So, I have been playing Lunar: DS...
Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2016 9:18 am
And honestly, I can't say it is all that bad.
But before I begin rambling non-stop about why the game doesn't suck as much in my eyes, I need to address something:
This is one of the best-looking covers that I have ever seen (and yes, I do care about that sort of thing). And, if anything, I would buy the game just to have that on display somewhere... it is THAT good.
But yeah, about the game... I knew from the start that I was fighting an uphill battle with this one, and that totally proved to be true, even on the technical level. I mean, I expressed before how unwilling I was to try and hunt down a copy of a game that was made infamous for the defectiveness of some of its carts, so I decided to play an emulated version first... and boy, what a mistake that was.
For starters, I was forced to choose between two emulators (DeSmUME and No$GBA) and each came with its own quirks. The first one offered excellent audio quality and superb screen/display options, but suffered from a terrible sluggishness when it came to the battle scenes (which, sadly, ARE kind of important for this kind of games). The other emulator offered massively improved speed, but the audio quality dropped (and got chopped) to the point of resembling a chip tune from the nineties, I... wish I was kidding. I was also restricted to just one tiny screen size which totally burdened my eyes after reading a few hours of dialogue (and no, using No$Zoomer didn't work, as it ALSO came bundled with nuisances). The speed factor won the race, though, and I stuck with good, old Nocash (as long as it stops crashing, that is!)
That alone would have been enough to throw me off the game entirely, but it also had quite a surprising effect: By being forced to restart the game half-a-dozen of times or so in search of the optimal configuration, I had to sit thru the entire intro far too many times... and that made me appreciate the main theme quite a lot (it's become one of my all-time favorites just because of sheer insistence, how about that?). Unfortunately, this infinite loop of awesome music also had the negative side-effect of making me realize how weak the writing in this was (and probably was going to be). I don't think I have ever seen such a vague intro and i still can't quite believe how it manages to say absolutely NOTHING in the -relatively long- time it lasts.
Jian's introduction didn't do much in terms of improving my poor first impression of the writing either. Again, I'm amazed by how much they messed him up in what little dialogue he has. I get it that the bits about how he might or might not have something for Lucia are there to make him come across as charming, relatable or just to establish some of the character relationships right away, and that's fine, but the way he says it is what totally throws me off... he sounds like a mid-schooler talking about a girl in his classroom. I know that I'm reading WAY too deep into this, but I have expectations and things like that help demolish them.
Lucia's introduction sits a lot better with me because it isn't as foolish. She's supposed to be mad, she's mad. Nice and clean... ish.
But yeah, I realize that I'm bashing this game way too much, even though I said that I didn't think it stinks as much as everyone says it does. So I'm gonna talk about the bits -few as they are, considering that I'm only one mission in- that I really like.
I adore the music to this game, to be honest (even when massacred by No$GBA). I like how they chose a ton of upbeat tunes to make traveling a joy and how they were smart enough to make the serious areas either silent (I loved that) or have another set of -equally as good- music. I also have a soft spot for the artwork to this game, especially the character portraits. Those are some fine-looking worlds and the level of immersion they provide downright surpasses many other RPGs that I have played (even on the same console).
I also like the many gameplay tweaks, like the ability to buy things in batch with just the tap of a button, the fact that you can actually run from time to time, and -best of all- how you can see the enemy paths, so you can avoid fights by maneuvering between them. This especially felt glorious after enduring Eternal Blue's insanely high encounter-ratio. Whatever else I might say here or in future updates to this thread, they really cared about the looks, feels and functionality of things.
This is getting long, but is there anything else that I liked so far? Yes, there is. I really do like how delightfully useless (and kinda rude, actually) everyone is. They don't need to help you, Jian, you are just the courier. Now, get moving.
Now, I hate to end in a bad note (sort of) but I found myself working out the solutions to some of the problems presented to me even before I knew what said problems were, and I'm not sure if that's a sign of quality of the game.
But the golden question is, will I keep playing it? Why of course! It made me curious enough to see what happens next and I'm still not getting "horrible game" vibes from it. As long as neither of those change, I see no reason to stop.
