Impressions thread

For discussion of Lunar: Dragon Song (Lunar: Genesis), the only Lunar game on the DS
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Alunissage
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Post by Alunissage »

I finished it several days ago. I was picking 40 somewhat randomly; it also happened with 60 or 80 or...

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YoungDyne
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Post by YoungDyne »

Oh, I see. Congratulations, yeah? ^^;; Well, the enemies are doing about 10 damage to Jian right now. I'm about to go into Sandra Desert. I probably still have a ways to go.

Okay, my opinion on the script...but this goes to those who have gotten Flora on their team. While there are no major spoilers at all, it does contain one or two small ones...so SPOIL ALERT!

Oh, and some may not be Ubi Softs fault, such as "Sprite and Script"


[spoiler]The game started out good, with Jian and Lucia's distinctive personalities. I also like how Jian was more open with how he feels about Lucia. How he admitted that he may have a crush on her to the player in the first minute of the game, and how he says things to her like "Don't worry too much, or you'll wrinkle that cute face of yours!"

I suppose it was fine up until the point Gabryel arrived. They meet up with her and they pull that whole "Curse of Lost Equilibrium" thing...I couldn't tell if Ubi Soft was trying to add something with a comedic effect or if they were serious. Then they go to the Cathedral of Althena and fight some Vile Tribe monsters, then get themselves captured. Okay, here's the part that really, really bugs me. When they get back they find out that Zethos is Gabi's father, and their capture was planned by her. See? it sounds good on paper, but the translation almost made me want to stop playing.

My thoughts went something like this: "Did I miss something?"...you've been fighting with Gabi for maybe 20 minutes, where you went straight from the Colisseum to the Cathedral. Yet, when you find out about the capture plan Jian and Lucia totally freak out..."What? After all we've been through?!(You JUST met!!)" "Why? Tell me, Gabryel, if that is your real name! (What? Again, you're perfect strangers, and why would anyone take on a secret identity to capture two people who have no special purpose to anyone else? Two people the rest of the world probably doesn't know exist?)" Or something like "We were such good friends(...you held no conversations whatsoever, never got to know each other...why are you friends?)." Point is, things moved way too fast. It would have been better to leave this out until towards the end of the game.

Zethos is an odd guy. His conversations are regular at one point, then he busts out and says something eccentric...to me it feels like, anyway.

I don't like how everyone (with the exception of one for two) talks the exact same, in an intelligent manner. It feels mechanical.

When you get to the colisseum Jian claims he's been thinking about entering the competion a lot. I would have liked to see him atleast make a mental note to himself to the player one time about it. I don't know about you, but things like this seem to happen that make me feel distant from the characters.

Sprite and Script. In that underground cave when Jian wakes up after Lucia is taken captive, he runs out to search for Lucia. Gabi yells something like "Hey, don't leave without me! Come back here!" but neither one of them even make any kind of movement until after the dialogue has finsihed. Makes an odd impression.

Generic main characters. While I'm still early into the game, Gabi, Rufus, and Flora seem about as stand-outish as white rice on a paper plate. Thanks to their mechanical dialogue, of course.[/spoiler]

That's most of it, if I think of something else I'll add on ;D

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GhaleonOne
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Post by GhaleonOne »

I gotta say I agree. I was digging the translation early on, but it's gotten progressively worse. I've found four varying translations of NPC names for jobs vs. their actual name. And some blatant errors (Gpddess) along with grammatical errors.
-G1

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Werefrog
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Post by Werefrog »

No G1, they're just introducing a new character-- the Gpddess Althena.

Actually, I don't mind the translation so far (just had Flora join the party). It's a lot better than Lunar Legend, but it is also worse than the WD translations. I hope that if there is a Lunar 3, WD will be back on board (if that's even possible now).

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MiaOne
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Post by MiaOne »

Kizyr wrote:
It's not yelling, but blowing into the microphone that'll trigger the run command. Try doing that. To date, I've never had the microphone 'accidentally' set off, though.


