Cancelled Lunar Fan Rework

For discussion of Lunar: Eternal Blue, the remake of Lunar 2 for Saturn/Playstation and all its translations
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Lathaine
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Cancelled Lunar Fan Rework

Post by Lathaine »

Sorry for this project. It was a bad idea and the result of some schizophrenia at the time. I was hoping to do a real project one day as a retirement thing when the IP was dead. However, this project showed me it is just a bad idea and that I need to move on. I am instead a Lunar fan fiction writer and a fan fiction writer for other JRPGs.
Last edited by Lathaine on Fri Sep 25, 2015 7:24 pm, edited 6 times in total.

TempestOne

NT

Post by TempestOne »

NT
Last edited by TempestOne on Mon Oct 21, 2013 10:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Kizyr
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Re: Lunar Rewrite for and by the Fan Community

Post by Kizyr »

What kind of help are you looking for? Also, what's your idea for Lunar 0 or Lunar 3? (0 presumably the four heroes, but 3 is completely open.)

The next thing on the site to majorly revise is the Lunar timeline, by the way. So that may help to some extent. KF
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Lathaine
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Re: Lunar Rewrite for and by the Fan Community

Post by Lathaine »

Well I don't want to go too much into my designs for Lunar 0 and Lunar 3 at this point as they are still a long way from even a first draft. Although I would be happy to share them here at Lunar NET if more people show interest in knowing my basic and malleable plans (hehehe...) for Lunar 0 and 3.

Given the huge success and positive feedback I have from other games I am making using the user name Lathaine, I am adjusting my strategy as pertains to Lunar. Currently I am busy publishing a pen and paper RPG system with a second one in final edit. I also have an increasingly popular tabletop war game system being published currently in stages as an alternative to Warhammer Fantasy Battle. My current objective is to finish my analysis and basic rewrite of Lunar 2, which I have played and written extensive analysis on, but I wish to have a solid rewrite of the basics of Lunar 2 done, and an extensive re-imagining of cosmology finished, before I post my materials. Although I still plan to use Lucia, Luna, and Althena extensively.

At this rate when I am finished with my materials I plan to submit them here at Lunar NET to the Fan Community for editing and review and then, hopefully, go to Gaijinworks to see if they are interested. Failing that I can go to a company that buys up IP and simply purchase the copyrights, Jesus willing, of Lunar TSS, SSSC, EB, and EBC.

Thank You and God Bless,
Lathaine (a.k.a. Steven Yeadon :)

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Re: Lunar Rewrite for and by the Fan Community

Post by Sonic# »

Cool story. And that's not sarcastic - I wish you well in your writing endeavors, both with Lunar and with your RPG/battle systems.
Sonic#

"Than seyde Merlion, "Whethir lyke ye bettir the swerde othir the scawberde?" "I lyke bettir the swerde," seyde Arthure. "Ye ar the more unwyse, for the scawberde ys worth ten of the swerde; for whyles ye have the scawberde uppon you, ye shall lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded. Therefore kepe well the scawberde allweyes with you." --- Le Morte Darthur, Sir Thomas Malory

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Temzin
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Re: Lunar Rewrite for and by the Fan Community

Post by Temzin »

Lathaine wrote: At this rate when I am finished with my materials I plan to submit them here at Lunar NET to the Fan Community for editing and review and then, hopefully, go to Gaijinworks to see if they are interested. Failing that I can go to a company that buys up IP and simply purchase the copyrights, Jesus willing, of Lunar TSS, SSSC, EB, and EBC.
Just stopping in on an occasional visit to offer some gloom/a good dose of reality. Admirable dedication to this series, and I suspect most people around here feel similar to how you do. I'm sure there's also joy to be had in reworking the games and sharing them with the Lunar fan community, much in the same spirit as fanfiction.

That said, I would advise you to redirect your effort towards your own game designing or original series if your goal is truly to get something published. Victor Ireland is not your point person here, he would merely be your localizer if a further game were ever made on the Japanese side---this was a common misunderstanding in the English-speaking fan community years ago in Working Designs' day. Gaijinworks cannot make your game for you. They are having difficulty even obtaining the rights to re-publish the old PS1 games on PSN. The rights to create new Lunar games are not available, and certainly not to individuals and certainly not to non-Japanese companies in the highly unlikely even that they ever were released by GameArts in the first place (they won't be).

