Lunar Threads

So, a few weeks ago I heard from a friend who had played a review copy of this that he was really looking forward to what I thought of the story, and it turned out that at least some of what he meant was the similarities to Lunar. I'm not sure I see it so much in the story thus far (for a hopefully nonspoilery measure, we've learned two harp pieces and have twelve hearts so far), but there are various details that make me chuckle. And I know I've forgotten some of the stuff at the beginning.

So here's just a little starter list.

From the very beginning, or extremely obvious:
 - A single goddess, chosen hero, etc... not that this is unusual, except for there only being one
- teacher who looks vaguely like Ghaleon
- flying cat (named Mia!)
- magic songs, with harp a la TSS

Faron Woods after learning second harp song
 - Bokoblins summon others of their kind - reminds me of those goblins in EB's Illusion Forest
- Symbol reminds me of Lucia's pendant

Next area after learning that song
 - Dragon lair more or less 'neath the waterfall (spouse is playing this part as I type and the stupid game makes me motion sick, so I'm not sure how accurate this is)

I also keep calling that Goron explorer Gumshoe and calling the pieces of amber magatamas, but that's a different game. =)

Additions? Please try to mark spoilers with some indication of when they occur.

A few things I noticed at the beginning.
 - The floating landmass in the sky, Skyloft, is a bit similar to Vane
- The Knight's Academy...on Skyloft = The Magic Guild...on Vane
- Evil attacking the land; Goddess taking the remaining humans to a new land; the hero's eventual return to the old land. That kind of mirrors Zophar attacking the Blue Star; Althena taking everyone to Lunar; Hiro's eventual return to the Blue Star.

whitedragon_nall wrote:A few things I noticed at the beginning.
 - The floating landmass in the sky, Skyloft, is a bit similar to Vane
- The Knight's Academy...on Skyloft = The Magic Guild...on Vane
- Evil attacking the land; Goddess taking the remaining humans to a new land; the hero's eventual return to the old land. That kind of mirrors Zophar attacking the Blue Star; Althena taking everyone to Lunar; Hiro's eventual return to the Blue Star.

The last one of yours in particular I thought as well.

Alunissage wrote:So, a few weeks ago I heard from a friend who had played a review copy of this that he was really looking forward to what I thought of the story, and it turned out that at least some of what he meant was the similarities to Lunar. I'm not sure I see it so much in the story thus far (for a hopefully nonspoilery measure, we've learned two harp pieces and have twelve hearts so far), but there are various details that make me chuckle. And I know I've forgotten some of the stuff at the beginning.

So here's just a little starter list.

From the very beginning, or extremely obvious:
 - A single goddess, chosen hero, etc... not that this is unusual, except for there only being one
- teacher who looks vaguely like Ghaleon
- flying cat (named Mia!)
- magic songs, with harp a la TSS

Faron Woods after learning second harp song
 - Bokoblins summon others of their kind - reminds me of those goblins in EB's Illusion Forest
- Symbol reminds me of Lucia's pendant

Next area after learning that song
 - Dragon lair more or less 'neath the waterfall (spouse is playing this part as I type and the stupid game makes me motion sick, so I'm not sure how accurate this is)

I also keep calling that Goron explorer Gumshoe and calling the pieces of amber magatamas, but that's a different game. =)

Additions? Please try to mark spoilers with some indication of when they occur.

Pretty much all of the first section. I haven't gotten to the 2nd section of your spoilers so I'm avoiding that for now. ^^;

Yeah, I can't believe I'd forgotten that beginning part by the time I typed this post.

I gotta tell you, the similarities actually become stronger later. I shouldn't even bother writing them up because you all will have absolutely no trouble seeing what I mean. O_O But I will for my own memory and so others can add stuff. But seriously, don't read the below until you've seen it in-game

After getting the three flames and going through the gate that you needed to get them to unlock, you learn:
 - The parallel between Althena and the goddess extends to their later, hitherto clueless, incarnations
- Link, though, is more like Hiro than Alex, at least when it comes to being left behind. Even if the actual storyline is intended to evoke Zelda II. At least Zelda is still dressed in her crystal.
Also, less significantly, the instructor I mentioned in the first post has had occasion to note that he likes hearing a particular girl sing. And the blue chests have been reminding me of TSS's, but that's just because of their color, no other significance.

Whoa... Zelda is secretly paying a lot of tribute to Lunar! It's unfair It's almost like yet another Silver Star Story remake. Disguised as Zelda. And no one is complaining. Oh my head Im taking points away from Zelda for this.
Why the lack of creativity? I see a lot of little third party games with more impressive and original storyline than this.

 Even if the actual storyline is intended to evoke Zelda II.

 Haven't played Skyward Sword. I'm interested in knowing how it is supposed to evoke Zelda II!

 At least Zelda is still dressed in her crystal.

 We got Lucia nude in a crystal and we didn't die (Maybe almost). BUT OH my GOSH Imagine Zelda naked in her crystal???? That would be REVOLTING! The world would indeed end.

jay_are wrote:Whoa... Zelda is secretly paying a lot of tribute to Lunar! It's unfair It's almost like yet another Silver Star Story remake. Disguised as Zelda. And no one is complaining. Oh my head Im taking points away from Zelda for this.
Why the lack of creativity? I see a lot of little third party games with more impressive and original storyline than this.

