First playthrough

[Angelalex242]

Fun Fact: Actually, you CAN equip the Black Dragon Armor immediately. It's only the Dragon Ring you have to wait on, assuming you're playing original playstation. It's wise to equip it for the Black Dragon Fight.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Huh. I thought it auto-equipped it for the Black Dragon fight? Now that I try to remember, after the fight and we were back on the main world over screen Alex had his cape and other cool new duds on. I don't remember either of us equipping them. Maybe I just forgot.

Everyone returned to Myght's tower. He snarked at them and made fun of their good hygiene. The airship was almost ready, but first they'd need to have a sleep over. Cool, cool. The gang can; tell scary stories, spin the bottle, braid each other's hair, TP the neighbor's house/tower. Lots of fun.Of course Nash has to be a Debbie Downer and try to undermine all the positivity the other's have about defeating Ghaleon. The group is a little put off by his behavior, but not as much as I think they should be.

The next morning Myght introduces us to the new airship, and Nash promptly betrays us bey destroying the engine with a lightning spell. I did appreciate how he still said "check THIS out!" like he was pleased with himself even though he really was not. Nice touch, I chuckled. So Royce show's up, makes fun of us, and generally gloat while wearing minimal clothing. That seems to be a Vile Tribe cultural thing. Nash says he did it to protect Mia. That doesn't really sit well with the rest of the group. Royce and Nash leave.

Everyone decides to go back to Reza to get the airship that black market dealer where Shira's old airship is, to source that powerplant. Myght whines about it, and off they go. Being the brilliant tactician that I am, I had the group buy the engine for 30,000 Lunar Bucks and THEN talked to the village leader, only to learn that he would have helped me get a better price. (........) One save/reload later the group talks with the village elder, and then goes to get the engine for free.

The group is down one member, but Nash is a tool anyway. We fly our way into the frontier where it becomes increasingly clear why the game is named Lunar. I've had questions since starting the game about atmosphere, water, etc. on the rest of the moon. They're only exacerbated once we get there, as you can see clear signs of repeated impact events all over the surface now. Is there no atmosphere in this area? WAS there no atmosphere, but now there is? Does the atmosphere get thinner as you get towards the edge of Althena's influence? Should I just shut up and move on? I dunno.

The Vile Tribe are truly a sad people. It's unclear what they did to lose Althena's favor and remain punished for this long, but now they're being used and manipulated by Ghaleon under the guise of revenge against the humans and beastmen who live under Althena's blessing and have a blessed existence. I see it as an allegory for God, the Angels that fell and were eternally punished, and the imperfect humans who are always given patience and second chances. Who knows though, I'm not spiritual or religious.

We run into a few interesting scenes while wandering through the mines where the Vile Tribe members (VTs? Veeteetians?) are forced to work. We learn that they must still pray to Althena, or acknowledge her in some manner, to live and receive some form of meager healing. So despite their hate, they need her. The group rescues a VeeTeetian from a cave-in. We chose to help out, so I don't know what would have happened if we did not. Does it rope you into helping, or does it create a different situation later?

Xenobia show's up, and captures the ladies. She also gloats at our misfortune. I like the big 80's hair her sprite has. Big 80's hair should come back. Just stay away from open flames, ladies. Remember you're wearing 6 layers of White Rain and your hair will be dry.

In classic baddie fashion, she decides that killing them herself with, I dunno, literally ANYTHING she has nearby isn't sound tactics. Instead she forces Kyle and Alex to fight. They fake fight, but Xenobia doesn't believe it. In my head, it looked like the really fake Kung Fu fights my friends and I did in the back yard when we were like 10. We think it's great. None of the ladies we're trying to impress were buying it.

It does create a distraction to allow Kyle to piss-off Jess enough that she beastman, barbarian rages and breaks free of Xenobias binding spell. (I like Jess's character design. If I play DnD again anytime soon, I'm going to try some form of a barbarian/cleric thing. Might be fun.) Once we defeat the baddie Xenobia left behind, we soon find a VT graveyard. It's a sombre scene. After exploring through a few more catacombs where we find Veeteetians forced to live out their lives in what appears to be the Vile Tribe equivalent of an Iron Lung, we bump into the purple Veeteetian we saved earlier. After a little talk, we learn it's actually Phacia in disguise. You can tell through conversation that she doesn't fit in with the rest of her group. There's no snark, no cruelty, and she dresses pretty normal. She acknowledges that the Vile Tribe did some things that were not good in the past, but feels there's good in the people and that they've suffered enough. Not all of them deserve this totalitarian level of suffering. The group agrees to trust Phacia and now it looks we also have a double-agent working for us.

