What's in Lunar 3 ??????

[sylanthir]

the dragons dont exist anymore (by that I mean after l1 and l2) right?

[phyco126]

No, the dragons remained even after the two games. If they can exsist without Althena, then I'm sure they would be around long after L2.

[Kizyr]

The world is gone once the dragons disappear. The dragons aren't deities, but they're related to the magic power that keeps Lunar habitable. If they're gone, then Lunar would become lifeless again, as the magic that keeps it alive would also die.

I think I remember that from the novels, but there're multiple sources saying that. KF

[Silver Phoenix]

Basically that's why Zophar wanted Ghaleon to steal the dragon auras, so once he was able to aquire the power of Althena, he could truly destroy the world of Lunar.

[Angelalex242]

Among other things. The first thing Lucia did when she arrived on the planet was call for the Dragons. Of course, the sealed Dragons couldn't help her, so...Zophar unleashed his can of whupass instead.

...I now speculate if Lucia would've been cursed at all if the Dragons had not been sealed. (Except the Star Dragon, of course, who avoided sealing...)

[Alunissage]

Not that again. Did the Star Dragon strike anyone else as totally grafted on as a quick-fix last boss? He didn't fit in with the whole dragon thing at all, nor did he connect with any other part of the story or series history except for the Phantom Sentry which was removed in the remake.

[Angelalex242]

Saying over what I've said before:

The Star Dragon makes sense to me.

If Althena is a Goddess, and she has 4 Dragons, each corresponding to one element...
Then it makes perfect sense Lucia as a Goddess might have only one Dragon, who can and does use all elements. It's simply a different division of power.

[drumlord]

I never viewed the Star Dragon as Lucia's dragon. He seems tacked on in EBC, but it seemed pretty obvious that he was the phantom sentry guy in EB and was keeping tabs on the party. I interpreted him more as his own thing rather than being some being crucial to the progression of Lunar. If he was as vitally important as Althena or the Four Dragons there would be more mention of him.

So I typically put him on the level of Ghaleon. We are told enough for him to serve his purpose, but there are still things kept from us about what he's really there for. I don't think the Star Dragon's purpose was simply to test Hiro. That seems more like something he decided to do all on his own. It'd be a pitiful existence to wait a few thousand years to test some kid and then have your job be done ;P

[Kizyr]

On the contrary... The Star Dragon doesn't seem 'tacked on'. Rather, he seems to have been a more vital part of the original story, and had stuff removed along the way to the final product. Same end result, though: he still seems tacked on.

It'll be a while before I can get to reading the EB novels again, but I'm curious if he plays a bigger role in them. KF

[Alunissage]

The four dragons don't correspond to the elements. There are five elements in Lunar, not four (cf. the elemental crests), and going strictly by environment we'd have a repeat (both ice and water). The White Dragon spell in TSS was a lightning attack, but there was no wind one. Rune and others have mentioned that four of the five dragons go with Norse (?) mythology and there's one missing, but the Star Dragon doesn't seem to fit as the fifth (green) one either.

[Angelalex242]

I'm not up on my Norse.

And the Dragons don't seem to fit the elemental theory well. Anyways, Nall doesn't seem very lightning based or very ice based, even, when he's flying around with Alex. He just sort of...flies around and revives people. And White Dragon Protect implies a Dragon of Protecting things...or something like that.

And the Star Dragon doesn't fit because, as I mentioned, he casually uses all 5 elements in that one fight we see him in. I still suspect he's stronger then the other 4, due to how Nall talks about him.

[GhaleonOne]

In TSS, based on their surroundings, I saw the White Dragon as ice, Red as fire, Blue as water, and Black as earth, but that leaves wind and lightning, and as said above, in TSS, the White Dragon spells had some lightning. I miss some of those old spells actually. THey were unique rather than the average spells. In fact, I like the stark contrast between the worlds in TSS and EB. In the remakes, the worlds were so similiar. In the originals, they had distinct feelings, and you could tell the world changed a lot culturally in 1000 years.

[foxracer186]

I've heard a lot of people talking about how Lunar Dragon Song is not Lunar 3 in their eye's for the following reasons.

1) The game is on a handheld instead of an actual home video gaming system.
2) The game is not labeled as Lunar 3
3) The game takes places 1,000 years prior to the original, therefore is not a sequel.

Feel free to correct me because I'm new to the board, but I've been waiting for this next Lunar game ever since Eternal Blue complete came out and a huge fan of the series. I'd like to respond to these three reasons to hold out on the game being the next in the series.

1) Yes I too would have preferred for the Lunar 3 game to be on a home video gaming system instead of a handheld, but unfortunately it’s not up to us.

