To start, I wanna say that I’m leaving this review unstarred because I recognize that the main things that would cause me to give this a lower score are rooted in differing tastes between unity and myself. I’m also going to focus this review primarily on discussing the aspects of the game that stuck out to me for whatever reason, rather than convincing the reader they should play this game, because the short version is this: do you like RPGs where the challenge is attrition? Do you like stories about lesbians? If one or both of these things are true, you will probably enjoy this game.

That being said, I am going to spoil a lot of things! Consider this your one warning to hit the back button before you’re spoiled.

I’ve divvied this up into five sections in which I sorta Ramble, so here’s hoping someone reads this stuff and has Thinks about it! Here we go.

The troubles of RPG fatigue

This is not a problem that’s exclusive to Luxaren Allure, by any means. It’s fairly common in games to have long, successive dungeons filled to the brim with boss fights and enemy encounters. Straight up, this is not my cup of tea in the slightest, but I do fight through such things if I’m invested enough in the story, which was the case here. Like I said, though, this is a matter of preference! This game is built to be a battle of attrition and I’m not into that, fair enough.



However, my issue is this: because it takes so long to get from plot breadcrumb to plot breadcrumb, I started to lose focus. I frequently found myself gearing down to the easiest difficulty to get through a particularly long dungeon, which was a shame, since the clever battles are part of the main draw insofar as gameplay goes. The few places I DIDN’T notice myself skipping fights were in Singing Winds Pass and Hell’s Gate. The difference between these dungeons and the rest of the dungeons in the game?

Plot breaks.

Every now and again, we broke for plot and the party talked. This provided a quick rest from the slog of dungeon crawling, and refreshed me for the next stretch. Compare to the trek between Parvian and Springmouth, where you had to trek through two full dungeons, complete with bosses, and a field area, all with very little plot breaks. Full disclosure: by the time I got to the swirling sand cave? I cheated to get through the rest of it (aka I held CTRL and walked through walls), because I was more invested in What Happened Next than I was in playing the game in front of me.

Is this a personal case of me being impatient, or a flaw in the game? Heck if I know. I just know that I, personally, would slap down more areas to breathe for the player, since, like I said: I don’t have a lot of RPG stamina.

Chisa, Merel, and the topic of consent.

How many other people noticed how atypical Chisa and Merel’s courtship and eventual relationship was? And, no, I don’t mean because they’re both women or because one of them is a naga. The thing I’m getting at here is the fact Merel, a flirty character, expressed an attraction to Chisa, a shy character… and everyone’s boundaries were 100% respected. Chisa wasn’t sure how she felt at first? Hey, that’s cool: Merel didn’t put pressure on her to reciprocate, and Karuna was always quick to remind Chisa that she didn’t have to do anything she didn’t actually want to do with Merel. By the time Chisa and Merel finally became a couple, it was obvious that Chisa was as into the idea as Merel was, which was just great.

This should be normal, right? The answer: yes, BUT: this much care and attention spent on developing a romance is actually pretty rare. I can’t remember the last time I engaged with a piece of media about a romance that didn’t romanticize breaches of consent in some way, like forcing kisses, invading space bubbles, pushing things forward without asking permission of the other person, etc. And this is usually framed as a desirable thing, when in truth, it’s not. Like, I’m telling you: if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of unwanted attraction, it’s not flattering or convincing: it’s creepy and off putting.

This is why I found Merel and Chisa to be so refreshing! Merel was sorta pushy at first, but immediately backed off when Chisa expressed discomfort. This didn’t, however, kill the romance: things still progressed, and I ended up rooting for Chisa and Merel to get together as Chisa began warming up to the idea. I’m telling you: this isn’t something I do often. I am a dirty shipper, but I tend to ship people who hate eachother’s guts, not folks who could actually enjoy a successful, healthy relationship, because I am a garbage bag.

Speaking of healthy relationships, Karuna and Auralie were also great! They were super supportive of one another without crossing over into anything resembling co-dependency. It was always clear that they were super in love and wanted to see the other succeed out of that love. We didn’t see much of this, since Auralie joined pretty late in the game, but I appreciated what did show up.

Basically, you wanna include romance in your game? Luxaren Allure is an excellent case study in well written romance, lesbian or otherwise. Hats off to unity for this, since YEAH, DANG, GOOD JOB!!! <3

An ever fluctuating tone.