*Cue Zoidberg scheming and laughing noises*

That's all for now!

[Angelalex242]

Hopefully you backtracked through the various places once you became Dragonmaster in the world of light. Lots of people have things to say to your new Dragonmaster self. Never just follow the plotted path!

[sharkythesharkdogg]

We actually did less traveling around this time than the other times we've returned back to the overworld map. We know the RPG trope of do everything other than what the game tells you to do, but eh. We were excited to get to the next chapter. We did speak with a few people. We're just having fun playing the game. I'll probably go back to the game later and really sit there attempting to do everything and talk to everyone after every major development.

[Angelalex242]

Well...there's FAQs about the bromides and how to get them. You'll usually miss like 2/3 of them playing the game 'naturally.'

[ShugoHanasaki]

I'm on my first playthrough, too! Just started Disc 2 and finally pieced out why this game is even called Lunar in the first place. Am I slow? It was also a long time since I actually started so maybe I forgot a few lore details from earlier on.

RE Flame Sword: Elemental equipment yields better attack power against specific monsters, but I don't think I picked that one up. The only equipment I ever sell off is non-elemental.

---



Edit: Spent this morning finally finishing up the game after starting it months ago. Clocked in at lv47 and just a smidge under 24 hours. Lunar 2 is next, but I'm kinda leaning on playing the Sega CD version instead of "Complete"...

Level 43 is usually when i beat the game, but my timing is usually 12:30-13:30 hours to beat it

[Sonic#]

^ I think if I rushed it, I could beat Lunar 1 in 12 hours or so. Otherwise, my timing and level are usually pretty close to Gryzz's - talking to NPCs, backtracking for red chests, and the obligatory bath visits put me at 20-25 hours.

[Angelalex242]

I'd have to check, but I think my level 99 save has 99 hr and 59 minutes on it.

I like to get to level 99 at the black dragon fortress, you see, so the change to Dragonmaster means something distinct in terms of power.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

With the ladies rescued, the adventurers make their way through the mines to some sort of a control/activation room where they meet Taben. It appears Taben is the creator of The Grindery (so in my head, he is a night club promoter). Considering he plays such a pivotal role in Ghaleon's plans, I find it curious why he's never been mentioned up until now, but here we are. He also appears a good bit more humanoid, like the three sisters.

So I have questions. Is Ghaleon even part of the Vile Tribe? What about this Traben fellow? It seems like the three sisters are, but none of them look like the colorful goblin/gremlin-esque creatures I've talked to in the mines. It's odd. I get the feeling Ghaleon isn't even part of the tribe, so what is he?

Moving on, Traben throws his latest invention, The Magical Masher, at us. No one is surprised to learn it will be piloted by none other than Nash. But woe unto any warrior who doubts the efficacy of Nash's latest improvements. Rising from the floor to tower over us like a glorious thunderbird, Nash is here to beat some ass. He strides forward in his very intimidating exo-suit (no really, it's totally awesome guys).........and is quickly trounced. Nash is now pitied and looked down on by his "friends", and scorned and discarded by Traben and ultimately Ghaleon for being useless. That's gotta sting.

We confront Ghaleon and Traben on the entrance ramp to The Grindery. The group can hear the pulsating beat of dance music coming from inside, but alas, Ghaleon the bouncer says none of them are cool or attractive enough to be let inside. He's not a total jerk, and assures Alex that Luna is just fine.......for now. (Classic) Then The Grindery speeds off across the moonscape blasting house beats and flashing strobe lights across the horizon. Looks like the Vile Tribe is also upset, because they weren't let inside either. Ghaleon seems pretty focused on bringing the party to Althena's tower. Not particularly good news.

On a side note, The Grindery is a really fun piece of 90's mech/tank/robot anime fantasy design. I approve.

The heroes, and also Nash, use the air ship to beat the Grindery back to the tower, and gather in Vane to discuss the plan of attack. After Mia's mom basically calls Nash a bag of -Dragon Diamond-, they decide the best course of action is to open up the Silver Spire and unleash the biggest reality check they can on The Grindery.

This is Mia's moment to shine, and looks appropriately badass while doing her thing.


Distant relatives? No.....no, probably not, but I'll let that theory live in my head anyway.

