Lunar Threads

I was just playing through the Sega CD Silver Star, and I found a hilarious little NPC dialogue in the village of Lann, on the quest to go fight the fake dragonmaster. There's a little boy with purple hair that, if you speak to him before Jessica joins your party, says something particularly interesting.

JINGLE BELLS,
GHALEON SMELLS,
XENOBIA'S A RAG...
HE, HE, HE, HE, HE, HE...

And Nall's response is just wonderful.

HEY THAT'S A COOL
LITTLE DITTY, KID.
...BUT, IT SEEMS A BIT
PREMATURE AT THIS POINT...

An intentional in-game spoiler! Am I the only person who's only finding this now?

omg thats awesome. I have never seen that and I have played through that game at least like 9 times. guess I am going to have to go through it again now lol

What a coincidence! I just noticed that too yesterday. It was worth a chuckle.

lol! I noticed that the first time I played it and laughed at it. But I thought this was after you find out about Ghaleon being the Magic Emperor?? Bleh...I need to replay it to find out.

No, it's when you're on your way to fight Dragonmaster Zoc. That's why it's premature -- the kid is lumping Ghaleon and Xenobia together when we don't know yet that he's the bad guy. Which is what he meant by "an intentional in-game spoiler".

I've always seen that, but then, I always make sure to talk to everyone else before whoever is the next event person when I'm in a new area.

I saw it the second time I played TSS, quite amusing huh? I would of been rather upset had I seen this my first time around

Then again...my brother already ruined the game for me by screaming "EVIL!!!!!" in my ear when Ghaleon had his introduction.

Thanks to the teaser movie that plays when you first power on the system, as soon as I saw Ghaleon I knew he had to be a bad guy, so that song wasn't really a spoiler for me, but it was premature.

Playing the game now, I honestly don't understand how I never picked up on Ghaleon being evil until that fateful scene in the White Dragon Cave. The same goes for the other major plot twists in the game (Luna is Althena in human form, Nall is a baby white dragon, etc). It's all such obvious plotting now, but at the time I was genuinely shocked by every little twist the game threw at me.

Don't feel too bad, the first I saw that point of the game was when my older sister was playing and I was sitting in the room. I swear our jaws went through the floor!

It was even better a few years later when my (now ex) gf was playing and she got to that point. she was on the phone with me at the time and suddenly all I heard was loud cursing! lol

I suppose it's a good thing I was young when I first played TSS. That way, I didn't pick up on any of those plot twists until they actually happened. It let me enjoy the game so much more that way. KF

Yeah, I was pretty young at the time as well. And I hadn't played many RPGs at that point, either.

I'm actually kind of afraid that I won't enjoy Lunar: Dragon Song as much as I enjoyed the originals, because I'm so much older now. One of the things I loved about the originals was watching the stories play out, and being shocked by all the crazy plot twists, and I'm afraid that now I'll be able to see everything a mile away. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Me too, re TSS. Not the young part but the not seeing things coming part. It was my first RPG and I really didn't expect Quark to be killed, although the bad vibes from Ghaleon just before were about as subtle as a foghorn blast. My housemate said he pegged Ghaleon as evil from the start because his was the only introduction which was voiced, but I hadn't been around for that scene and didn't know what he sounded like.

ilovemyguitar wrote:I'm actually kind of afraid that I won't enjoy Lunar: Dragon Song as much as I enjoyed the originals, because I'm so much older now..

Same here. My PS2 RPG collection skews so much older than my older games (for while I was able to joke that all my PS2 games are M-rated). One of my favorite modern RPGs is the first Shadow Hearts, which has only one character that falls into the punk teenager category. Everyone else is of legal age and the protagonist himself is solidly in his 20s. I wish there were more games coming out of Japan like that, since I have a fondness for the Japanese-style of RPG. I'm just outgrowing the whole teenage hero thing...

ilovemyguitar wrote:I'm actually kind of afraid that I won't enjoy Lunar: Dragon Song as much as I enjoyed the originals, because I'm so much older now.

I agree I mean I thoroughly enjoyed SSSC and EBC, but I was still in high school... and crazy. I remember when Legend came out I was in no hurry to get it, I even waited a few days I believe. Granted, that's a remake...but if this was 5 years ago and DS was announced I'd be bouncing off the walls with my crazy mispelt ramblings.

I took what, close to two and a half years to finish Legend? I blame the translation, though, and my compulsive card-collecting which made me so overleveled that the battles were a total snooze. Plus the fact that the game came out at a really miserable time and I just wasn't up to it right then. I expect I'll be more on top of this, though, even though it's a lot easier to be critical of things when it's been so long since the last one.

To be fair, the battles in that game were a snooze even without the over-leveling. I'm not going to say the battle system wasn't well-done in that game... I actually think it very cleverly fit the range-based attacks of previous Lunar titles into the capabilities of the GBA... but I WILL say that the enemies could have been made more difficult, and certain pieces of uber-equipment *coughwindbootscough* made things far too easy.

I gotta agree, I got through that game in just a couple of nights. I was really really disapointed with it.

I still haven't finished it. I'm toiling away ever so slowly at Lunar: Legend. It lacks some of the charm of the other Lunar titles. Besides, I was sad Working Designs didn't publish it.

I actually never noticed that. Then again, I've always had a problem with talking to every NPC in Lunar games. I believe SSSC was the only game where I attempted to find every single NPC comment. They simply change too often. The most minuscule and seemingly pointless plot events seem to trigger a change in NPC conversations, so I just end up giving up. Then again, they may not actually change that often. Perhaps I just obsess over it to the point where I think they do.

Now I have to go and replay TSS again just to find this small piece of dialog! Sigh. I just finished replaying it in preparation for DS as well.

Deltath wrote:I still haven't finished it. I'm toiling away ever so slowly at Lunar: Legend. It lacks some of the charm of the other Lunar titles. Besides, I was sad Working Designs didn't publish it.

Aside from Translation, I don't think it was a lack of "feeling Lunar" that made it a chore rather than an adventure. It was that I had been there and done that - Twice. Granted, it made many storyline and otherwise changes (Most of which I was disappointed with), but it wasn't "fresh and new" enough to feel like a new game. I thoroughly enjoyed TSS and SSSC - and their sequels - as though they were all new games. They didn't feel like remakes or ports. Legend on the other hand felt a bit too much like a port for my taste.

- Mike

Over the years I developed a sense of clairvoyance in pretty much everything, and I am pretty much never surprised. I figure things out before they happen, and my friends will just look at me with this look of awe when I expect something is going to happen, and then right after it what I suspect ends up happening. The times when I am surprised are more enjoyable to me, because it is so rare.

I knew Ghaleon was evil just by the way the voice actor expressed him, but I too was not expecting him to kill Quark the first time I played Lunar. Luna being the Goddess Althena was a little too apparent to me. The loss of her in the original game was more impactful to me, because you lose her so much sooner, yet she
had so much more character development in Silver Star Story which I also enjoyed.