Lunar Threads

I picked up Drag Song awhile back and had been meaning to play it despite how awful I had heard it was. I jumped into the Lunars during the Playstation era and loved them and even played Lunar Legend and beat it.

With SSH coming out I thought I should finally dig in and tackle Dragon Song... I'm not even out of the first woods section. I haven't played it in a week and I'm having a hard time motivating myself to pick it back up.

I want to play it. I think I should (isn't it funny how we view video games?), so give me some reasons why I just need to suck it up and play this thing!

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*crickets chirping*

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Unless you're obsessive about needing to know everything about the Lunar universe, then there's not much of a reason to play it. It's not horrendous, but it's not really worth playing over any other game that's marginally more fun.

Try using cards a ton and completely disregard the bloody fetch-quests. That'll cut your time down in half. After level 10, also, don't worry about the HP loss while running. Use magic all the time and run when you can; the battles aren't so difficult that leveling up is required.

That all just makes the game less irritating, not really more worthwhile per se. KF

Kizyr wrote:Unless you're obsessive about needing to know everything about the Lunar universe...

This assumes there is something to learn of the Lunar Universe from Dragon Song. There is not. The events that transpire in Dragon Song completely conflict with the established history of Lunar: The Silver Star and Lunar: Eternal Blue. Both those games (TSS and EB) chronologically, happen AFTER DS but were created LONG BEFORE Dragon Song. The fact that L:SSH is completely ignoring the established history of L:DS further concretes the fact that L:DS has nothing to offer the Lunar series.

That being said, it is still a video game... Want a good RPG for your DS? Get Chrono Trigger instead.

Eh, it's not so vacuous as all that. It's kind of interesting to see Lunar before magic was so well developed, and the beginnings of the Vile Tribe. I had some fun reconciling the storyline with the backstory from the other games a while back.

Still, the gameplay is an exercise in masochism and there are some really serious balance issues, to understate it a bit. I've never actually finished it in English, though I put something like 80 hours into the Japanese game.

Yeah, I read that the game is actually easier if you DON'T grind. I've never been into the whole card thing in games, but I guess that could be interesting if it actually gets me through.

I am intrigued by the story and want to do more than read it on a website, but I don't want to beat my head against the wall until I get to another piece of story.

... and yeah I've already got Chrono Trigger and totally love it (loved it on the SNES), but for DS I've got Suikoden Tierkreis and Nostalgia waiting in the wings (and for PSP I've got Riviera).

Alunissage wrote:Eh, it's not so vacuous as all that. It's kind of interesting to see Lunar before magic was so well developed, and the beginnings of the Vile Tribe. I had some fun reconciling the storyline with the backstory from the other games a while back.

Still, the gameplay is an exercise in masochism and there are some really serious balance issues, to understate it a bit. I've never actually finished it in English, though I put something like 80 hours into the Japanese game.

You're being too kind and accepting, Alun. You're forcing connections, in my opinion. I feel most connections to be made between the two are flimsy at best. Especially when the most IMPORTANT connections are obviously invalid. For example: Magic didn't become weak in Lunar until Althena chose to stay human and leave care of the world in the hands of humanity. It is stated by Nall (With the White Dragon Wings), Borgan (In general and it's his reason for creating Neo-Vane) and Lemina (She bemoans it and the state of Vane and the struggle of it several times) that magic has waned over the centuries and was never that weak before. Several books in the Vane library in both Silver Star and Eternal Blue state that in the ancient times Lunar was going through a magical revolution, great inventions of magic and sorcery were made. It was one of the reasons why the Magic-Users erected Vane, it is one of the reasons why the Vile Tribe was such serious business. As far as other things: The beastmen in Meribia say they were NEVER the dominant race of Lunar, and in fact, had been used as slaves and are viewed as a minority for all their known history. ("Thanks to Master Mel Meribia is one of the few towns on this world where we beastmen can live unharassed. All Hail Master Mel!") In fact, Leo and Mauri (and Gwyn) are the ONLY BEASTMEN to be SEEN in all of Eternal Blue. There are many other examples that spit in the face of established Lunar cannon just like this but I'm going to calm down.

While the events may not match up, I think Dragon Song at least gets one thing right: Jian's journey of learning to trust other people is very much in line with the rest of the series's message of the power of humanity in a collective sense. In fact, the game makes a specific point to say that the reason Ignatius is so evil is because he is unwilling to learn the things Jian does on his adventure, and kept himself closed off from the influence of other people in his life.

I think that's enough to call it a Lunar game. Maybe not a particularly great one, but it's at least earned that.

If you own it then you should play it. If I bought an original DS model for the launch of this game then you can at least play what you bought. It was one of the first games to use full function of both screens, and there's a couple decent songs in the game. You also get to see Cotton Candy Althena. It's also interesting how characters are specific to what kinds of enemies appear, and how their abilities lend themselves to defeating them. The game reminds me more of a crappy version of Grandia over Lunar.

I decided not to play the game right now. With SSH coming out I'm pretty hyped up for Lunar and this just isn't cutting the mustard. I'll probably come back to it sometime later.

I once leveled to 99. (Because I was bored, working security, and getting to level 99 was better then sitting around in an empty building)

I still can't find a good reason for a newbie to play it.

It's probably a better idea for someone new to the series to play it, and then play the others to see how much better they are in comparison. This way they won't be playing the series in reverse and going from good to bad.

Silver Phoenix wrote:It's probably a better idea for someone new to the series to play it, and then play the others to see how much better they are in comparison. This way they won't be playing the series in reverse and going from good to bad.

No, it's better for nobody to play it EVER.

Well that too, but only in the case that you're thinking about buying it. If you already own it you might as well experience "Putrid Lunch."

I couldnt figure out how to equip anything and after the whole mess of not knowing where my package had gone in the first cave I said %@^# this game. I will pick it up again eventually...

Silver Phoenix wrote:Well that too, but only in the case that you're thinking about buying it. If you already own it you might as well experience "Putrid Lunch."

Which isn't even new. For the true Putrid Lunch experience, try Lunar TSS. I finally understand after all these years what Jenner has been saying!

Me saying Putrid Lunch was a reference to TSS, as it was the only game with it.

I wasn't aware of that. Thank you! It's good to know.