Luxaren Allure has a bit of a weird tone going for it. For example, when you first get to Springmouth, you’re introduced to a town that has been ravaged by monsters and is mourning the loss of many of its citizens. The survivors wonder what they’r future looks like -- if they even have a future -- and look to you as their hero for guidance. You recruit a new party member whose crew has just been murdered by these same monsters and forge on ahead with renewed determination to put a stop to Darkloft’s plans and save the Luxaren Isles.

In the next town, you participate in a goofy love festival with some of the silliest NPCs in the game, as well as two of the monster generals who you have seen literally murder people in previous areas.



Now, I’m not saying games have to be ALL SERIOUS~ or ALL GOOFY~, but this sort of tonal whiplash was super jarring. I won’t pretend like managing tone in a game like this is easy, either! Balancing lightheartedness and serious business is a tough thing to get right.

So here’s my two cents on Tone: from my perspective, the main focus of this game is 1) Karuna’s love for Auralie, 2) her quest to save her from Darkloft’s clutches, and 3) the relationships between party members. Killing off a bunch of NPCs is in no way necessary to make this sort of story happen. For the most part, the chosen hero defeating Darkloft plot felt like a vehicle to keep Karuna and friends moving forward towards their goals, and this isn’t a bad thing! But this meant that there wasn’t a lot of focus on the ramifications of Darkloft’s actions apart from “she’s hurting Auralie and we have to rescue Auralie from her.”

I think the tone of LA could have been far better balanced by removing a lot of the lethal elements to the story and focusing on building up Darkloft as a threat without giving her a body count. If Darkloft was an impending threat instead of an imminent one, taking a break to do a weird love contest with your enemies wouldn’t seem so weird! The game could have gotten away with laughing alongside the villains, as they wouldn’t be guilty of anything beyond some property damage and being threatening. Killing innocent people, on the other hand, is a really tough thing to come back from, and it’s certainly hard to forget about it when you next meet with the guilty party.

Now this, of course, is ignoring the fact a lot of Auralie’s conflict has to do with the guilt of killing people. Keeping that involves more than quick fix-it’s like “just blow up some buildings and leave the peeps alone, maaaan”, but is still something that could be done with care. Maybe it means moving the love festival to earlier in the game and having the tone get darker as the plot progresses, maybe it means making the deaths a BIGGER deal by having Darkloft kill someone on screen with her own hands so Auralie keeps the guilt but not the body count. Either way, I don’t think going back and changing this project significantly would serve the creator. Mostly I say this as feedback to carry forward into future projects.

The main thing to take away from this section: emmych is a Dirty Pacifist and thinks you should critically examine your usage of NPC death as a plot device, since 1) there are usually alternatives, 2) it immediately makes the tone of your story a lot more sombre since Mass Murder. NPC death isn’t something to take lightly in your narrative, and if it needs to happen, there should be a good reason!

WOMEN, WOMEN EVERYWHERE

Typically in lesbian fiction, you will find at least one of two things:

Lesbian romance tailored to the male gaze, or, lesbian women behaving in a way heterosexual men find pleasing instead of focus on women loving each other (even in shows MADE for lesbians, by lesbians!!)
SO MUCH SEX, pornographic amounts of sex. Have you seen the L Word? Lip Service? These shows have extended sex scenes in every episode, like oh my goodness.

Neither of these things are present in Luxaren Allure, and OH BOY was I ever appreciative of it! For once, I felt like I was actually engaging with a place of Gay Lady Media that was aimed at people like myself, rather than those who consume women’s sexuality for the sake of personal gratification. The emphasis wasn’t on exploiting the main characters for their sex appeal, but rather focusing on their relationships with one another and highlighting how much they loved each other. Even a character like Merel, who obviously had a sex drive and felt sexual attraction for Chisa, wasn’t eclipsed by her sexuality (referring to her existence as a sexual being in this context, not “is a lesbian”): it was simply an element of who she was, just like she was a dork about ruins and a romantic at heart.

I cannot emphasize how happy I was to play a game that was about women in which men were not a central aspect of their plots and conflicts. These women existed independently from men, which is something women in real life do all the time that somehow is never reflected in media. Women in media are seen as girlfriends, mothers, sisters, daughters, friends, supporters, but never their own people. The women in Luxaren Allure are fully fledged human beings with their own desires, and it was an absolute joy to see. They end up being people’s girlfriends and friends, but first and foremost they are human beings with autonomy.

