[quote name='Rei no Otaku']Is it just me or does it seem like Atlus has a lot of games coming out lately?[/quote]
I think that because of the "scarcity" that people bring up quite a bit for Atlus games, it doesn't surprise me if the company's profits have went up.
Especially how it has successfully targeted a niche with the anime and JRPG community. [Bare in mind, there are other companies who are doing the same thing and releasing games with fewer print copies, despite the title being good or bad - most recently "Chaos Wars" for the PS2].
The only thing though is that fans do not want to see a US anime industry style of approach by companies including package deals with their licenses and thus you get a good game and then a few other crappy games to go along with it and its all released.
I purchase all Atlus games but I know a lot of reviews are not that great. In fact, some critics that I know wonder why people are so fanboy/fangirl for Atlus games and some tend to poke jokes on the "for those who just want Japanese gaming (the good and bad)".
As Nintendo has their hardcore fanbase, I think Atlus fans have their hardcore fan base. I think I'm part of that, since I buy all the games but at the same time, I don't mind being critical if it sucks and warning others that it sucks.
As for the topic of "Luminous Arc 2". I welcome the second game. The first game, I enjoyed the storyline. But the gameplay compared to a game like "FF: Tactics" or "Disgaea" which had deep strategy and had much more of a challenge, "LA1" was tedious.
I don't think I came out of one battle feeling "Wow!" and proud how I won the battle. Too much effort put to leveling up, beating each game and if anything, enjoying the storyline and its characters.
With LA1, I was pretty much playing and leveling up people for hours and then once I got to the main core of the game, I was winning too easily with hardly any strategy.
Another thing that I didn't like was the fact, you can go around to see the squares of the battlefield. Your limited to going up and down and left and right if the battlefield is big but when selecting a square to attack an enemy, sometimes I found it a bit cumbersome because when there are many of them gathered, especially with your people, you end up attacking your own people.
But again, that is minor. I did enjoy the storyline, I thought that the fact many scenes had voice instead of all text was very nice to see for a DS game.
As for scarcity of this game, I know many people say they have a hard time finding it. I have seen it at "Game Crazy" (with a lot of Atlus games that people have a hard time finding) but YMMV of course with your stores.