First playthrough

[Angelalex242]

It's all good. The Truth, though, is most obvious in the abysmal Dragon Song, of all things. They're based off Gen Bu, the Black Turtle, Shin Ryu, the Blue Dragon, Byakko, the White Tiger, and Suzaku, the Red Phoenix.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

The last time we tuned in, we were enjoying the garden of "Ghaleon's The Grindery™: Brought to you by Taben and The Vile Tribe." We spoke with some pixies and VeeTeetians who had the now typical spread of opinions that ranged from Ghaleon being a strong leader who will crush us, to Ghaleon isn't a great guy, to Ghaleon sucks.

Further up the tower we finally arrived at a sealed door that even Kyle's thieving skills could not help us get through. (There's no key hole! The only way a thief can break into a place through a door is if that door has a key hole. Everyone knows this.) The group is dismayed until Cool Lady Phacia phases into being. She's not looking well, but refuses any healing from Jess. All it takes is "Althena, lend me your power!", but okay.

I'd like to take a moment to state that refusing to seek aid is its own form weakness. We're all on this blue dot together. Don't help others and refuse help for yourself. Don't be Phacia.

Perhaps she felt it was some form of a deserved penance. Whatever the case, she explains how she's come to regret the actions of the Vile Tribe against Althena and the humans. Phacia feels that while Althena's punishment was harsh, Ghaleon never had the interest of the Vile Tribe in mind and was only using them. The VeeTeetians would have bee better served by trying to living in Althena's good graces and earning their way back into her blessings that way. She then uses the last of her strength to open the doors and face down her two sisters while we go to stop Ghaleon. I poured one out for Phacia. She seemed like the distant relative at the family reunion who you actually enjoy spending time with. You don't have a lot in common, but they're good people where it matters.

We make it to the top of The Grindery, where we fight Ghaleon. It's a pretty straight-forward fight where the group kicks Ghaleon in the beanbag very hard. Repeatedly. It was.....it was hard to watch. The group puffs out their chests and celebrates their good fortune.

Based on that, we know this isn't the real fight. After Ghaleon disappears, we run further out on to the veranda (The Grindery is seriously fancy, guys.) where we find Luna. It very quickly becomes apparent the Dragon Master's saga is far from over when this happens.



Sooooo.....that's no bueno. One of the rules of this world I've observed is the less clothes a lady wears, the more evil she is. Evil auras deteriorate clothing in this universe. Lots of layers, good lady. Lots of skin, bad lady.

This new character, I'm calling Dark Luna for now, rounds out the trio for Royce and Xenobia in a way Phacia never did. She proceeds to use a magic force to pimp slap Alex sixty feet across the veranda. From there, it's a confident strut in her thigh high dictator boots over to the edge of The Grindery, so she can begin the next step in Ghaleon's Evil Plan™.

The gang watches in terror as Althena's tower slowly and catastrophically rips itself from the planet, gradually revealing a massive fortress/spaceship that makes The Grindery and Vane look pathetic. Remember when you had your Ninja turtles toys and you thought the sewer skate board you had was totally awesome? Then you went to the rich neighbor kid's house, and he had the whole sewer playset AND the Technodrome? I imagine is feels like that.

Ghaleon reappears next to Dark Luna. He looks taller and wider every time he shows up. The two snuggle in a completely snide, smug way. It's a weird trope reversal where it feels like the Chad goths are flexing on the poor Virgin jocks. The two make plans to leave for their new fortress where I imagine they'll make-out and bully people on the internet. Alex and company attempt to stop them. Cue Ghaleon fight part two.

Alex casts a spell that nullifies magic attacks on the party, and we set to work pummeling Ghaleon. I can already tell where this is going because he's just standing there. The first murder/death/kill magic attack Ghaleon does is completely negated by the spell, but I don't bother recasting it. The next time Ghaleon attacks he does approximately ALL the damage, and strolls off.

I'll stop for there, but we've gotten a little further.