Um, I have. A LOT. Yesterday I was playing it in the dark and we were on the free way with the windows down. Needless to say I didn't figure out it was the windows until I had died countless times while trying to defeat Gronk (or whatever) in Althena's Cathedral. Is there a way to turn that run feature off?
Lunar: Dragon Song sucked

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ljonesj
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Post by ljonesj »

i really like the game the story 5/5
char 5/5
anthing else 5/5

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Angelalex242
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Post by Angelalex242 »

Heeeeeey! You swiped my avatar! :wink:

Anyways. The saddest part of the game is autotargeting. I'd have a lot less gearbreaks if I could use my own strategy. Then again, I suppose it's supposed to make the game more challenging. Which admittedly it does.

It's almost like having 3 EBC Lucias in your party instead of player characters...almost, because EBC Lucia has better AI then these jokers.

Game balance disspoints me. It's great Jian's got 3 high damage attacks, really, it is, but couldn't we get SOMEONE else in the party striking twice for good damage? Anyone else? You'd think a swordsman would do good damage, right? RIGHT!? Nope. He does worse damage then a girl with a claw. He does have excellent phys defense, but that's about all you can give him (Though, sadly, it's only tied with Lucia's, if you look at the numbers.) (The Bow you buy in port doesn't count so much...it only allows a second attack SOME of the time. Better then nothing, I suppose...) Poor Gabryel looks USELESS next to Jian except when she's using her special move. At least Flora and Lucia, as healers, aren't morally obligated to dish damage...though at least Ronfar or Nash level damage woulda been nice.

The character sprites remind me of Xenogears, strangely. Though, sadly, Jian doesn't pull a Citan and take up the sword. Cool as that would be.

Lastly...There's a great element of random personality disorder. "I suck, woe is me..." 2 screens of dialouge later "...Let's kick an a$$ or two, cause that what Brian Boitano'd do!"

Granted, even Zidane did that once...and ONLY once. These guys do it all the time, apparently.

I suppose part of it can be blamed on all characters save one being freshmen in highschool at best, 7th graders at worst. (Just by the instruction book, you've got two freshman, an 8th grader, and a 7th grader...saving the world.) Really, imagine going to your local highschool and picking a couple freshmen to save the world. It's all about perspective. They're younger then Zidane and Garnet, and the oldest of the bunch are the same age as FFX Rikku. Also of equivalent age are Sora/Riku/Kairi of KH fame.
Don't blame me, Lucia promised me lots of snuggles and cuddles if I would be her PR guy.

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DevNall
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Post by DevNall »

Angelalex242 wrote:Heeeeeey! You swiped my avatar! :wink:
Hahah. I actually stopped for a moment; I saw the avatar and assumed it was you, and was wondering why your style changed so drastically. ;)

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Post by laus »

Well after a little bit more than 10 hours, I have to say this game is greatly underrated.

From all the bad things people were saying about it I was expecting an awful game. Turns out I'm really enjoying this one.
Also since this is my first Lunar title, you can't call me biased to the serie for being a long time fan.

The HP depletion caused while running which is one of the biggest problem reviewers got with it, turn out to be a pretty insignificant one. Hell even at the beginning of the game, I didn't really find it annoying. I'm now lvl 16-17 and I can easily run through the whole area without hitting the statue. So really no problem at all imo.

As for the battles, I don't have much problem about having to switch between the 2 mode. Sure it can be frustrating when you have to find lots of items for a job and you have to go through time consuming battles without getting experience to acquire them, but it's not really that big of a problem, especially when you reach a part of the game when you can buy some items for cheap and make easy money that way.

As for the battles themself, I think the system is pretty cool, typical RPG stuff. Only flaws is that you can't select which ennemy to attack but in those 10 hours I played I don't think I have been in any real danger thanks to that, so again it's not a problem, atleast for now. Also the cards element of the battle system is pretty cool. While I haven't used that option much it can become useful and adds more strategy during those tough Boss fights.

