Revisiting Lunar Genesis / Dragon Song

For discussion of Lunar: Dragon Song (Lunar: Genesis), the only Lunar game on the DS
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Alunissage
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Revisiting Lunar Genesis / Dragon Song

Post by Alunissage »

Six years ago I imported Lunar Genesis. I think I actually completed it in Japanese before the North American release. And by the time I got that I was more than a little burned out, and never got past the Sungrid Bridge in my NA game. So I missed out on some interesting story discussions and the like.

Two months ago I broke my arm and found myself with a lot of time on my hands. Once I was able to type again, I decided that now was the time to get back to this, prompted in part by my reading through a bunch of the longer posts here about backstory and the like. In particular, I wanted to do a playthrough without the significant handicaps I suffered the first time:

- not understanding the details of what was going on (I knew the basic story and major scenes, but had to figure out things like looking for the stupid Stone Flower or getting honey for Leoncavallo myself)
- likewise, missing details like what some of the weapons and armor did that would have helped, like Flora's multishot bows
- agonizingly slow battles (the use of L and R to speed these up was added to the NA and EU releases)
- noise of public transport triggering many instances of unintentional running from battles
- being in the first wave of players, so no help on things like what equipment for sale in the current town is also located in the next dungeon
- not using the cards until the last dungeon because I didn't know that they were multi-use or what they would do
- having only vague ideas of what sundries were being dropped by what and what jobs to take
- having to save after every single battle that didn't get something broken in it, since I didn't know what was doing the breaking or how to prevent it

And so on. Whereas now there are a lot more resources available -- not just things like monster card lists, but having the (Japanese) strategy guide, having various threads here for reference, and having time.

So, that's what I've been doing. I decided to play the European version (this being one of two games I own in three regions), which is identical to the NA one except for the name, title screen, and publisher splash screen. As of tonight I'm about to go back to the Blue Dragon Cave for the Stone Flower. Here are some stats:

Hours on game save: 85
Levels: 66 (Jian), 65 (Gabryel), 61 (Flora)
Pages of notes in Word: 130
Pages in my stats and items spreadsheet: 14
Unique jobs taken: 97
Job descriptions and requirements recorded: 200 (40 to go)
Unique sundries found: 86
Monsters' information transcribed from guide: 136
Collectible cards missed: one (Gabryel's, darn it)
Conspicuous name translation errors and inconsistencies noted: about 15
Dialogue and text recorded: probably upwards of 95%

And some of that dialogue is pretty funny. Whatever the game's storytelling weakness, it does maintain some of that Game Arts absurdity.

Moses: What's this? A package for me! Well, what can I say. Looking good... I have my admirers!
Wait a second... This is the package I sent to her...! Does this mean... I've been dumped?!

It may be surprising, but I'm actually having a lot of fun with this project. ^_^

Lishy
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Re: Revisiting Lunar Genesis / Dragon Song

Post by Lishy »

I'm probably one of the few too who found myself enjoying Lunar Genesis. It's really a shame we wont ever see it remade done right, since it had so many awesome ideas in it!

Let us know your thoughts later in the playthrough :D

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Re: Revisiting Lunar Genesis / Dragon Song

Post by Sonic# »

I still have not finished Dragon Song. I'm pretty sure I got annoyed one time when my equipment broke yet again. But I am interested in notes, particularly those pertaining to the story.

And I agree, there's still a lot of good dialogue quirkiness going on. :D
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S.ninja
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Re: Revisiting Lunar Genesis / Dragon Song

Post by S.ninja »

Loved the story it's the game play that killed this title :cry:

Shiroryuu
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Re: Revisiting Lunar Genesis / Dragon Song

Post by Shiroryuu »

I bought this game. Can you guys tell me some stuff about it? :) What's more, I see the recognized names, such as Jean and Lucia, so my random idea is the remake of Lunar 2 with different story.

And what do you mean that the gameplay that killed this game? :S

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Re: Revisiting Lunar Genesis / Dragon Song

Post by Werefrog »

Shiroryuu wrote:What's more, I see the recognized names, such as Jean and Lucia
Way back when this came out there was a lot of Lucia speculation. Game Arts (or whoever was responsible for the story in this game) always firmly said that they didn't intend for a connection between the two characters. Apparently, the character had a completely different name in Japanese that was Romanized the same way. Kizyr and Alunissage can probably get more into the specifics.