2) While the Lunar Complete version of Eternal Blue was labeled Lunar 2, when it was originally released for Sega CD it was just called Lunar Eternal Blue, so its not a for sure thing that the Lunar 3 game will be in-fact Labeled Lunar 3. You have to remember Eternal Blue was around for a long time before SSS Complete for the PSone was released so they actually had something to work with when EB was re-released as Lunar 2 Eternal Blue. Lunar 3 would have to be made entirely from the ground up.

3)As far as the game not being a sequel that’s not necessarily true. I'm gonna borrow another example here from the Metal Gear Solid series, if any of you have played it you'll know what I’m talking about. The first two Metal Gear Solid games progressed one after the other, but the most recent release Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater actually back tracked close to 70 years before the original game was even released for the sole purpose of explaining the history to the gamer that was never explained in the other games. This could easily be true for the Lunar series since we've heard so much about earlier Dragonmasters, the fall of the Blue Star, Lucia and Althena's reign on the Blue star, ect. So just because this game doesn't follow Eternal Blue don't write it off, going back can present just as much a promising insight to the over all world of Lunar as a game that goes into the future of Lunar.

I'll admit I have to go along with everyone else that I wished the game was set after Eternal Blue, on a consol, and got rid of all debate by simply putting the number 3 in the title, but I have to say that I’m reserving judgment on whether this game is Lunar 3 in my eyes or not until I play it.

It’s also worth noting that Game Arts did release the game in Japan, but Working Designs is not working with the game in the US. Instead Ubisoft the creator of many awesome games such as Splinter Cell is in charge of the game here in the US. I expect the same if not better quality from Ubisoft as we got from Working Deigns.

[drumlord]

Metal Gear Solid is the exception, not the rule. Lunar: Dragon Song is a prequel and as such is not Lunar 3. Your theory seems to be that a game is part of the regular installments based on quality. That isn't the case as if Lunar 3 was released it could certainly be quite bad. Some examples of normal conventions is that Star Wars: The Phantom Menace is not Star Wars 4 (or Star Wars 7 following the episode numbers). Once The Hobbit is made into a movie, it won't be Lord of the Rings 4. And the prequel to the Exorcist wasn't referred to The Exorcist 2.

I don't view this stuff as controversary so much as misconceptions. Lunar: Dragon Song simply isn't Lunar 3, but because the news about it was released in snippets and because so many Lunar 3 rumors already existed, people believed it to be Lunar 3 at first.

[Alunissage]

Well, there are precedents in the other direction too... Growlanser III being a fairly obvious one, set 1000 years before Growlanser & Growlanser II, and Lufia 2 being before Lufia 1.

The presence or absence of numbers in EB's name is fairly irrelevant. While the title had no number on it, there was the roman numeral II on the side of the box, and the Japanese artbook was titled Lunar I+II (well, a dot rather than a +), not to mention that EB was originally planned to be just a few years after TSS and have the TSS cast. Furthermore, by the criteria above, Magic School would have qualified to be Lunar 3, and there are people to this day that think it is due to some site which has labeled screenshots from it as such. Magic School's first incarnation was on the Game Gear and it was then released for Saturn.

Oh, and not "everyone else" wanted the next Lunar game to be after EB. I'm more interested in the history than the future myself, and have no objection to prequels.

Lastly, while Ubi's job on Dragon Song will hopefully be good, their history and reputation didn't mean jack squat when it came to the localization of Lunar Legend, which was clearly pushed out the door to make the holiday season with a first-draft script and bugs that weren't present in the Japanese game. One can hope that with Japanese and NA releases so close together that they had sufficient resources to avoid those problems this time.

[Kizyr]

I don't know about the bugs, but the translation at least looks good.

The general consensus is that this isn't a Lunar 3, but still another chapter in the Lunar series. KF

[foxracer186]

That is true, I'm sorry I had the box and didn't look at the side. I was wondering has Working Designs completly pulled off from the Lunar series or if an actual Lunar 3 does come about would they still have the rights to publish it. I know the Eternal Blue Complete manual had some talk about Lunar 3 in the interview sections.

I also did a little looking into UbiSoft. They have mulitiple studios I believe alot of the major work on Splinter Cell was done in the Paris location or something, I saw it on the interview in the game. As far as Ubi's other jobs with the Lunar series I haven't been able to see wich Ubisoft studio location was responsible for it.

[GhaleonOne]

Lunar is done here in America. As far as I'm aware of, at least some of the Legend team is working on Dragon Song.

[Alunissage]

I don't think it's been said explicitly, but the implication is that WD won't be doing any more Lunar games.

[phyco126]

Actually, the biggest question is how much longer can WD last before they go under.

I think it's obvious that WD will no longer be doing Lunar, which is a total shame too, especially the way Ubisoft treated L:L in their translation. (Oh, lets make it buggy as hell, take away a save slot, and have gramatical and spelling errors all over the freaking place!)

Though, I think my favorite line from L:L so far is "What is this all of a sudden." (only used a good thousand times throughout the game.) Hell, it doesn't even sound right.