Lunar Threads

The way I saw it was that Japan had lots of RPGs, but because of the cost to translate and port games that weren't so popular here, it wasn't worth it. Before FF7 we Americans had a couple RPGs on the Playstation (I think Wild Arms was one of them) and after FF7 we had a landslide! There's tons! Off the top of my head there's: Grandia, Thousand Arms, Tales of Symphonia, Legend of Dragoon, Arc the Lad Collection (which the Japanese were enjoying long before we got), Koudelka, and Parasite Eve. FF7's sales are what opened the floodgates to bringing RPGs here. It brought American non-RPG players into the world of RPGs, and made them profitable in America. Even to those who think it's a crappy RPG, think of what it must be like to never play one before, and suddenly there's an epic of a game with a whole world to explore, and fighting that doesn't involve hitting the same button over and over. It's almost overwhelming. There are some people who own almost all RPG title for PSX. Like it or not, the game deserves some credit.

Granted, a lot of the RPGs that were brought here suck. But without FF7 I don't know if we'd have the Lunar re-releases. They were great games, but still kind of obscure Sega CD titles which were only awesome to the few of us that knew about them. Plus Working Designs was having issues with releasing Playstation RPGs from Sony. There's something about it in the Lunar 2 Sega CD guide, but I forgot. (Alunissage I need the knowledge in your head yet again!)

Anyway, FF7's a mixed blessing at best, and I guess a horrible "genre raping" game at it's worst. But it has it's place as the title that brought most Playstation RPGs to America.

Personally I think the abundance of RPGs on the playstation has to do with the properties of the CD-rom media. High storage with time required to load data. It's an ideal setup for the RPG and is the kind of creation that made Myst possible. The only reason it took so long for that to be applied to Japanese RPGs is because well, generally Japanese developers prefer to develop for consoles than for PC.

Granted, a lot of the RPGs that were brought here suck. But without FF7 I don't know if we'd have the Lunar re-releases. They were great games, but still kind of obscure Sega CD titles which were only awesome to the few of us that knew about them. Plus Working Designs was having issues with releasing Playstation RPGs from Sony. There's something about it in the Lunar 2 Sega CD guide, but I forgot. (Alunissage I need the knowledge in your head yet again!)

I have a bone to pick with that. FF7 had absolutely nothing to do with the Lunar re-releases in America. Working Designs had planned to release them on the Saturn before FF7 was more than eye-candy in US magazines. In fact, if you read this page on the Lunar section:

http://www.lunar-net.com/lunar3-1.php

You'll see that both remakes and Lunar 3 were already planned to be released on the Saturn before FFVII almost 9 months before FFVII had even been released in Japan, and almost over a year and a half before <a href="http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/psx/data/197341.html">FFVII's release</a>. Lunar's announcement that it would jump to the Playstation happened only months after FFVII's release, and had been planned since before FFVII's release according to Vic back then.

Even moreso, I also don't feel FFVII had that much to do with Lunar's success. (I'm not accusing you of this localflik, this is just something I've seen in the past and figured this was a good post to do it in) I do feel FFVII helped push RPGs, as it just made such a big name for itself due to it's major upgrade in graphics from the SNES games, but in the case of Lunar, a very large majority of it's success came from the underground hardcore RPGers that pushed it so hard as they remembered how much they loved the originals. Even if you checked FF SNES boards on AOL prior to the Saturn/Playstation releases, those boards would mention Lunar as one of the few Genesis/Sega CD RPGs they were willing to admit was good enough to beat the great SNES RPGs at the time. When the remakes were announced, I personally remember reading on forums all over the place where people were wanting to try this "Lunar series" they had heard so much about from the cult-like fanbase Lunar had at that time.

Just to clarify, I was referring to what Vic said in the interview in the back of the Lunar EB guide for Sega CD. He talked about how Sony wouldn't let them release a lot of RPGs for the Playstation because Sony published 80% of Japanese RPGs at the time. Games like Arc the Lad fell under this category. He said that was why they were mainly developing for the Saturn instead of the Playstation. Sony was hoarding all the best RPG titles for themselves. He then went into how they're going to make Lunar "Director's Cut" games and Lunar 3 for the Saturn.

I guess FF7's popularity had nothing to do with Lunar's re-release. I'm kind of relieved by that since I always felt like FF7 stole the idea of cutscenes from the Sega CD Lunars anyway.

localflick wrote:I guess FF7's popularity had nothing to do with Lunar's re-release. I'm kind of relieved by that since I always felt like FF7 stole the idea of cutscenes from the Sega CD Lunars anyway.

...How? There were RPGs both before and after Lunar that had cutscenes in them. Ever since there was the ability to store video and/or audio in games, there were cutscenes. Saying some game 'stole the idea' of cutscenes is like saying a game 'stole the idea' of having text, NPCs, or a plot. KF

The reason I said that was because Squaresoft broke away with Nintendo just so they could develop on CD media because of it's benefits over cartridge. It's even in FF7's print ad campaign. There was an ad that showed the Junon cannon stating, "Please get the makers of cartridge games, and a cigarette" or something to that effect. It had body copy that went on to explain that the game would cost a fortune if it were made on a cart.

There's lots of RPGs that have in-game cutscenes, but is there another RPG that used either anime, or CG cutscenes before Lunar? The only thing that even comes close is Popful Mail, which was kind of an RPG, but it was more of a sidescroller. Please enlighten me as to these RPGs that employ full cinematic cut aways. The two Lunar games were the first major titles to pioneer this device as a method of storytelling as far as I know. If there was another, it couldn't have been that popular. Hell, what year did Snatcher come out?

Whatever, I'm going out to the bar.

Lunar was one of the first RPGs that used cutscenes, but it wasn't the first. It may have been in North America, but I'm kinda doubting that even. Non RPG-wise, remember the Ninja Gaiden series on the NES? Those were cutscenes between each level. And good ones for their time. I also believe Ys had them before Lunar as well, but I could be wrong. Hell, even those still intro scenes in Zelda 3 or the intro to Final Fantasy III (VIj) could be considered cutscenes.

However, all that said, Lunar probably was one of the first RPGs to really make cutscenes an important part of the story in RPGs. It likely had more cutscene material than any other RPG before it. And that can definately be said of Lunar II, considering the amount of animation in it.

Ys had cutscenes in the SNES versions, no voice though. Tales of Phantasia had vocals (and an opening song) on the Super Famicom. Some TG-16 RPGs as well had cutscenes, didn't they? I'm sure Rune would be able to give a more complete list; these are only a few of the major ones. KF

How on Earth did I forget about Ninja Gaiden? Those scenes were very cool for their time. Weren't the Y's games originally on TG-16? Lots of PC Engine games used anime cutscenes like the Valis games, and Rondo of Blood. Crap! Lunar wasn't as innovative as I thought. How did this whole system's library slip my mind? Probably because few of us owned one growing up I guess. A lot of PC Engine games used cutscenes, but they were usually just as a transition between levels for non-RPGs. I've never seen any of their RPGs, but if any of them used cutscenes as a means of storytelling, which Y's probably did if the series was on Turbo Duo, then yeah, Lunar wasn't the first.

Actually, Ys I and II were originally on NES (or maybe just Famicom) and SMS, as separate games. I don't know in which order, and I think I heard that only Ys I was on NES/Famicom. The TG Book I and II added voice and animation.

I think. I've only seen the TG I-III and everything else comes from what I've read some time ago. And it's been long enough since I saw I and II for me to be not 100% sure they had voice...but I'm pretty sure I remember my bf commenting on some character's voice.