Lunar nintendo power scans

[Lunar Eclipse]

Talking about the battling...I just noticed something. There are only 3 boxes for characters in battle. Does that mean we will have to pick what characters we're going to use? Or are we just going to have 3 people at a time?

I kind of hope not. That means two of my characters will remain pretty much unused since I always stick with the hero, the heroine, and whichever of the other characters I like best in that sort of scenario.

Anyway, despite the fact that Jian is the only one with announced attack magic thus far, I suspect that Flora and Rufus will have some. Well, at least one of them will, I hope. Jian will probably be given several kicking techs and magics from one element (like fire or wind). The other elements will need to be divided up amongst the rest. Earth for Rufus if we're being traditional, I suspect. My guess for Flora is lightning. I've no idea about ice. That's just my opinion though. There could be almost no magic for all I know.

[dreadsofcrass]

this is gonna be an awesome game....but i hear it got bumped back to Septemeber.

[Broken_Halo]

As for anime cut scenes, FMV is entirely possibly, complete with voice acting, but whether or not they have the space for it could be an issue. If it's a question of having long hours of gameplay versus adding a few cut scenes, I'm not sure which direction the axe will fall.

Actually if what I read about technical specs of the DS as compared to the N64 is right, space relay shouldn't be a problem either. If I remember correctly the DS game cards have a lot more storage space than N64 carts did, if I remember correctly the first gen DS cards hold ruffly twice that of the last gen N64 carts and the managed to fit Resident Evil 2 in it's entirety on one cart, that was 2 CDs on the PSOne! Also considering the DS is actually more powerful then the N64 was as well, and the screen a lower resolution, they should be abble to use lower res video at a better compression rate, so in conclusion, as long as it was planed from the start and handled well, it is entirely possible.

Oh yeah, my first post here, been visiting the site for a few years but never got into the forums till now, nice to meet you all!

SeeYa

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Edit:
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For the record just looked up the storage stats:
RE2 was a 512 Megabit cart
DS cards a 1024 Megabit
64 Megabyte vs 128 Megabyte respectively, and that's assuming they haven't come out with higher capacity cards yet!

[Alunissage]

this is gonna be an awesome game....but i hear it got bumped back to Septemeber.

I don't think anyone here thought it would be coming out any earlier than that anyway, since the Japanese one isn't due (currently) until August.

[GhaleonOne]

I don't see the August Japanese date slipping. The development is done. And honestly, if the US date slips, it won't be by much. That September 20th "official" date would be a good bet, but if it's off by a few days, don't be surprised.

And I am surprised we haven't seen any of the cutscene screens yet.

[Rune Lai]

Actually if what I read about technical specs of the DS as compared to the N64 is right, space relay shouldn't be a problem either.

For the record just looked up the storage stats:
RE2 was a 512 Megabit cart
DS cards a 1024 Megabit
64 Megabyte vs 128 Megabyte respectively, and that's assuming they haven't come out with higher capacity cards yet!

The DS only has 512 Megabit carts available right now. There is the potential for higher capacity 1024 Megabit carts, but they have not yet gone into production so in all likelihood Lunar DS is not using them (not unless Marvelous, GA, and Ubisoft are willing to gamble that Nintendo will have them ready in time for launch).

Depending on how big the game is they may or may not have room for several cut scenes. They probably can fit a few, but if it comes down to having gobs of them or more gameplay, they'll probably go with more gameplay.

People have been able to fit video on the GBA in the past, but have you seen how it looks? The compression is pretty ugly and you need higher quality stuff for cut scenes and that takes space.

[Lunar Eclipse]

And I am surprised we haven't seen any of the cutscene screens yet.

I thought the one on IGN in which Jian is seen addressing the player was one of them. Am I mistaken?

[GhaleonOne]

Forgot about that. Yeah, that's obviously one of them. Personally, I think we'll see TSS-like animation, though more colorful. More still-based stuff, with some animation possible.

[Spirit Icana]

Speaking of that IGN screenshot with that "still" anime cutscene of Jian; did anyone catch note of the terrible spacing between words and phrases in the english text? I really hope Ubisoft irons that out before the game ships in September. Oh, and they should use a better font too.

My biggest concern for this game is the localization. So far, the names all look and sound fine, but right now, I prefer the Japanese case and title. I don't see what's so wrong with the title "Lunar Genesis" that Ubisoft felt the need to ditch the original established name and logo for something different and more plain (though the granted poll on this site was very nice even though "Genesis" was absent on the choices list).

