Release times goodness, and a new time gap begins...

[jay_are]

I just realized something.......................... maybe this has been talked about before.
When the series was active, Lunar would get a different game / port almost yearly since it started in 1992.
1992: The Silver Star in Japan
1993: The Silver Star in USA
1994: Eternal Blue in Japan
1995: Eternal Blue in USA, Walking School in Japan
and so on, up until 2001.
That was probably the first year Lunar didn't get any game releases.
After Lunar Legend in 2002, it only took Dragon Song like 2 to 3 years to start appearing in news, which was released in 2005.
Then lo and behold, the longest gap TO DATE happened. No one is going to be surprised that Lunar took 4 years to get another game release after that. Those 4 years felt like a lifetime. But thank heavens, we were saved by the PSP port in 2009 for Japan, and 2010 for USA! And then, only a year or 2 later, words of the iOS port were spreading online. I guess the PSP port, as much as it had poor sales, was still good for the series.
2013 saw good updates for the iOS game, at least that's something, but...
2014: a new time gap begins... nothing is heard of the series.

I sure hadn't thought about how active the series had been. I'm glad!
I know I just said in a thread that I'm glad we aren't getting any new Lunar soon, but considering the almost yearly pattern and how well received the iOS port was to those of us that got it, we could be hearing something new in 2015. If we reach 2018 and there aren't any flying cars around everyone's neighborhood yet, consider it the defeat of Dragon Song's gap.

[Kizyr]

I think one contributing factor is that so many of the interruptions in those gaps are either localizations or ports of previous games. Generously speaking, we've had perhaps 7 truly distinct games (TSS, EB, WS, MS, SSS, LL, and DS -- EBC was really close to EB, and SSH & Touch were really close to SSS), with 4 main storylines (by protagonist, Alex, Hiro, Ellie, and Jian), and 2 out of those 4 storylines are ones that US consumers either generally don't know (Ellie / WS / MS) or want to forget (...you know the one).

I mean, technically, 7-8 distinct games over 22 years doesn't seem so bad, but then you whittle it down to quality releases in the US that are genuinely new stories and... it looks a little sparse.

But then again you may be onto something. Maybe a lot of the idea of Lunar being a "dead" series is just perception, and it's really no less active than most other series. KF

[jay_are]

Yeah, there are some series, like Metroid, that are considered active, but havent come out with something real in a long time.
Though some series do get a surprise game release decades later xD (DuckTales Remastered, Kid Icarus on 3DS).

What scares me is the popularity of RPGs. Other than Pokémon and Bravely Default, most people I know have a bad image of RPGs nowadays after the mass flood of silly overly cute anime RPGs on PS3 that are more grinding than story, from what I heard. So, even good RPGs get ignored often. I've seen people look at the cover of a good RPG at a game store and picked it up to look more, but then they put it back cause they think they're gonna get stuck in the middle of the game with too much grinding or complications, or be presented with a ruined storyline halfway through the game, which BTW, I heard happens in Bravely Default.

So, maybe this wait will take as long as it takes the next genre defining classic styled JRPG to be released, kinda like people consider FF7 to have been it.

[Kizyr]

True... Though with Ducktales Remastered and Kid Icarus Uprising, both of those were really good games (I only played a demo of Ducktales Remastered, but Kid Icarus Uprising remains my absolute favorite game on the 3DS). With the Lunar series, everything after EBC has been either nearly-straight ports (like SSH) or really underwhelming (I mean, Lunar: Legend is actually the best of the bunch).

I've been on the sidelines for the last several years re: RPGs, so I haven't kept up with anything representing the current generation of them. I hear bits and pieces of ones that have been impressive, but news of crappy releases don't really reach me... so I don't have much of a gauge on what needs to happen to kind of revitalize the genre.

...maybe the Lunar series needs a game in a different genre? An Action RPG might even work out. Though they'd have to put actual effort into it to make it good, and I'm increasingly pessimistic about that. KF

[Arm]

You should check out Pier Solar HD that will be soon available on the modern platforms.
It was created and available back then in 2010 on the MD/MCD as a tribute to the Lunar series. You can check out in the general gaming thread.
I was in charge of the character design/ cutscenes and op animation you can see parts of in the trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGlZGaJg ... ata_player

[jay_are]

Oh yeah, I've been waiting for Pier Solar since the Kickstarter appeared been seeing updates on it since then.
I even mentioned it in my other thread, that this game MIGHT just tell us which current console an RPG is best made for, since this game has a lot of options.

So you were one of the designers for it????? That is AWESOME!!!!!

[Arm]

Thanks. Actually, I'm a profesional animator/storyboarder. I had handled the original pier solar character design and cutscene around 2008. But the amount of work gone in the creation of the portraits and op animation was much more intensive in the remake.
It will also be available as an collector edition on the Dreamcast.

[Enclave]

...maybe the Lunar series needs a game in a different genre? An Action RPG might even work out. Though they'd have to put actual effort into it to make it good, and I'm increasingly pessimistic about that. KF

When I was playing EBC, I was thinking than an action RPG setup would be best for the next Lunar game. I think it would make dungeons go quicker if you could just fight enemies on the overworld instead of having to go into a traditional turn-based battle with them when they run into you.

[jay_are]

I was thinking than an action RPG setup would be best for the next Lunar game

Yes, this would be great!
But hey, they dont even have to drop the traditional turn based battles completely either, they can be there for more important battles, and bosses, because see, even though not many want to admit it, Lunar's battle system is one of the finest, best looking, most functional, most fun systems there are. But no one will understand this by just me saying it unless there is already a popular game like this.