The real problem lies here: StudioAlex, who provided much of the creative drive behind the Mega CD and 32-bit re-releases, fell apart about a decade ago, and Game Arts itself is a sad husk of its former self, currently under parent company GungHo (itself no industry all-star). The sad sad Harmony adjustments are a sign of the limitiations that the creative staff the series would be dealing with. I say "would" because the series will not be dealing with anyone as it stands now, given the virtual non-recognition the series has in Japan at this point and similar trends in the US (the Japanese fansite Lunar Hope has been dead for the better part of a decade, and there's nothing but scattered sub-sites and occasional outdated pages in Japanese these days). I cannot overstate how low the Harmony sales were, even among the relatively stronger US community at this point (they aren't the target, though, sorry). Realistically, why would a severely compromised subsidiary company be looking to do a re-remake of one of its games based not only on a fan's work but a fan's work from beyond Japan---especially given that even when they were making the financial gambit of a revival with Harmony and had some resources, they didn't do a full remake? It's like asking Paul McCartney if he'd like to do a full remake of Rubber Soul now or something. The people aren't here, the interest isn't here, and you aren't...a Beatle, I guess?

Again, none of this is to demean your passion for the series in the slightest, but you should go into your project with realistic expectations: if it's for fan enjoyment, that is wonderful, but if you are truly re-imagining the series with the goal of new games in mind, you would serve your creativity better by employing towards something original that is not dependent on the factors above, whose favorability is nil.
aka Maou

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Re: Lunar Rewrite for and by the Fan Community

Post by Lathaine »

Are you Shigema?

Good grief...he lost the copyright to Gung Ho at this point and as a corporation after more wealth I will take my chances with people that sound sane, lucid, non hateful, and eager for a better future for themselves. I'll see where I go from here and continue as directed by the Lord and as seems rational.

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Temzin
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Re: Lunar Rewrite for and by the Fan Community

Post by Temzin »

Read carefully---not one of my points is refutable, and faith won't cut it if you're looking at another company's property. Shigema wrote the script, by the way, but is not and was not a Game Arts employee. Nothing was lost and no copyright transferred--the remains of Game Arts merely operate under Gungho. There is no hate here, just the reality of a foreign submission on a dormant series being unlikely to be acted upon. By all means you should continue with your passion in the fan community and share, but the rights are not up for grabs, least of all to people who are not multi-million dollar companies and even less so to non-Japanese ones. The rights to Lunar are not available merely because the series is inactive, you see. Focus your actual game making on something that can realistically be sold and shared and enjoyed by everyone!
aka Maou

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Re: Lunar Rewrite for and by the Fan Community

Post by Alunissage »

Lathaine wrote:Are you Shigema?

Good grief...he lost the copyright to Gung Ho at this point and as a corporation after more wealth I will take my chances with people that sound sane, lucid, non hateful, and eager for a better future for themselves. I'll see where I go from here and continue as directed by the Lord and as seems rational.
O_O Did you just call Temzin insane and hateful, or at least sounding that way?? For being realistic and more clued in to the interrelationships of the various companies and people who developed Lunar than you are?

Look, it's nice you believe you have divine support for your endeavors (well, actually, it's kind of disturbing, but never mind that), but if you also want to proceed as seems rational, you have to know what is actually the case, not the fantasy of the rights being up for grabs or Shigema owning them in the first place.

(Though I don't know that I'd call the adjustments to Harmony "sad"... I found the effort of rearranging and recording the music and redoing all the maps interesting. Not often Temzin says something I disagree with.)