Now, you don’t have to cut out all men for women to be autonomous! I was glad to play a game that was all about women, and I hope people can emulate the way women are treated in Luxaren Allure in their own projects. Whenever you see me hollering in the forums about how women are people, blah blah blah Bechdel Test, blah blah blah why do men have to be the centre of everything: just go back here and look at how all these women have independent goals and desires apart from pining after a man. And remember that. And then, when writing women, put that shit into practice. Your writing will be a million times better for it, trust me.

Lynette and the case of the missed potential.

I have so many feelings about Lynette, guys. So many??? So many. And a lot of them are “oh my God why did things have to end up the way they did?”

Lynette as a character has an AMAZING base concept: she’s a driven person who has always felt like she wasn’t good enough. She works hard to make up for her perceived flaws. She is assertive, direct, and holier than thou. And then she joins your already established party of three, and upsets the status quo.

When Lynette first joined, my assumption was that she was going to disrespect Karuna’s authority as the leader and hero, and try to take matters into her own hands. I thought she was going to have a problem with this whole “let’s save Auralie” plan, since it was a self-centred goal that would conflict with Lynette’s ideals of self-sacrifice for the greater good. This would have created a buttload of conflict, especially if she were to bond with someone like, say, Chisa, who also dealt with being the family disappointment and worked hard to overcome that, albeit in a very different way.

Instead, Lynette ends up being fairly one-note in that her character is mainly expressed through Being Mean and antagonizing the party. This is done at the expense of thoroughly exploring other aspects of her character, right up until the last hour or so of the game.



This was really disappointing to me, since, in a game that mostly focused on character interaction as the main source of Plot, having one of the main sources of conflict come from inter-party issues would have been amazing!

“But, Em,” you say, “Lynette totally ended up being a low key antagonist anyway! What are you getting so irate about?”

I’LL TELL U WHAT!! Lynette conflict stemming from her being a huge asshole instantly stopped making me empathize with Lynette. She was a jerk to these characters I already liked, and for no good reason! Now, if Lynette’s conflict had come from motivations I could empathize with, like the whole “I have never been good enough so I must be the Best Hero to prove my worth” thing, that would have been great!

While the conflict with “what do you mean, we’re saving Auralie” did indeed come about, it ended up feeling rushed and was dropped when Lynette left the party, only to reemerge without much discussion right before you fought her. And, in true RPG fashion, pummelling Lynette was enough to make her drop the subject, although she was clearly still mulling it over during the Hell’s Gate dungeon.

I also think having Chisa as a point of contention would have been fantastic. Chisa making friends with this new party member because they bonded over similar experiences would have been excellent, especially if Lynette’s relationships with Karuna and Merel would have stayed the same, that is, disrespecting hero-ship and constant bickering, respectively. Chisa’s loyalties being tested would have been a great complementary arc for her, given that her main arc was already building up her confidence. Learning to say no to someone she otherwise likes woulda been really cool! This also would have given Lynette a believable way back into the party, as Chisa could have vouched for her.

However, I did hear unity whispering about Lynette getting her own game! So, who knows, maybe these things I’m wanting to see will pop up there, hm? And I mean it’s not like Lynette was my FAV or anything, like, pfft, it’s not like I’d wanna PLAY a Lynette game or anything, ha, ha ha ha, ha… <3

(If you’re curious, the other Lynette feelings were “oh my god I wanna kiss u u big huge jerkfaced holier than thou fuckhead oh my gOD I HATE U <333” because, like I said earlier, I am a garbage bag.)

The Final Verdict

Like I said above: Luxaren Allure is a game I had a lot of feelings about! It definitely wasn’t my perfect game, by any means, but I sincerely enjoyed myself when I played it and I think it has a lot of food for thought for game devs when they work on their own projects. I continue to be hype about the stuff unity makes, since there was absolutely enough in this game to make me really like it!



I consider it a must try for folks for the reasons I outlined above, even the stuff that seems negative. I’m lookin’ forward to whatever unity puts out next, too, so I’ll stay tuned for that~

now if you’ll excuse me, i have very important things to attend to *starts doodling Mrs. and Mx Lynette on notebook*