So Vane and The Grindery stare each other down, and then shoot each other. It looks like Vane gets the worst of it by far, as the city falls from the sky in flames, landing near the Tower of Althena.The Grindery is rendered immobile, at least temporarily, and loses some armor.

It's a pity they didn't let the Silver Spire's ability do something more substantial to Ghaleon's fortress, but what can you do? We stopped there, so tune in next time.

[Angelalex242]

Haiku from Lunar 2:

You know you love me
My fluffy majestic hair
But please call me Nash

[Alunissage]

Per the manga (never officially translated, but considered "canon"), Ghaleon is of the same race but a different branch, one that was never confined in the Frontier. He was probably the last one of them born in Vane, a city that was once entirely Vile Tribe. He's something like 152 years old at the time of Lunar 1. The "lowlands" Magic Race were the ones that rebelled against Althena and were banished. Presumably the rather unhealthy climate made them monstrous through the generations.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

No major updates in story development, just a fun evening of my wife wandering around talking to folks; Ramus is making money off all the recent developments, some Dragonmaster groupie in Saith wants to meet Alex at her house for adult hugging, we learned Jess thinks the fact that Vane can turn into a weapon is tacky for some reason? Things like that. It's nice to hear the updated chats.

We'll finish up touring all the towns and then make our way over to The Grindery for some sweaty dancing here soon.

[Angelalex242]

Luna's not a very sharing chick is she? Heck, she can make every woman (and only women?) sick with her dark song.

...Which is an interesting plot point. Why on earth is a corrupted Althena's song only harmful to women?

[sharkythesharkdogg]

See, I thought that's how it was supposed to be too, but my wife pointed out something.

In Pao village there's the old man that you think is sick, but it turns out he was just asleep, so probably not. Fair enough. But there was another hut where a lady was worried about her boyfriend who was sickened by the song. I'll have to go back and watch some gameplay videos, but I swear it was a purple-haired lady talking about her sick boyfriend.

I'm sure people here know this game inside and out, so I probably don't even have to watch a video.

[Angelalex242]

Even if that's true, it's a throwaway line in an easily missed piece of dialogue, and he would be the one and only sick dude in the entire blast radius of the song.

It, for the most part, really does seem to be an anti woman measure.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Tsk Tsk. It's our duty as fans to think way too hard about these things and come up with ridiculously complex theories strung together from arbitrary details in the game.

It's tradition!

[Alunissage]

In TSS, the illness was caused by Xenobia, and I think it affected both men and women villagers (because a kid loses his father), as well as Jessica, Mia, and Fresca. Pretty sure the main reason was gameplay-related; they needed to make room for Tempest and having just one person out put too much focus on that one person. (Alex has a couple of minor healing spells in that game, so at least there was still a healer in the party.) I'll need to check the dialogue in both games to see if the illness affecting only women is version-specific.

[Angelalex242]

Well, in this version, the only healing spell available is Blue Dragon Healing, and that's VERY Expensive. Hope you had star lights available.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Nothing big here, just a quick update to let everyone know I'm not dead.

Haven't had a chance to play much recently. We're up to the garden area in The Grindery, and my wife did a little level grinding around the area the other day. Characters are all around level 40, so we're fine there. Hope to have a bigger, maybe final, update soon.

[AkagisWhiteComet]

It's cool to see someone play through LUNAR for the first time.

I tried to relate it to the order of the dragons we met.

White dragon = white moon or white star?
Red dragon = red sun?
Blue Dragon = blue planet? Neptune is blue, it has rings.
Black dragon = ......moon? because it's night time?

None of it worked, and so we cheated and used the interwebs. Sorry gang, we did try.

If you "enjoyed" this puzzle and plan to play Eternal Blue Complete at some point, you'll be in for another treat.

To explain it as spoiler-less as possible, in EBC there's a point in the game where you're asked to find chests in a dungeon through dialogue. In the original Sega CD Eternal Blue the quest was present. However in EBC the quest was dropped. As Working Designs copied over a lot of their lines and dialogue from EB to EBC - that game didn't change a whole lot, compared to the myriad of narrative changes that occurred with Silver Star to Silver Star Complete - the chests simply aren't present and you just go to the end and watch narrative progress.

As I had played both the original LUNARs prior to the PS1 games, when I got to that point in EBC I expected the quest but then was super confused as to why it wasn't present. I later bought the strategy guides (both the PS1 guides are super pricey to try to purchase now) and discovered that it simply wasn't caught, even by the play testers. As there was only one release of EBC the text was never updated.

I'd however for sure recommend once you both have completed SSSC that you play EBC.