Gamma version of Lunar: TSS

JUSTiNB · Post by **JUSTiNB** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 8:57 am

Hi, I thought you guys might be interested in this. I've never seen any at all other than this one, but it's a nice piece of Lunar history.
This is a gamma (beta) version of Lunar: The Silver Star.
Sorry that I don't have higher quality pictures, these were taken with my phone.

http://www.justinb-music.net/lunar/SSPX0311.jpg
http://www.justinb-music.net/lunar/SSPX0312.jpg
http://www.justinb-music.net/lunar/SSPX0313.jpg
http://www.justinb-music.net/lunar/SSPX0314.jpg

Front:

LUNAR
THE SILVER STAR

SEGA CD version

10/08/93 Gamma
Not FINAL - contains bugs

Working Designs
18135 Clear Creek Road
Redding, CA 96001
(916) 243-3417

CD:

Lunar
US Version

1993 10/8

T-127015 Disc 7
Working Designs
Game Arts

Back:

Game art in black & white, just printed on regular paper.

Post by **GhaleonOne** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 12:26 pm

Thanks for posting! Sorry I still haven't posted it on LunarNET. (I'm the one you talked to via Email) I need to go back and do a major amount of updates from all the folks who have sent something in lately. This is the cream of the crop though!

Post by **Sonic#** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 5:35 pm

I was trying to figure out what was on the CD in the third pic. It looked like a bandaid, but then I saw the fourth and realized it was a reflection of a fan. >_<

And it was made on my birthday! Haha!

That's very awesome. How'd you get a hold of it?

JUSTiNB · Post by **JUSTiNB** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 7:40 pm

My dad used to review video games for a newspaper and he would often get them free. Sometimes the developers would just send beta copies or "special" versions which were just cheap copies (no fancy labels or anything)

Oh and not a problem about not posting this up yet, I just figured you were really busy

LuNaRtIc · Post by **LuNaRtIc** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 6:08 pm

WOW! That's really cool! Thanks so much for sharing.

Post by **Alunissage** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 1:33 am

How much?

Post by **GhaleonOne** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 1:41 am

That's what went through my head.

DevNall · Post by **DevNall** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 1:53 am

Let the bidding wars begin!

ilovemyguitar · Post by **ilovemyguitar** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 5:34 am

Honestly, you could probably make a killing with that on E-Bay.

Have you actually played through this version yourself? And if so, is there anything about it that's different from the final release?

DevNall · Post by **DevNall** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 6:02 am

Hm, I don't know that you'd find anything THAT interesting. (But it'd still fun to try, anyway.)

Purportedly, a third or so of the original SegaCD game was cut, but I imagine you'd have to find a GameArts beta in order to have a chance to check out some of that.

JUSTiNB · Post by **JUSTiNB** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 9:33 am

I'm not sure if there are any differences or what the bugs are, I've never completely played through it, and I don't have the retail copy of the game

ilovemyguitar · Post by **ilovemyguitar** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 5:32 pm

DevNall wrote:Purportedly, a third or so of the original SegaCD game was cut, but I imagine you'd have to find a GameArts beta in order to have a chance to check out some of that.

I'm fairly sure that the stuff that was cut was left out because of time constraints, and thus you wouldn't find it on an early version of the game, because it was never programmed in in the first place.

And I'd like to think that the stuff that was left out was put into the PSX remake (Fortress of Althena, Vane vs. Grindery battle, etc).

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 6:50 pm

please tell me whoever buys this is going to do the right thing and rip it and put the files onto the net to show the whole community.

lunar is a dead franchise, imo

it should belong to the public...like a national monument.

same goes for any of the lunar pc data...

phyco126 · Post by **phyco126** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 12:26 am

It's not dead. It's like saying FF is a dead franchise and should be free to everyone because they will stop at FFXII. However, they SHOULD make the Lunar Franchise a national monument or something (I'm thinking mount rushmore style monument, but with Alex, Hiro, Luna, and Lucia carved into the stone instead of presidents.)

Post by **GhaleonOne** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 1:10 am

That was just a joke, I doubt JUSTiNB would sell something like that.

DevNall · Post by **DevNall** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 3:06 am

ilovemyguitar wrote:I'm fairly sure that the stuff that was cut was left out because of time constraints, and thus you wouldn't find it on an early version of the game, because it was never programmed in in the first place.

Maybe, maybe not. That assumes production never began on them in the first place. If you've ever played Japanese betas of certain other games, you'll sometimes find half-completed areas and things like that. (Of course, you may have to dig around a bit.)

ilovemyguitar wrote:And I'd like to think that the stuff that was left out was put into the PSX remake (Fortress of Althena, Vane vs. Grindery battle, etc).

That's probably atleast partially true, but other things may have been changed between the original design and the remakes.

phyco126 · Post by **phyco126** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 8:38 am

A note on that whole "1/3rd being cut out of the game" thing. It wouldn't surprise me, game production is really no different than a movie, and normally huge sections of content are cut out of movies after they where already shot, but because they didn't really fit a specific time lot or because it didn't fit the story, they decided to change it. Also, from the first idea to finished product, but movies and games are similiar in that the content changes.

Post by **Kizyr** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 1:38 pm

When things are cut out from a game, they're typically cut out pre-production. Meaning that parts of the story are cut before any scripts or programming is written. That's at least the way it was with Lunar: DS. KF

ilovemyguitar · Post by **ilovemyguitar** » Sat Jul 08, 2006 5:29 am

Kizyr wrote:When things are cut out from a game, they're typically cut out pre-production. Meaning that parts of the story are cut before any scripts or programming is written. That's at least the way it was with Lunar: DS. KF

*sigh*

I'm finally forcing myself to play through Lunar: DS now, and it's pretty much killing me knowing all the stuff that was originally planned to go into the game, and seeing what actually made it. (Although the ridiculously terrible battle system kills me even more.)

But I guess there's always stuff that doesn't make it to the final product. Like there's that massive interview with that guy who worked on the original EB (I'm pretty sure it's on this site somewhere), and he listed off a lot of ideas that they'd originally planned to implement with that game, but ended up leaving out for one reason or another, like Ruby appearing in human form, Vane taking flight again, the fake Althena giving birth to Zophar, and other stuff.

Post by **Alunissage** » Sat Jul 08, 2006 11:44 pm

Wouldn't make sense for any "cut" stuff to be on this beta, since it's WD's and they would've started with the Japanese final, not some Japanese beta. The US and Japanese versions differ very little in gameplay, so likely the only thing to be learned from this would be earlier versions of text. Which of course would interest me highly, so as I said: how much?

There's also no indication that I've ever seen that anything like Althena's Fortress was intended to be in the original game.

Aaron wrote:same goes for any of the lunar pc data...

The Lunar PC game(s) were commercially released and are still findable, so I don't think so. That's just rationalization on your part.

Lunar Threads

Gamma version of Lunar: TSS

Gamma version of Lunar: TSS

Who is online