New user, Hi to you all!

[titop222]

Hi! New member here, discovered this forum recently and thought it was a great place to discuss Lunar lore/memories.

So I guess I'll start with how I got into Lunar:

My first exposure to Lunar was Lunar Legend for the GBA about 10 years ago (I remember finding it in the KB toys section of used games). With no internet and basically 0 context on what a good game is, picking out random used games was usually more of a miss than a hit on my part. However, Lunar Legend stands out to me as one of the better games I picked. The battle system isn't that complex (which to my younger self was a plus) although I did miss out on a lot of gear/strategies due to my ignorance. What made the game stand out to me was the story itself... Finding Dragons, becoming a Dragon Master, fighting for a literal Goddess, plus all the humor and events (and the Music!) was really exciting! However, I do remember getting stuck on the final Ghaleon fight and just giving up... About 3 years later I came back to the game and managed to grind enough to beat Ghaleon (not having the charge amulet on Mia helped a lot during that run lol). As I kept replaying the game throughout the years I learned to love the lore of the game and finding out new stuff (wether its a game-play mechanic or lore wise) always made each play trough unique in some aspect. Of course, I always wondered of there was a sequel or a prequel but never really found anything on the GBA. About a year and a half ago I did another play trough (managed to get all of the unique gear for the characters and the bonus boss) and decided to do a semi thorough search on the series (after all, I had heard of the series on youtube videos, so I knew something had to be out there) and found Lunar: Eternal Blue Complete.


So Lunar Eternal Blue... I gotta say, originally I was a little skeptical, I liked the cast of SSS to the point where I was getting worried I wasn't going to be as invested in the new characters, however, the game did not disappoint me. Lucias innocence and determination... Hiro's thirst for his own adventure, yet in a different path than Alex had once taken, Ronfars backstory with Mauri, Jeans tragic childhood, Leminas greedy yet hilarious act and Leos honor, loyalty and friendship... I just liked these characters. Not to mention that the switch from GBA to PS1 definitely gave me a much better impression of the game and the soundtrack, just beautiful. Gotta be honest, as I progressed I was afraid I was going to finish the game to soon... But the game was just long enough to satisfy me. The post game also lit a fire in me. I just had to reunite these two lovebirds no matter what! No sad ending for Hiro goddamit! Figuring out how to reunite the party and the callback to previous dungeons to find the remaining orbs definitely felt rewarding after all we went trough in the main story.


So I finished the game and found out about Dragon Song, which apparently was terrible. I'm still probably going to play it due to lore reasons but I am sad that the series has just faded like that. I recently bought the appstore version of SSS and found this website looking for a bromide guide... The Lunar world definitely has enough lore to expand a few more unique entries. I think I've read something about a manga and fanmade games? If so, I'd appreciate if you could direct me to them.

I'm excited to discuss the lore and games with you all!

[Alunissage]

Ah, welcome! Please feel free to start threads talking about Lunar -- we could use some new discussion topics! I'm glad to hear from someone who found the series via Lunar Legend, which I think tends to get unfairly maligned. That said, I look forward to hearing what you think of SSS. It's basically a straight port of the PlayStation Lunar 1, with the only major difference is that the voices and item/spell names were taken from the PSP version (which has completely different graphics and some minor story changes/additions, as well as a different translation), so there are occasional minor discrepancies between in-game dialogue and those things.

Of course, a lot of us old-timey fans have a special fondness for the original SegaCD games (which are perfectly playable on PC from game disc with a good emulator). Lunar 1, usually abbreviated TSS, may feel like a step back in terms of gameplay and graphics, but its music is amazing and it's my personal favorite. Lunar 2 on SegaCD is possibly the best of them all in terms of gameplay, and its story and music were largely unchanged when it was remade for PlayStation.

There are several manga, and I think we have translations of all of them on the main site, so take a look there for more information. One is of Eternal Blue, but manages to tell the whole story without Ghaleon. Two more volumes tell the story, approximately, of Magic School (see below). The other two are separate stories not in any of the games, one book being prequel stories about Ghaleon and the other being about Hiro and a new young friend set after Lucia has departed for the Blue Star but before Hiro has joined her there.

Dragon Song's most infuriating problems are with the gameplay. The story, while not as compelling as SSS and EB, is interesting. I had some fun trying to fit it into the backstory hinted at in Lunar 1, since DS takes place roughly a millennium before.

There's one other installment in the series which has never been localized: Lunar Walking School for the Game Gear, later remade for the Saturn as Magic(al) School Lunar!. It's a very different type of story, and to be honest I can't say much more than that because I still haven't gotten around to playing much of it. But we have a walkthrough on the site and I think there's even a translation patch now of the Game Gear game.