[Angelalex242]

You can actually block hellwave with white dragon protect as many times as it takes till Alex's MP runs out. It doesn't change anything, but you can put up a better fight.

[ShugoHanasaki]

^ I think if I rushed it, I could beat Lunar 1 in 12 hours or so. Otherwise, my timing and level are usually pretty close to Gryzz's - talking to NPCs, backtracking for red chests, and the obligatory bath visits put me at 20-25 hours.

I don't rush it. I get the red chests, secret items, bromides and still beat it with 12-13 hours at level 43/44. Sometimes 42.

The only thing I don't do is go to Althena's secret spring in the 99 forest because frankly even as a child...Going through a crazy forest dungeon just to see people have naked is just...shameful imo...One of the few things I never cared for was the "fan service" towards any gender or sexuality... It kind of killed a lot of anime for me. If there was a really cool item or items at the end then i would totally include it!

[Angelalex242]

Meh. If you aren't level 99, you aren't hitting Ghaleon in the face hard enough.

[frozenyoge]

I just finished my first playthrough of this in basically 20 years, and I'm posting about it here mostly because it's the most active thread

spoilz:

 I was one of those shmucks who didn't play the ocarina and felt all the wrath of Dark Luna at the end. I've let myself get mad about a ton of things in games recently. I didn't let myself get mad about that. I jumped right back into it. No matter how close you think you are to the end, you gotta beat down the hubris and get back up without a second thought!

Friends, why is Mia's theme heard so seldom in this game?

Oh yeah, and  was the kissing scene between Alex and Luna ever in the game? I had believed it was all these years! I didn't miss it, did I?

[Angelalex242]

There's a smooch between Hiro and Lucia in the next game, but if there was an Alex/Luna smooch, I don't recall one. I think all he gets is a hug.

[ShugoHanasaki]

Meh. If you aren't level 99, you aren't hitting Ghaleon in the face hard enough.

...Please...lol! He worships my socks and what i mean by my socks is Kyle's old smelly socks XD

[sharkythesharkdogg]

I'm not dead! I've just had some very busy weekends, and weekends are typically when my wife and I play the game together.

My friend is recovering from thyroid cancer, so I went to visit him earlier, and then this weekend I had a race.

222535088_4101847819883308_2886544922544725756_n.jpg (871.35 KiB) Viewed 30635 times

I'm glad this thread is bringing some people out to chat about the game. I think it's going to go pretty high on my list of favorite games by the time I'm done. I'll write more when I get a chance to sit down and type it all up. Hopefully we'll finish it up this weekend.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

I beat the last boss last night.

Ghaleon the damage sponge just KEPT GOING, so by the time he finally went down it was pretty late and my wife had to get up early. So I saved after the fight and we'll watch the ending tonight. Then I can complete my write up, and give my review. Wooooooo.

EDIT: Spent a long time adding to a previous draft and it didn't save. Working on it again.

[Angelalex242]

Ghaleon is down? ...Protip: The Ocarina is your friend. Don't forget about it.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

So moments ago, Ghaleon did this to the party for 3 to 4 times their amount of health.



I've been informed that the attack is called Hell Wave, but years of MvC won't let me see anything but Unibeam.

Ghaleon gives a little speech and the couple transports over to their new fortress of evil.

Nall doesn't take the sight of all his friends laying near death on the ground all that well. We see Nall panicking, and begging them to get back up. After the pleas fail to have much of an effect, he is surrounded in a blue aura and the screen fades to black. Alex awakens in Jessica's bed. He learns from Nall that he's been asleep the longest. The others have recovered from the beating, but only Mia and Jessica are still motivated and making plans for how to stop Ghaleon.

After we meet up with the ladies in Jessica's office, they tell us where the two sad-sacks names Nash and Kyle are hiding. (Seriously. The ladies, both good and bad, outshine the men in this narrative. Step it up, fellas.) No surprise, they're drinking away their sorrows at the bar. Alex confronts them at the aforesaid bar, where they're feeling very defeated. Behind every sad-sack is the lady they don't really deserve. It's true for me, it's true for these two idiots. So, Alex returns with the women in question, who proceed to get their fellas re-motivated and ready for war. With a re-swelling of pride, determination, and strength we have our old friend Not-Dyne show up suddenly.