What I really despised about this game was the courier missions. I think I did about two of them and then didn't do any after that (which made getting money really hard, but it was worth it).

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S.ninja
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Re: Revisiting Lunar Genesis / Dragon Song

Post by S.ninja »

Shiroryuu wrote:
And what do you mean that the gameplay that killed this game? :S
Gameplay goofs for me.
1)Losing HP when you run.
2)The 1000 time my stuff was stolen or broken.
3)Having to pick ...Do I want EX,or items.(and if I picked Items the 100+ kills I needed to make to get the one item I needed.)
4)The slow battles.(This is my own stupidness for I didn't know about the holding L+R to speed em up my first play thu.)
5)AND THE BIGGEST......Not being able to pick my TARGET!!!!! >:(

plus little things like poorly translated script and overall rushed feel the game had


I did like the Dragons tho :)
And I liked the characters...ALOT.

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Werefrog
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Re: Revisiting Lunar Genesis / Dragon Song

Post by Werefrog »

S.ninja wrote: 5)AND THE BIGGEST......Not being able to pick my TARGET!!!!! >:(
Yeah, seriously. You could even do that in some NES RPGs, right? It's always good to not set gameplay back 15 years.

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S.ninja
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Re: Revisiting Lunar Genesis / Dragon Song

Post by S.ninja »

Other then making a new thread I'm just going to post in this one. Every year I roll the dice and replay a lunar title. With the 100+ remakes of lunar TSS I tend to get one oaf them. But Dragon Song won the roll this year. Tying to replay it thu "new eyes" pretending that I've never played it and ignoring the other titles. With that said I still have the same gripes I had in my earilier post, but I do seem to be enjoying it more this time. I think why I hated it so much earlier was cuz I had waited for so long for a new lunar title that I got REALLY mad when a terribly flawed game was what we got. It drowned any hope in my heart of ever seeing a true Lunar3. With that said I am enjoying it more this time but I hope it will not be the game Lunar goes out on.

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Alunissage
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Re: Revisiting Lunar Genesis / Dragon Song

Post by Alunissage »

I'll be interested in seeing what you think. For some reason -- probably relating to my arm healing enough for me to go back to work -- I never did finish this playthrough that I started three years ago. But I wouldn't mind digging out my notes and reviewing things and maybe even getting back to finishing the game.

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Re: Revisiting Lunar Genesis / Dragon Song

Post by Kizyr »

S.ninja wrote:I think why I hated it so much earlier was cuz I had waited for so long for a new lunar title that I got REALLY mad when a terribly flawed game was what we got. It drowned any hope in my heart of ever seeing a true Lunar3. With that said I am enjoying it more this time but I hope it will not be the game Lunar goes out on.
That makes a lot of sense. It was... a lot less crappy the third time I played it. Mind you, it was still bad, just not as bad.

The first time I played it, it was the Japanese version, and I was just happy to get another Lunar game. The second time was the US version, the glow was gone, and all the awful qualities were hard to escape. The third time I used cards throughout to speed through battles, and completely ignored fetch quests, thus removing two of the worst aspects of the game. KF
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waterpolowrestle
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Re: Revisiting Lunar Genesis / Dragon Song

Post by waterpolowrestle »

I can't wait to play this game!

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Leo
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Re: Revisiting Lunar Genesis / Dragon Song

Post by Leo »

waterpolowrestle wrote:I can't wait to play this game!
:lol:

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Re: Revisiting Lunar Genesis / Dragon Song

Post by waterpolowrestle »

Leo wrote:
waterpolowrestle wrote:I can't wait to play this game!
:lol:
Following Lunar on systems is easy! :)

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Re: Revisiting Lunar Genesis / Dragon Song

Post by S.ninja »

Ok sorry it took so long to repost. I lost the internet. Well I finished the gam and while I'll still stand by the things I listed as to why the game was bad I can say I did enjoy my play through. I love the cast, but this play I couldn't help but note that for the most part the plot was the same as TSS. Don't want to post spoilers but it is easy to see where the villian of TSS got his plan from, cuz he did the same thing...only better.

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