Okay, I finally got around to finishing this game.

[ilovemyguitar]

I sorta got hung up on the wonkiness that is Lyton and its not-awful music, and not being really sure what exactly I was supposed to be doing with those stones in the cave. I let the game sit for a long time because that dungeon had gotten so annoying, but that other topic about the different cutscenes inspired me to pick it up and finally play all the way through it. Here's some thoughts I had on it:

1: Did they seriously have to autotune Luna/Althena's voice so much in the raising of the Azure City? She sounded like a damn robot. That was definitely a case of bad autotune taking all the color and texture out of an otherwise good singer's voice and making the recording sound sterile. It's kind of surprising, honestly, since they did such a good job of incorporating real instruments into lots of the remastered background music to make it sound more natural (ocarina for a bunch of songs, guitar for Althena's theme in the Epilogue, muted trumpet for the beginning of Reza's music, etc). The raising of the Fortress of Althena is my favorite cutscene from the PS1 version, but the awful handling of her voice really ruined it for me in this version.

2: There was an interesting little bit of dialogue at the very end from Ghaleon. I don't remember the exact wording, but he mentions how Althena's power will never really die and it will be (and has been?) handed down between different gods and goddesses forever. This is an interesting idea, both because of the subtle nod to how Lucia will eventually claim her power in Lunar 2 (and kind of offhandedly confirms that Lucia is, in fact, a goddess), but it also raises the question of just where that power came from in the first place. Did Althena get it from another god or goddess? I'm suddenly quite intrigued by the idea of learning Althena's origin story.

3: The dialogue at the end between Alex and Luna when she's snapped out of Ghaleon's thrall but is still in the Dark Althena outfit is much better in this version. She says in this version that she has to destroy "this body" to destroy the Azure City and stop the flow of magic into it, which is a change from the PS1's version where she says she's simply a prisoner because if she leaves the magic will flow back out of the Fortress/Azure City and destroy Lunar. This version also doesn't have the Working Designs addition of playing the ocarina to wake her up, so it's kind of implied that she's just bluffing when she's throwing lighting bolts at him to convince Alex to get out. So yeah, she's trying to make Alex leave so she can kill herself to save the world. That's pretty damned dark, and a much more compelling predicament than before. (Also, the voice actress may have been kind of annoying in the earlier parts of the game, but her delivery here was miles above what was in this scene in the PS1 version.)

4: Since the game is so easy, I found myself avoiding enemies and using Jessica's "Banish Litany" and Alex's Black Dragon spell a lot more than I otherwise would have; I simply wasn't worried about not getting the experience points or silver. The random battles in the final dungeon did finally start getting a little difficult (I actually had to revive some KO'd characters for the first time ever!), but at that point I'd raided Ramus's shop for 99 free Healing Fruits and Star Lights so it didn't matter.

5: Final battle. Mia uses her Arts move and Ghaleon casts "Chaos Shield" in the same round. The following three rounds consist of nobody receiving any damage. I lol'd.

All in all, I liked it more than I thought I would. I think in general this is the best iteration of the story in any version of the game, and it's all very pretty, and the only thing that's genuinely lacking is the difficulty factor. (Oh yeah, and Nall's voice actor. Holy god is he annoying.)

[Lunar Eclipse]

I rather liked the adjusted voice, plus I found the background music much more compelling. It just seemed more ... goddessy to me for whatever reason.

[Karthur]

I enjoyed this version as well. I liked how all of the main party members were given an added scene at some point in the storyline. I think it allowed for more depth to their characters.

[Lyriel]

1. I liked Dark Althena's singing voice. It was eerie, yet beautiful - kind of what you would expect of a good goddess gone bad. The part she sang as the Azure City was finally starting to break out of the ground gave me chills. I don't remember the singing being that prominent at that moment in the video (if she even was still singing) in the PS1 version.

2. From what I understand, in the Japanese version of Eternal Blue, = spoiler = Lucia was referred to as a goddess from the get-go, and was pretty much confirmed as such = end spoiler =. Anyway, from what I can tell, Lunar (and possibly Blue Star) religion seems to be very loosely based on Shinto, with Althena in a role similar to Amaterasu. We know that there are elemental spirits that some of the people on Lunar can communicate with (the woman in Meribia, for example, and I always saw Nocturne of the Wind's original Japanese and new English lyrics as a prayer to the Wind Spirit). The events leading to the ruination of the Blue Star always reminded me somewhat of Ragnarok in Norse mythology (the stone guardians in Lucia's fortress remind me of viking warriors!). I'd love to see that lore expanded upon someday, or, at the very least, learn of what the inspirations were for the game's religious lore, so we could get a little bit of an idea through the real myths and legends.

3. I kind of missed the line where Luna mentions that she's a prisoner. Even with its current script, it could have been added in exactly the same place where it was before (since there was no speech at that point in SSH), and I think it could have worked, to sort of solidify the fact that Luna wants to go with Alex, but she believes she has no choice but to stay behind or risk killing herself and/or Lunar. There was one line, though, that totally blew me away during this cutscene, though, and that was what Alex told Luna after he broke through the barrier. In the PS1 version, that had been one of my favorite lines in the game, but the replacement, OMG, it was simply perfect! It actually sort of made the old line sound kind of corny in my mind.

On a slightly unrelated note, I finished playing through Dragon Age: Origins again last week. I didn't even know until I started playing again that Yuri Lowenthal did the voice of Sandal! I think the next time I play SSH, I'll be half expecting Alex to shout out "Enchantment!" at the most inopportune time.

[ilovemyguitar]

There was one line, though, that totally blew me away during this cutscene, though, and that was what Alex told Luna after he broke through the barrier. In the PS1 version, that had been one of my favorite lines in the game, but the replacement, OMG, it was simply perfect! It actually sort of made the old line sound kind of corny in my mind.

Are you talking about the line, "We've come too far to fail?" Because yeah, that was pretty great. That whole scene was seriously so much better in this version. I remember it leaving me feeling kind of cold in the PS1 version, and all I could think was how much the tone of the ending was biting on EB's ending. But this time I actually found myself invested in the scene.

[Lyriel]

There was one line, though, that totally blew me away during this cutscene, though, and that was what Alex told Luna after he broke through the barrier. In the PS1 version, that had been one of my favorite lines in the game, but the replacement, OMG, it was simply perfect! It actually sort of made the old line sound kind of corny in my mind.

Are you talking about the line, "We've come too far to fail?" Because yeah, that was pretty great. That whole scene was seriously so much better in this version. I remember it leaving me feeling kind of cold in the PS1 version, and all I could think was how much the tone of the ending was biting on EB's ending. But this time I actually found myself invested in the scene.

That was a good one, but it was actually the line where Alex tells Luna, once he was inside the pillar of light, that how it was destiny that brought them together, and that it would be destiny that would not keep them apart (I can't remember the exact line offhand, and I really don't feel like getting up to grab my PSP at the moment. ). The line in the PS1 version was: = spoiler for those not familiar with the PS1 version = "We will always be together - in the past, the present, and in the future as well. It's destiny." = end spoiler = (at least I'm pretty sure that's the exact line, I could be one or two words off).

As I said, I always loved the original line, but the new line blew me away. It just seemed so much more romantic the way it was worded.