Alex professes his deep affection for Luna, and how he will never stop trying for her. With this sentiment in mind, Not-Dyne speaks to Nall who once again surrounds himself with this new, mysterious, clearly not dragon-magic related aura. The group is transported back to the burial site of Dyne in the quaint town of Burg.

Dyne tells us the fate of the four heroes, or more specifically Dyne and Ghaleon, after meeting with Althena. It seems Althena had grown increasingly frustrated or saddened that her presence as a goddess had led a lot of humanoids to do unpleasant things to gain her favor. I think it must be something like this that led to her punishing the Vile Tribe. Her plan to avoid became sacrificing her goddess form to spread her influence out across humanity. She would be reborn as a human that would contain most of her essence, but her powers would be drastically decreased. If I understand correctly, that's what led to places like Vane and humans having magical powers? Anyway, to accomplish this the Dragonmaster would also need to sacrifice his powers. This would lead to a world where Althena's presence as a visible, active goddess that could take an active role in human affairs would be replaced by a more general presence of goodness that left the humans to care for themselves under her more nebulous, amorphous protection.

Ghaleon does not handle that plan well at all. Some people need a strong, direct form of leadership to feel safe and to have a sense of purpose. As the change takes place, all we here is "What can you see that I can NOT?". The situation is the breaking point for Ghaleon that sets in motion 15 years of him planning to either resurrect Althena in a form more to his preference, or to replace her.

With that explanation given, we return to Dyne and the gang at his own grave. After some more discussion and words of encouragement to get everyone ready for war, Alex pulls the sword from Dyne's grave and Nall goes all "true form" again to transport them to Althena's Fortress. (Does anyone else think Nall's dragon form makes it look like he's up to something? He's staring right at you, and he looks like he wants to shank me. I don't trust it.)

We begin the trek through the fortress where we have the standard strong enemies and new loot to grab and equip. Soon enough we run into Royce. Fight Time, ACTIVATE!.....except she insults us, throws some enemies at us, and skedaddles. After that and some other fights, we track her down again. Fight Time, ACTI-are we doing it this time? yeah? okay, cool. Fight Time, ACTIVATE!!!

Royce's battle sprite looks pretty interesting. She has some sort of pink, slithery familiar wrapped around her, and she's often surrounded by a flame aura. The way she holds her legs up also makes her like like a fire serpent. She wraps the party members up in some form of a fire blanket to immobilize them. Nevertheless, we beat her senseless and she is confused and confounded as she fades away. (Not sure if dead?)

Now the fortress becomes a mixture of simple puzzles based off the dragon colors again, along with the fighting. In short order, we run into Xenobia. She is a sad woman. As these situations often go, it seems she fancies herself in love with Ghaleon. Considering her outlook on life, his outlook on life and everyone around him, and her acceptance of the person he is and what he wants to do, I'm not sure if you can call it real love. I think she's yet another person who simply responds to the strength and confidence of Ghaleon while either choosing to ignore is actually unable to see the negative affects Ghaleon has had on herself and the rest of the VeeTeetians.

She casts some kind of genjutsu on the party (Xenobia is a kunoichi, confirmed.), and they all have to face their inner fears in the form of themselves. The party is strong by this point, even Nash, and they quickly shrug off the spell. I've carried that darn ocarina around in my limited inventory the whole game, and already saw Alex play it once, so I thought that certainly, certainly, now was the time to use it to talk Luna down. Of course it didn't work. Then I remember that was the Luna in Alex's head, anyway.

We get in a fight, and she kicks our asses. So we fight again, and she kicks our asses. She keeps turning us to stone, turn after turn. I spend all my time healing and correcting the condition, and she decimates the party. I look up some help and learn that I should try equipping Jess with a ring that prevents that condition so she can focus on healing. I equip the ring.