[ShugoHanasaki]

I love your journey through playing the second game ^^ It's adorable. My first exposure was SSSC and then EBC. To this day both games are two of my most favorite and cherished games of all time. I try and play them every year or so ^^;;

Btw if you know what Telegram is. We have a little LUNAR telegram chat group. Telegram is a chat client you can get by searching it up on google or on the app store on your phone. https://t.me/WorldofLunar It's pretty neat! You can share stickers, gifs, video, voice clips, ect. We have a bunch of LUNAR ones

Welcome!

[titop222]

@Alunissage

Hi! Yea, I was surprised at the general opinion on Lunar Legend, but I can understand it. When the originals had such high quality, you kind of expect more out of remakes. In my case, since I started out with Lunar Legend I didn't have anything to compare it with.

I'll definitely look into the original Sega CD games when I have the time. And thank you for potingue out the manga/Magical School game!


@ShugoHanasaki

Hey! I'll definitely check it out later on!

[S.ninja]

The OG sega CD has a very different tone and a much better story in my opinion but do to it's dated graphics a lot of people overlook it. Glad you joined

[Kizyr]

Hey welcome to the forums!

You're not the first I've seen who's introduction to the series was Lunar: Legend. Honestly as much as it paled in comparison to the Sega CD and Playstation games, it was still pretty good in its own right (I mean there's a reason I spent enough time to write a walkthrough for it). Awfully cute spritework too. (The oddest introduction was Dragon Song -- one person on the forums mentioned that being their first one, and I'm surprised it didn't turn 'em off the whole franchise. But it's not bad -- after all you can only go up from there.)

Alun already mentioned plenty of what I could offer. One of these days I want to finish up translating the other manga and drama series, maybe after the rest of my life calms down a bit? But in the meantime we have plenty here, hopefully interesting enough! KF

[brit]

Welcome to the board, Titop222!

Lunar Legend was a nice addition on the Lunar SSS tale. I liked the plot differences from the PS1 version, I mean they were't anything major but they were enough to give the game a fresh take. Like the scene in Burg when Alex and Luna leave home and we get that short scene with Alex's mom and Luna. Or the fact that Nash joins the party sooner! <3 He was always my favorite from the first besides Alex and Tempest. I think the dragon trial is also pretty different in that one with both Nash and Alex taking it. As for sprite work I actually preferred the sprite art when moving around in towns and dungeons. The bigger sprites used in battle and scenes really turned me off a bit. All-in-all a good version.

The fact that it was named Lunar legend also made the changes feel right. After all stories that become legends normally get changed around somewhere along the line so it made all the little changes nice. ^_^

Eternal Blue on PS1 was my first, I loved it so much I had to go play the previous one. ^^

[S.ninja]

My favorite thing sabout legends story change is after all this time we got to go to burg goddess festival. And pirates taking apples to make "pies"

[titop222]

Hey welcome to the forums!

You're not the first I've seen who's introduction to the series was Lunar: Legend. Honestly as much as it paled in comparison to the Sega CD and Playstation games, it was still pretty good in its own right (I mean there's a reason I spent enough time to write a walkthrough for it). Awfully cute spritework too. (The oddest introduction was Dragon Song -- one person on the forums mentioned that being their first one, and I'm surprised it didn't turn 'em off the whole franchise. But it's not bad -- after all you can only go up from there.)

Alun already mentioned plenty of what I could offer. One of these days I want to finish up translating the other manga and drama series, maybe after the rest of my life calms down a bit? But in the meantime we have plenty here, hopefully interesting enough! KF

Hi! Thanks for the welcome!

[titop222]

Welcome to the board, Titop222!

Lunar Legend was a nice addition on the Lunar SSS tale. I liked the plot differences from the PS1 version, I mean they were't anything major but they were enough to give the game a fresh take. Like the scene in Burg when Alex and Luna leave home and we get that short scene with Alex's mom and Luna. Or the fact that Nash joins the party sooner! <3 He was always my favorite from the first besides Alex and Tempest. I think the dragon trial is also pretty different in that one with both Nash and Alex taking it. As for sprite work I actually preferred the sprite art when moving around in towns and dungeons. The bigger sprites used in battle and scenes really turned me off a bit. All-in-all a good version.

The fact that it was named Lunar legend also made the changes feel right. After all stories that become legends normally get changed around somewhere along the line so it made all the little changes nice. ^_^

Eternal Blue on PS1 was my first, I loved it so much I had to go play the previous one. ^^

After playing the IOS version, I gotta say that even though the GBA one lacks animated cut scenes, it still holds up. And yea, the slightly different take on how the story goes is also a draw in, makes it feel more of a "legendary tale" that gets altered trough time. Although the message it sends is still as powerful as it was so long ago...