you from location to location, seemingly randomly, you’ll run into a variety of other people. Sometimes the Greek letter Sigma shows up on screen, and this is your signal to scratch furiously across the person on the touch screen. Doing so reveals the Silent worms inside the person, and once they’re uncovered you have to touch them for a brief time to remove them from the person. When you’ve removed the Silent it changes into a short cryptic phrase, like “Seems Kind” - touching this phrase triggers a short cinematic, where the character’s inner thoughts and feelings float across the screen. Once you’ve removed all the worms in this manner a short story sequence ensues, then you’re taken back to the map to proceed to a new location.

 
Scratching the touchscreen reveals the Silent worms inside each character.

And that’s all there is to the game. You’re carted from place to place, removing worms and viewing emotional outbursts from every character you encounter. Every so often you might trigger a short cut scene change of location, but none of it ever makes much sense and your input never progresses beyond scratching the touch screen and the occasional dialogue choice.

At least they’ve nailed the presentation. Lux-Pain features the artwork of Robin Kishiwada, known for working on the anime series Eureka Seven. The character and background art is high-quality, as if taken straight from a new anime series, and even though animation is limited the game looks good (the slick opening cinematic is especially well-done). The music is courtesy of Kenji Ito, known in the gaming world for his work on Square’s Mana series and cult-favorite Culdcept; the soundtrack is dark and moody, setting the creepy vibe immediately. Even the voice acting gives off the impression of high production values, though it’s not without problems of its own. Often the on-screen text and voice overs will be similar but not identical, as if the writers and actors were working from two different translations. This doesn’t make the story or dialog any easier to follow, but I guess it’s a minor issue when compared to the rest of the game.

 
The artwork is topnotch, and some neat visual tricks,
like the inter-cutting seen here, are used from time to time.

Lux-Pain has an intriguing concept wrapped in an attractive audio/visual style. Unfortunately any good features the game may possess are buried under layers of unintelligible dialogue, frustratingly vague explanations, and shallow, strange gameplay. Truly hardcore fans of anything Japanese might be willing to struggle through it, and they might even convince themselves that they enjoyed it. For most of us, though, there are too many good games waiting to be played to spend any time or energy on this asinine title.

Gameplay: 4.5
There’s very little actual “gameplay” to be found in Lux-Pain. Occasionally you’ll use your stylus to search and destroy the Silent worms in characters you meet, but for the most part you’ll just be reading poorly-translated story sequences and trying to make sense of it all.

Graphics: 7.5
The character and environment artwork in Lux-Pain is really well done, with high-quality detailed sprites. There’s not much animation to speak of, but it’s about on par with the Phoenix Wright series, for example.

Sound: 7.0
The game’s music is moody and creepy, which does a good job of setting the mood. It can get a little repetitive, and it’s not anything you’re going to be humming the next day, but as a soundtrack to a horror/mystery it gets the job done. The voice acting is pretty good too, though it sounds like the actors don’t understand what any of it means.

Difficulty: Easy
The game moves you from location to location, so you can’t really get lost. The only way you could really lose is if you fail during one of the worm-searching sequences, but the two minutes each encounter gives you is more than enough time to find and remove the worms. Provided you’ve got the willingness to keep at it, you can probably play right through the game.

Concept: 6.0
The bare-bones idea behind the game – a dark anime-style adventure with touch-screen-based exploration – sounds like a decent enough idea. The game’s actual story is far too convoluted for its own good, especially since the game doesn’t explain anything.

Overall: 5.0
Lux-Pain takes a somewhat interesting set-up then buries it under pages of impenetrable dialogue, incomprehensible situations, and meaningless touch-screen scribbling. Hardcore anime fans might be able to muddle their way through, but there are too many great DS titles begging to be played to waste much time or energy on this inscrutable adventure.