Going into the fight, Xenobia hits the top two rows with the stone attack (Sonic something?) I can have Jess heal and/or correct conditions, but Xenobia hits us with the same attack the next round. And then a third time. So I'm once again just trying to stop the inevitable. The party dies, and I try again. This time, the RNG gods have mercy, and Xenobia only uses the stone attack about as often as she uses her other attacks instead of almost every single round. The fight takes a bit, but we wear her down and put an end to things. She is equally shocked at her downfall as Royce, and also fades away. (Not sure if dead?)

From there, it is a hop, skip, and a jump into the Ghaleon fight. We listen to his depressing ramble about how the world needs the physical presence of the Goddess Althena or it will fall into chaos. I'm not sure where he's getting this from. I'd need to see some sources. The last 15 years haven't been perfect, but I certainly wouldn't call it chaos. Things seem.....decent. I think he's just a douche-canoe.

The fight itself is straight forward, but Jeez Louise is he a damage sponge. He hits us with more Unibeams, and boulders, and some discount light sabers. He likes to throw Worm Crush in there once-in-a-while, and also he likes good ol' Chaos Shield combined with an attack the vamps life from the party to himself. So this shield. Does it fall after a certain number attacks, or a certain amount of damage absorption? That's an important question that I didn't know the answer to.

I hit Ghaleon with the all the biggest attacks I have, as I've been doing, while his shield is up. The shield falls, and we get back to fighting and healing. Everyone that needs an attack buff is maxed out. Everyone has Mia's ice shield maxed out. I even kept Nash alive. But our boy Ghaleon just keeps tanking hits. He can't get enough of it. Whenever I get a read on Ghaleon doing one of his two really nasty attacks, I cast Alex's dragon shield. (The attacks usually come after he casts his shield and life steal attack.) Things are fine, I keep knocking his shield down and dealing good damage, but I'm running out of magic, magic replacement items, and healing items. Ghaleon just keeps on trucking.

It eventually gets to the point that the only person with enough magic to do anything is Kyle and Mia, and Ghaleon finishes his turn with two big attacks. That's it, the party is done. They can't heal, they're out of magic, and Ghaleon has just about killed them. Jess hits him for minimal damage, Nash shoots him for minimal damage, and then Alex finally drops him with an attack that does about 40 dmg. FINALLY. I wonder if I wasted a lot of my magic attacks against that shield, when all I needed to do was simply hit the shield a number of times. Either way, it's finally over.

That's a good stopping point. I fee like the ending deserves its own entry post.

[Alunissage]

Reading that reminds me that when I first played SSSC, I thought there'd be a healing statue after fighting Xenobia, so I went forward and...instead had the final battle without doing any healing up. Still won somehow but IIRC it was Nash and Mia doing most of the damage and Kyle healing, which I suppose is different from usual.

Ghaleon's motivations (and the events that spawned them) are one of several significant changes in the remake that served a purpose but weakened other aspects of the story. As you note, the only things that seem to have been going downhill since Althena's rebirth are things Ghaleon is directly responsible for (e.g., the growing threat of the Vile Tribe and the Magic Emperor), so his reasoning that things have gotten worse is flawed. In the original game, his motivation is much more straightforward: he resents Althena for letting Dyne "die" (meaning he lost his powers and position as Dragonmaster) while fulfilling a mission she gave him, and decides she's no longer fit to rule. Her rebirth as Luna wasn't related at all.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Still really busy, and I want to write up my thoughts on the ending, and strengths and weaknesses of the game, when I have time to sit down and give it a proper effort.

Tl;DR before the big essay, it's a great game, and it's going into my favorite rpgs. What a treat.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Still too busy to sit down and write up the conclusion (sorry!), but I did pick up Lunar 2 for the PS1 this weekend.

I'm not playing it soon, my wife wants a break. But I plan to play it together with her as well, and post here about it in the future.

[Angelalex242]

I may have learned a few things about Lunar 2. Hit me up.