Given the huge assortment of name changes to Jian/Glen, Lucia/Lusia and that sort, I take it the guys over at Ubi are really trying, but I'm still very concerned and will likely remain so until the game boots up on my Nintendo DS in the fall.

[Lunar Eclipse]

If they didn't fix the spacing, I'd be extremely disappointed, so I'm confident it will be rectified. Oh, and if I'm thinking correctly, they never had Jian's name as Glen. It was, however, Gien, and in that prelim screen that we got, the dot on the "i" was so large that it looked like the letter "l".

[Alunissage]

Speaking of that IGN screenshot with that "still" anime cutscene of Jian; did anyone catch note of the terrible spacing between words and phrases in the english text?

Not being blind, we did. Thank goodness Ubi didn't forget to capitalize the names of any languages, though; that would've been terrible.

My biggest concern for this game is the localization. So far, the names all look and sound fine, but right now, I prefer the Japanese case and title. I don't see what's so wrong with the title "Lunar Genesis" that Ubisoft felt the need to ditch the original established name and logo for something different and more plain (though the granted poll on this site was very nice even though "Genesis" was absent on the choices list).

Because "genesis" means the beginning, and this is not the beginning of the story of Lunar; the "Death of the Blue Star" scene in EBC shows an earlier time than this game. This would be more like Leviticus.

The Japanese logo is kind of a combination of the Japanese and US logos for Legend -- the red/white/blue LUNAR wtih the widely spaced subtitle. Since the Japanese used the same LUNAR coloration for both games I can hardly blame Ubi for doing the same. I never liked the Japanese Legend logo coloring anyway; the red doesn't really fit all that well.

Given the huge assortment of name changes to Jian/Glen, Lucia/Lusia and that sort, I take it the guys over at Ubi are really trying, but I'm still very concerned and will likely remain so until the game boots up on my Nintendo DS in the fall.

Where did you see Lusia? And Gien was always a guess, I think; I don't recall seeing it in any actual Japanese material.

[Spirit Icana]

Not being blind, we did. Thank goodness Ubi didn't forget to capitalize the names of any languages, though; that would've been terrible.

Yeah, I wanted to point this out just incase some of Ubisoft's localization team comes tumbling their way to these boards looking for feedback. The spacing needs adjusting, but I guess the font is more personal.

Where did you see Lusia? And Gien was always a guess, I think; I don't recall seeing it in any actual Japanese material.

Go to the first page of this thread and check out all of the Nintendo Power scans. One of them shows some sort of menu with the name "Lusia" in place. Gien, as of right now, is the official Japanese name of the main character for Lunar Genesis as detailed from Jeux France's scan of Famitsu's Lunar Genesis preview. I think Jian/Gien is basically pronounced the same way so it's all good.

[Kizyr]

The main character's name is like the French Jean, as in Jean Jacques Rousseau. Jian is a lot better since it doesn't immediately recall Jean from EB, and there's a suitable substitute. Unfortunately, the same case doesn't hold for Lucia. I'm not gonna go on about that because folks tend to be a bit hardheaded on that subject.

Anyway, the screenshots that magazines receive is almost always incomplete. There's no point in going on about how odd the text looks, because the screens are probably still in production.

The ones in the Japanese article, too, were listed as incomplete. KF

[Starkiller]

I'm more excited for this than I was before. I suppose it has alot to do with Game Arts being involved.
I don't think it will ever be quite as good without a WD localization though.

[Broken_Halo]

The DS only has 512 Megabit carts available right now. There is the potential for higher capacity 1024 Megabit carts, but they have not yet gone into production so in all likelihood Lunar DS is not using them (not unless Marvelous, GA, and Ubisoft are willing to gamble that Nintendo will have them ready in time for launch).

Yeah I saw something about that after I posted, apparently the article I was referencing at Cnet was just plain wrong with the DS card size. But even with the 512Mbit card, it should be enough to squeeze in a descent amount of audio and video, As I mentioned before about Resident Evil 2, it was a 1.2 GB game into a 64MB cart special thanks to Angel Studio's awesome compression methods, and they admit they screwed up a little bit and could have got the game smaller with better video quality if they were fully prepared for the project ahead of time (http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20000 ... nk_pfv.htm section 3 mostly)

Of the 1.2 GB that makes up lunar only about 70MB is the actual game, the rest is music and video on both discs(each disk has the entirety of the game with all graphics and events on disc, just different video and speach on disc 1 and 2)If they compress the images well like Angel did, they shouldn't still have trouble, also of note, that a sprite sheet has a much smaller footprint than a fully animated 3D model.