About the graphics now, not much to say other then they're pretty great and crisp. Only problem I encounter about it is with the towns. It's just that each time you enter a building they all look the same, the same kind of floor, the same decorations, it gets a little repetitve when you see the same stuff in each towns. They could've made a little effort to make the towns stand out from each other. Minor problem but I consider those kind of thing important when it comes to rpg's.

The music is really nice so far, clean crisp sound and cool tunes. That's when you see the big difference between the DS & the GBA. No problem there.

Story might have been a little slow at the beginning but things really are starting to pick up now. Won't complain much about that because there's a lot of great rpg's that start slow. It's a frequent problem in that kind of game.

I've had the game for 2 days now and I've been having long none stop session of 5+ hours for each day. Happens rarely in my case and as you can see I'm really enjoying this one more than I expected. This proves once again that reviewers shouldn't always be trusted and that your opinion is the only one that matters in the end. Still can't believe a game like Trace Memory(average at best) gets a 7.2(GS score) while Lunar only get a 6.1. Must've beat TM in about 6 hours, I already put more than that amount in Lunar and I'm still far from being midway through the game. :?

Looks like reviewers sounded more like a bunch of whiner who didn't give the game a chance on this one.

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Alunissage
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Post by Alunissage »

Guess this is as good a thread as any to make this comment.

I finally unwrapped the US game and took a look at it -- the box and manual and cart, I mean; I haven't put it in yet. Just a few observations:

- No one mentioned that there's an ugly "From the original creators of Lunar: Silver Star" on it. Silver Star? None of the games are named that. :P I guess they wanted to be generic.

- Looking again at the map, doesn't it seem that most if not all of the geographic problems would be solved if the eastern continent (Ghulian) and the Frontier were reversed? When I first heard about the bridge I visualized it going east, and it just seems so wrong to have the Frontier at the bottom.

- Why is Rufus called a human when he has beastman ears, beastman muscles, and a beastman special attack? Looking in the import manual, it's clearly a typo in the US one.

- Back cover of the import manual is decidedly more attractive, showing Jian and Lucia rather that a cheesy ad for some other game.

- There were several errors/omissions in the manual, e.g., saying that airborne enemies only descend after all ground enemies were defeated (rather than just the one directly below each airborne one). It also says that stone and faint are cured by "magic/items/waiting for it to wear off". I suppose faint wears off in the sense that after the end of the battle that character has 1 HP instead of 0, as opposed to poison persisting (another dumb thing, why would poison persist but not blind?), but it implies that a character will spontaneously revive in battle.

- The scratch battle sounds like it might actually be fun. Anyone able to give it a try? My sister got a DS not long ago so I'll probably buy a copy of Dragon Song for her so perhaps we'll try the card battle. If she has the patience to play the game.

- I love this bit: "Note that you cannot select the monster to attack. Whatever monster is most appropriate will be attacked automatically. ... Try to select the proper attack method for each monster." HOW???

- The import cartridge is also much more attractive, again showing Jian and Lucia instead of a boring logo. (Well, actually Ubi's logo is relatively attractive, but still. For someone who collected every disc art of every Lunar game, this hurts.)

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GhaleonOne
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Post by GhaleonOne »

The best US packaging "easter egg" (if you can call it that) is on the back of the box. It's similiar to Ghaleon being in the party fighting the Black Dragon in a screenshot from the TSS manual. If you haven't gotten to the Red Dragon, this would be a spoiler:

[spoiler]Lucia is in the part against the Red Dragon trial in the second screenshot.[/spoiler]
-G1

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Alunissage
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Post by Alunissage »

Yeah, I noticed that yesterday afternoon but forgot to mention it. Wonder if that will tick off anyone who wants that party back.

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Post by knuckles90 »

i think this game is pretty good. I mean this is my first lunar game, but i think that its pretty good. Besides the people in the battle sequence I think that it really wasnt that bad. Yet, I am still at the beginning of the game. And i dont know if there will be anymore animated pictures that are included in this game. But, i think that its a pretty good game. The people on the GameFAQ boards are really dissing this game. But, i think its pretty good... :?

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Post by Lunar Eclipse »

Alunissage wrote:Yeah, I noticed that yesterday afternoon but forgot to mention it. Wonder if that will tick off anyone who wants that party back.

