The stated premise of Luminous Arc is that women are evil witches, and will destroy the world by turning Good Men away from God. Within the first half hour I turned to Boyfriend and said, “I can’t figure out if this is a horrifying example of gamer culture or a brilliant satire.” He just kind of gave me this pitying look.
The first five hours I spent with this game were me trying to figure out if it was playing its premise straight. “A game that came out in 2007 couldn’t get away with hating women this much,” I would think, and then I would remember Bravely Default, which literally had this as a subplot, and lose my verve. Then something would happen that would make me hope, then something would happen that would convince me my hope was stupid.
This is a game that dares to ask questions like, “What if we lived in a world where women weren’t evil?” and “If the person you kill is a female who wanted power, is it really murder?”
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