And I definitely agree video on the GBA is pretty bad but the DS and GBA are worlds apart in power, I haven't seen it myself yet, but I hear the Zelda:Twilight Princess trailer looked great on the DS screen, I should be able to verify this myself in 3 or so weeks when I have the money to order the necessary equipment to get the copy I got off the net onto my DS, Someone riped the E3 demos and I will be able to wirelessly stream them to my DS once I get a new compatible wireless card (mine didn't have the right chipset to run the broadcasting application)

Either way though, I think this game is going to be awesome, FMV or not, Voice acting or not, I'm preordering it as soon as I move at my local EB or comparable store ^_^

[Spirit Icana]

Well, I wonder who the composer will be now that we know Iwadare probably won't be involved in the project. I don't know if Mitsuada is a freelancer or not, so I'll be guessing Motoi Sakuraba since the guy seems to be the popular choice seeing as he has composed for over a billion games every year (2004: Tales of Symphonia, Mario Power Tennis, Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, Mario Golf Advance Tour, and Baten Kaitos).

Motoi Sakuraba should chill on one game at a time in my opinion. His compositions have all basically been remixes of his best stuff from the N64/Playstation era these days.

Well, anyone want to speculate on the composer? Or do you guys think Iwadare is the only one who can do the Lunar series justice when it comes to music.

[Lunar Eclipse]

I think Sakuraba could really do well if he'd draw from his better pieces in Symphonia (like Harmony and Revival) and his background music from Baten Kaitos. The music in places like the waterfall dungeons was just lovely. It's too bad that the people who decided on the sound levels had the sound effects set much higher than the BG as a default. The running water kept covering up the nice music. Other than that, uh, I don't know who else they'd consider.

[Rune Lai]

I haven't played most of the games Sakurabaa has composed, but Baten Kaitos is one of my favorite soundtracks (I'm actually listening to it right now). I don't think he would be a particularly bad choice, but there is something particularly fruity about Iwadare that makes his work distinguishable, and I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way. I was playing Grandia II and a couple tracks made me think of Lunar because they sounded like something that belongs in Lunar.

Sakuraba writes some pretty good music, the dungeon and battles themes in Baten Kaitos remained stuck in my head long after I finished the game, but asking him to write music for Lunar may make him feel obligated to change his style.

I'd be more inclined to suggest Yasunori Mitsuda for the job because he also writes excellent music, but unlike Sakuraba and Iwadare, he's a chameleon. He can write anything and it doesn't necessarily have his fingerprints all over it.

[GhaleonOne]

Apparently Iwadare isn't doing it because of Grandia III, but that does mean it's still possible he'll come back for future Lunar's. I kinda understand it though, considering Grandia III is likely a more important title for GameArts than Lunar DS is.

[DevNall]

The DS only has 512 Megabit carts available right now. There is the potential for higher capacity 1024 Megabit carts...

Of the 1.2 GB that makes up lunar only about 70MB is the actual game, the rest is music and video on both discs(each disk has the entirety of the game with all graphics and events on disc, just different video and speach on disc 1 and 2)

Let's remember that 1MB = 8MBit; a 512 Megabit card is 64 megabytes, so you wouldn't even be able to fit Lunar itself on there. But a lot of CD-based console games didn't put near the effort (if any) that cartridge-based games did to compress things.

Anyway, let's take the supposed estimate of 90 minutes of video to a 32MB cart (which 256mb). This is probably a rather liberal estimate for PR reasons, and probably only for one screen (fine by me). If we cut it in half to be conservative, now we're talking maybe 45 minutes. If we up the video quality, maybe now we'll only get something like 22.5 minutes. Anyway, so it's certainly plausable that GameArts could store 20+ minutes of FMV, and still have half the cart left (32MB) for the game itself. When you consider that the largest commercial GBA games (AFAIK) were 16MB, does this really seem THAT bad? (And for those of you complaining about GBA video quality, remember that the DS has more powerful hardware, so better compression techniques can be used.)