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Temzin
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Re: Lunar Rewrite for and by the Fan Community

Post by Temzin »

Alunissage wrote: (Though I don't know that I'd call the adjustments to Harmony "sad"... I found the effort of rearranging and recording the music and redoing all the maps interesting. Not often Temzin says something I disagree with.)
Oh hey! I knew I should have put some "new reply" notifications on. Thanks for the support---and actually, I should have clarified that the sad sad adjustments I was thinking of in Harmony were the bumbling additions to the start of the game with the Four Heroes. I remember Victor Ireland commenting one time about how that was a sign of how compromised the series was without Studio Alex around anymore. The music, however, is marvellous!
aka Maou

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Re: Lunar Rewrite for and by the Fan Community

Post by Alunissage »

The beginning was kinda weird, yeah. I liked having the opportunity to see the Four Heroes in their heyday, and to get a name for Jessica's mother. And that bit does somewhat fit with the modicum of backstory in Damon's books in TSS -- that Althena's human form had grown old and weak, and a demigod arose that the Four Heroes vanquished. But there were lots of other things that were rather incongruous or just plain repetitive. Maybe best to think of it as a somewhat embroidered tale to tell the kids...

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Re: Lunar Rewrite for and by the Fan Community

Post by Lathaine »

Hey, I edited my post and posted the Lunar 2 Review I said I would do. I now move onto actual story recommendations and story outlining on our way to a rewrite. So please post any story ideas or recommendations you have for Lunar 1, Lunar 2, a Lunar 0 project on the Four Heroes, Lunar 3, or any other Lunar game you want done, please.

Thank You,
Lathaine

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Re: Lunar Rewrite for and by the Fan Community

Post by Kizyr »

Alunissage wrote:The beginning was kinda weird, yeah. I liked having the opportunity to see the Four Heroes in their heyday, and to get a name for Jessica's mother. And that bit does somewhat fit with the modicum of backstory in Damon's books in TSS -- that Althena's human form had grown old and weak, and a demigod arose that the Four Heroes vanquished. But there were lots of other things that were rather incongruous or just plain repetitive. Maybe best to think of it as a somewhat embroidered tale to tell the kids...
True -- the thing that sticks out most to me is that I can hardly remember any of those additional scenes. By contrast, EBC's extra elements are etched pretty well in my memory (the EBC vs. EB changes seem to be the best analogy here). They just felt very... tacked on to the whole thing. I mean, I was excited to get some additional backstory when it first came out, but in retrospect they mesh with the rest of the story about as well as the novels. KF
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Re: Lunar Rewrite for and by the Fan Community

Post by Roogle »

Truth be told, I have always been unsure of how a LUNAR 3 would work. The ending of LUNAR 2: Eternal Blue on Sega Saturn and Playstation makes it appear as though the Blue Star is well on its way to revival. I don't know what the future of LUNAR would truly hold, other than perhaps skipping very far in the future and giving it a bit of a sci-fi feel. That's just something that I've thought about before.

I don't know what direction the story could really take -- and I've seen comments from people that have worked on the series where they express interest in revisiting the Four Heroes rather than diving into the future of Lunar after LUNAR 2.
So, now, our journey begins...

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Re: Lunar Rewrite for and by the Fan Community

Post by The Greatest Story »

Roogle wrote:Truth be told, I have always been unsure of how a LUNAR 3 would work. The ending of LUNAR 2: Eternal Blue on Sega Saturn and Playstation makes it appear as though the Blue Star is well on its way to revival. I don't know what the future of LUNAR would truly hold, other than perhaps skipping very far in the future and giving it a bit of a sci-fi feel. That's just something that I've thought about before.

I don't know what direction the story could really take -- and I've seen comments from people that have worked on the series where they express interest in revisiting the Four Heroes rather than diving into the future of Lunar after LUNAR 2.
Lunar 3: casual battles with ruby and hiro and lucia's children. End goal: ice cream. Meet up with the old crew along the way. Would play the next 12 sequels of this idea.

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Re: Cancelled Lunar Fan Rework

Post by Leo »

Side stories. A game about Tempest and Fresca or maybe a game following Nall and how he came to take in orphans.

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Re: Cancelled Lunar Fan Rework

Post by The Greatest Story »

Leo wrote:Side stories. A game about Tempest and Fresca or maybe a game following Nall and how he came to take in orphans.
Would play both, genuine interest in that first idea.

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