Besides, my playthrough of Eternal Blue could really use a break anyway.
But before I begin rambling non-stop about why the game doesn't suck as much in my eyes, I need to address something:
This is one of the best-looking covers that I have ever seen (and yes, I do care about that sort of thing). And, if anything, I would buy the game just to have that on display somewhere... it is THAT good.
But yeah, about the game... I knew from the start that I was fighting an uphill battle with this one, and that totally proved to be true, even on the technical level. I mean, I expressed before how unwilling I was to try and hunt down a copy of a game that was made infamous for the defectiveness of some of its carts, so I decided to play an emulated version first... and boy, what a mistake that was.
For starters, I was forced to choose between two emulators (DeSmUME and No$GBA) and each came with its own quirks. The first one offered excellent audio quality and superb screen/display options, but suffered from a terrible sluggishness when it came to the battle scenes (which, sadly, ARE kind of important for this kind of games). The other emulator offered massively improved speed, but the audio quality dropped (and got chopped) to the point of resembling a chip tune from the nineties, I... wish I was kidding. I was also restricted to just one tiny screen size which totally burdened my eyes after reading a few hours of dialogue (and no, using No$Zoomer didn't work, as it ALSO came bundled with nuisances). The speed factor won the race, though, and I stuck with good, old Nocash (as long as it stops crashing, that is!)
That alone would have been enough to throw me off the game entirely, but it also had quite a surprising effect: By being forced to restart the game half-a-dozen of times or so in search of the optimal configuration, I had to sit thru the entire intro far too many times... and that made me appreciate the main theme quite a lot (it's become one of my all-time favorites just because of sheer insistence, how about that?). Unfortunately, this infinite loop of awesome music also had the negative side-effect of making me realize how weak the writing in this was (and probably was going to be). I don't think I have ever seen such a vague intro and i still can't quite believe how it manages to say absolutely NOTHING in the -relatively long- time it lasts.
Jian's introduction didn't do much in terms of improving my poor first impression of the writing either. Again, I'm amazed by how much they messed him up in what little dialogue he has. I get it that the bits about how he might or might not have something for Lucia are there to make him come across as charming, relatable or just to establish some of the character relationships right away, and that's fine, but the way he says it is what totally throws me off... he sounds like a mid-schooler talking about a girl in his classroom. I know that I'm reading WAY too deep into this, but I have expectations and things like that help demolish them.
Lucia's introduction sits a lot better with me because it isn't as foolish. She's supposed to be mad, she's mad. Nice and clean... ish.
But yeah, I realize that I'm bashing this game way too much, even though I said that I didn't think it stinks as much as everyone says it does. So I'm gonna talk about the bits -few as they are, considering that I'm only one mission in- that I really like.
I adore the music to this game, to be honest (even when massacred by No$GBA). I like how they chose a ton of upbeat tunes to make traveling a joy and how they were smart enough to make the serious areas either silent (I loved that) or have another set of -equally as good- music. I also have a soft spot for the artwork to this game, especially the character portraits. Those are some fine-looking worlds and the level of immersion they provide downright surpasses many other RPGs that I have played (even on the same console).
I also like the many gameplay tweaks, like the ability to buy things in batch with just the tap of a button, the fact that you can actually run from time to time, and -best of all- how you can see the enemy paths, so you can avoid fights by maneuvering between them. This especially felt glorious after enduring Eternal Blue's insanely high encounter-ratio. Whatever else I might say here or in future updates to this thread, they really cared about the looks, feels and functionality of things.
This is getting long, but is there anything else that I liked so far? Yes, there is. I really do like how delightfully useless (and kinda rude, actually) everyone is. They don't need to help you, Jian, you are just the courier. Now, get moving.
Now, I hate to end in a bad note (sort of) but I found myself working out the solutions to some of the problems presented to me even before I knew what said problems were, and I'm not sure if that's a sign of quality of the game.
But the golden question is, will I keep playing it? Why of course! It made me curious enough to see what happens next and I'm still not getting "horrible game" vibes from it. As long as neither of those change, I see no reason to stop.
Besides, my playthrough of Eternal Blue could really use a break anyway.