*Raises hand*
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laus
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Post by laus »

I'm at the part after the Vile Castle, now 14 hours in and my opinion still haven't change. This is still one underrated game.

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YoungDyne
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Post by YoungDyne »

I'd just like to briefly post that I'd be in love with the game if not for the scripting and the new Lunar character, "Gpdess Althena" xD So I agree with it being underrated somewhat. Now, back to class~!

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Post by MiaOne »

[spoiler]Um so I finally decided that I'm far enough through the game to actually have an impression. I just got my little pasty butt beat by the very attractive Ignatius and I have this to say...

I really enjoy the story. I mean it's a bit cliche and overdone in the Lunar world (especially SSSC), but if you think back to the ORIGNAL storyline of TSS I would say this one is a quite different. I'm still mad about the motives of Ghaleon being changed from TSS to SSSC, now Ignatius' plans are EXACTLY LIKE the Ghaleon's in SSSC. ANYWAY. I'm sorry I know we're not rating SSSC here, but it annoys me. So yea...back to DS. That is basically the only thing wrong with the storyline so far because I do feel like it's a too much like SSSC. I mean Althena is pulling the same: "Humans should take care of themselves" crap.
...Wait a second. Who am I kidding? Okay, I don't really like the storyline that much. But, I still feel there is some mystery added. Like Ignatius as a character intrigues me and the fact that he formed the Vile Tribe, I find that all very interesting. And I can't wait to learn more about the Four Dragons.

I am highly displeased with the gameplay. Granted I have REALLY high standards so the gameplay is still fun, it's just not what I like. First of all, the battles are too slow (Ubi is amazing for making the L and R feature to speed things up, if it always went that slow I'd kill myself). I don't like it that Gabe and Flora are unable to achieve multiple attacks and I am very, very disappointed with the magic. However, the fact that you can't choose what monster to fight and you can't run without losing HP, it doesn't really bother me. I'm indecisive and I like to take things slow :P So everyone can stop whinning about it (jk, I'm whinning about a lot of things) AND SPEAKING OF WHINNING. What is with equipment breaking for absoltely no reason and no way to fix it??? Lame. And how you're posioned FOREVER if you can't heal or don't have an antidote? ...I don't even want to talk about that (Mickey knows).

I love the world map, it's pretty and I like to make Jian dance everywhere.

I like the dungeons. They're short and sweet.

The actual battle mode. I don't know how I feel about it. I found the combat verses Althena's Conduct switch really annoying in the beginning, but now it doesn't bother me as much because I hardly need money and I never use the Combat Mode anymore. I mean, it's really different, I like that. And I like the fact that you can clear all the monsters out of the area so you have smooth sailing.

I really, really like the characters. I think they're all very dynamic and I love how quirky they all are.

Complaints (as if I haven't already said them):

WHere are the hot Vile Tribe chicks?

Where is Vane and the Ausas?

Where is the blue hair?

p.s. I like Lucia's character a lot as well as Flora's. And Jian to me as really developed into his own hereo. Very different from Hiro or Alex.

Ignatius really needs to stop being Ghaleon. Or maybe...Ghaleon wants to be Ignatius?!?!

Anyway, I am enjoying myself a lot dispite all I complained about. This won't be my favorite Lunar, but I think it's going to beat Legend for me at least :P[/spoiler]
Lunar: Dragon Song sucked

Nicole Reannin Elgan-Moore
We will always remember...

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DevNall
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Post by DevNall »

MiaOne wrote:WHere are the hot Vile Tribe chicks?

Wearing Veils.

You might want to consider putting a little bit of that in spoiler tags?

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GhaleonOne
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Post by GhaleonOne »

Julie, you really need to use spoiler tags. Not everyone is as far as you are. I put everything into a spoiler.
-G1

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Shiva Indis
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Post by Shiva Indis »

[spoiler]Ignatius just doesn't do that schtick as well as Ghaleon though... no angst. And even worse, no mystery.[/spoiler]
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