That's maybe a bit harsh... it's not like other games haven't had similar, er, similarities. Consider Vay (spoiler for both Vay and, by obvious implication, Skyward Sword as well as Lunar):
 Halfway through playing Vay, which my housemate and I did right after playing Lunar TSS for the first time, my housemate turned to me and said: "So let me get this straight. Luna is really the Goddess Althena.." That's because just about exactly the same revelation had just occurred regarding the young woman who was abducted at the beginning of the game. Vay's story played a lot like TSS's if you had started TSS with Quark's death.

And really, Zelda games are more about the gameplay than the story... considering how many of them have pretty much identical stories, you could say that story creativity has never been the hallmark of the series.

jay_are wrote:

 Even if the actual storyline is intended to evoke Zelda II.

 Haven't played Skyward Sword. I'm interested in knowing how it is supposed to evoke Zelda II!

Again, major spoiler that I marked earlier, read at own risk
 Zelda's taking a very long nap and asked Link to awaken her, which is basically the situation in Zelda II.

JayAre wrote:

 At least Zelda is still dressed in her crystal.

 We got Lucia nude in a crystal and we didn't die (Maybe almost). BUT OH my GOSH Imagine Zelda naked in her crystal???? That would be REVOLTING! The world would indeed end.

Hush. I was just using that phrasing to indicate the difference as well as the similarity. Although given what the fan reaction would be it might not be too strong to say that the world would indeed end.

Oh, having moved on in the game, here's another bit, from the point at which one is gathering pieces of a song.
 Dragon Trials, check, albeit fewer of them. One of the Dragons was even skeletal initially.
The part I'm at is reminding me more of a particular part of Chrono Trigger, in sort of an inverted way.

I'm on the  Dragon trials now. The part with Zelda in the crystal and the Goddess incarnations floored me.

The game is fantastic, but I think this is making me enjoy it even more!

OK, we finished the game. I have some non-story advice, which I'm not going to bother putting into spoiler tags, as it's just about game saves. When you're about to go to the point of no return (Fi will warn you and give you a chance to change your mind, so you can't miss it), you may want to clone your save before continuing if you haven't done everything yet. After the ending and the credits and everything you'll be informed that you can now play the game in Hero Mode -- but this means overwriting your save, so if you still had some minigames or sidequests or whatnot to do before the ending, you'll have to play through the whole game again to get to that point if you choose to make your save into a Hero Mode one. You can decline, of course, but then if you want to unlock that mode you'll have to redo the last battle.

I suppose I should put what little I know of Hero Mode in spoilers, and what I would have done to prepare for it if we'd known in advance we'd have to choose between it being available and having our old save available:
 We only played a very tiny bit of the new game, not even as far as going to find Zelda and her father. But one of the NPCs did tell us that you lose hearts twice as fast in this mode. How fun. Other than that, it's not that much of a new game +, as you don't get to keep much of your stuff (unless there's stuff in the Item Check; we didn't play far enough to find out). However, you do still have all of your bugs and "treasures" in your inventory, so when you get to the point of upgrading items, selling bugs, and infusing potions, you have a head start on that. This being the case, what I would have done in advance is procured more of the rare items in my previous save; there's a Gossip Stone you learn about late in the game (not sure if it's there before someone tells you to check out this place with the butterflies) who will sell you rare items, and we were long past the point of needing money for anything else.

Alunissage wrote: After getting the three flames and going through the gate that you needed to get them to unlock, you learn:
 - The parallel between Althena and the goddess extends to their later, hitherto clueless, incarnations
- Link, though, is more like Hiro than Alex, at least when it comes to being left behind. Even if the actual storyline is intended to evoke Zelda II. At least Zelda is still dressed in her crystal.

Oh god, I JUST got to this part and it's like Lunar 1 AND 2.

Took a screenshot for those who don't mind spoilers.

http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... _Lunar.jpg

Oh yeah, something that caught me in the beginning..
 Link! Wake up!! Go meet Zelda out by the Goddess Statue, you're late!!! (A cliche RPG opening.)
When he does go to meet her, she's singing and playing a harp... very reminiscent of meeting Luna in TSS.

Yeah, my friend pointed out that I'd forgotten that second one. Another one he mentioned from fairly close to the beginning was that both games have  a pasty-white bad guy whose name begins with Gh-.

 - flying cat (named Mia!)

 No wonder Nall seems to love Mia so much when you first meet her! is Lunar Skyward Sword Story (LSSS) a prequel to Lunar 1?

Edit:

Took a screenshot for those who don't mind spoilers
http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... _Lunar.jpg

That's awesome!!
I have found another picture. This one of Zelda's Ghaleon for those of us who aren't playing the game
http://www.zeldadungeon.net/Zelda14/Cha ... -Large.jpg

And Ghaleon
http://images.wikia.com/lunar/images/1/10/Ghaleon1.jpg

And Zelda's Mia
http://www.zeldadungeon.net/Zelda14/Cha ... -Large.jpg

We really have to ask Nintendo if they have played too much Lunar Legend on their GBA's or DS's.

Edit 2:

http://i957.photobucket.com/albums/ae53 ... _title.jpg

Titlescreen and opening.

We're so starved for Lunar that we have to get it by playing a Zelda game. [text removed - seriously, stop trying to bypass the swear filter -KF]

Hate to bring up a old post but... Next time I play Zelda, I'm going to name Link, Alex.