Short version:
1. Because the battle graphics are less than half as good as Lunar Legend on GBA.
2. Battles are too slow, even with the L+R trick.
3. Characters names are weird.
Long version:
Losing HP when running and the overall battle mechanic are what ruined the game the most.
But there were a few things i almost never see anyone mention...
The battle graphics. They're HORRIBLE!
The overworld and dungeons/ towns look so neat, but inside battle? To me EVERYTHING looks wrong.
In battle, we see:
1. A background
2. Enemies
3. Heroes
4. Menu
http://i957.photobucket.com/albums/ae53 ... gen012.jpg
http://i957.photobucket.com/albums/ae53 ... s/LDS1.jpg
Well? The background, for the majority of the game looks like crap.
The enemies, some of them look ok... but then they look like crap when they move and attack.
The heroes, they look ok, their design and animation is mostly, good, not epic, but is ruined by distorted pixels caused by a strange zoom they have since it's kind of a 3D environment.
The menu and icons in it all look weird and rushed.
Just play Lunar 1 and 2 on PS1, or even Lunar 1 in GBA, and see how nice and beautiful everything looks. You can tell a professional drew those backgrounds and did that pixel art / animation. In Lunar Dragon Song it just looks like a bad fan project. They're still OK, cause there are many enemies and different backgrounds for places, which look better in later parts of the game, but its just barely ok. The ONLY THING that saves the battles for me is the music, those are darn good and worthy of Lunar.
As for the story and characters, well, I actually liked the story..... for a first RPG on DS, it's great.
I mean has anyone played Children of Mana? ................................. anyway... the story is great but it has flaws, like taking too much from SSS. The names of the characters are weird too. I am not a professional at writing story or creating characters... but UGH. Jian Campbell. It sounds like Roy Campbell from Metal Gear Solid.
What, was Jian Campbell from the USA? Did the USA exist in the Blue Star before people moved to Lunar?
I don't know why this name bothers me so much, when we have names like Alex, Kyle, Jessica, and all that in Lunar.
What if the hero of Lunar 3 is named Jeff Gordon? -__- I would scream.
The only thing that can lead me to believe that these names can exist in a world like Lunar is the pop culture stuff added in translation for the original Lunars.
... which brings me to the next name. Lucia Collins. WHAT! Lucia?? from Lunar 2? It's not the same Lucia. It is never implied to be the same. So why have 2 Lucias in the Lunar universe? I would forgive them if they had a lot of characters, or if this new Lucia was epic, but no. They just ran out of creativity. Why Collins? It's like Phil Collins. From the band Genesis. And this game is called Lunar Genesis originally. Phil Collins is great, and so was the band Genesis, but ugh... what does this have to do with Lunar? So we got Lucia from Lunar 2 and Phil Collins from Genesis, combined into Lucia Collins. I mean, combine a chocolate drink with an orange juice. No, thats not bad enough... wait I got it! Put toothpaste inside an oreo instead of the white oreo cream. Now eat it.
Ignatius name bothered me. I dunno why. I can totally imagine an epic villain with this name, but Dragon Song's Ignatius is meh.
Gad's Delivery. It's like Oh my GAD really??