EBC playthrough thread

For discussion of Lunar: Eternal Blue, the remake of Lunar 2 for Saturn/Playstation and all its translations
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brit
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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by brit »

Temzin wrote:That's some memory you have!
^^'' Not really. I actually started re-playing the playstation versions once ever year starting around 2005. Sometimes I will play them twice a year depending on my mood. That being said a lot of the main story dialogue I've got down packed. Though it probably also helped that I had just played that part the night before in English since before the Japanese release on the PSN I had just started a new file (I left it at Takkar, which is where I am now in my Japanese one as well).
Alunissage wrote:Nice catch, brit! I'll have to make a note of it... and to flesh out my notes before I play the import!
Thanks. It really makes me wonder if there are anymore scenes like that. :O

So to anyone else playing, where are you in the story? ^-^

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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by Alunissage »

I didn't get much playing in over the weekend, but I played a bit last night. Jean has just joined the party after the vines have snatched half the troupe. There's a LOT of text between first reaching the caravan and actually fighting the next time. Including some things I'm less than happy about... that the Magic Arrow guy's cat "bravely sacrificed its nine lives," that the juggler recommends only juggling cats that have been declawed, and that the chuckuboo's keeper thinks the bird will show up on her dinner table if she's unfit for work, even though she seems very fond of the bird otherwise. I am probably oversensitive to things involving cats, though. I'm going to assume that the cat escaped and ran off when it found itself launched through the air rather than being found by its heartless owner.

There are other lines I'd change, too, but overall, the writing is pretty fun. I like the sprite of Ruby splashing water at Hiro in the spring, too. And I feel bad for Lucia, being told she has to bathe alone while Ruby and Hiro look forward to enjoying the springs together, when the only reason she's given for having to stay out of it isn't even consistently applied (since Ruby ignores the gender segregation herself). Lucia joining them makes perfect sense in that light.

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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by brit »

I think I found something else, but I'm not a 100 percent sure.

It happens during the carnival after Hiro and Ronfar get punched out for peeping. The cutscene that plays showing off Lucia's new gear is different in the Japanese then what I remembered. It's one of the cutscenes in the U.S. version that I found slightly disappointing since Lucia's face looked so different out of all the other cutscenes she'd been in.

Then again I'm not sure if I'm just looking too much into either. I play the game with settings on full-screen and smoothing turned on so I'm not sure if that would add into this, but here are some screencaps of both the Japanese and U.S. version. If you're playing the game too maybe when you get to this part maybe turn off full-screen if you're playing with it.

Screenshots!

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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by Uncle Ramus »

Her face certainly looks different, and more like Lucia, to me in the JP screenshots. There's a shadow on Lucia's nose in the WD screenshots that's not present in the shots on the left.

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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by Kizyr »

So I finally got the time to start playing.

So far, I'm noticing pretty much zero differences between the Japanese PS1 version and this PSN version. I don't have an eye/ear for things like animation or audio quality differences (given how long it's been since I've played the game), but as far as the dialogue -- spoken and written -- I haven't noticed even the slightest change yet. Actually, in comparison to my notes, the only differences I've come across so far are ones that are due to the Saturn-PS1 changes, not, say, PS1-PSN changes.

In other words, I think the only changes anyone would find would be (a) changes to accommodate the PSN format (e.g., audio/video compression or quality changes), or (b) Japanese-to-English localization changes (i.e., what's already documented here).

Is there anything else to keep an eye out for? KF
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jay_are
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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by jay_are »

Kizyr, you won't find any differences between the Japanese physical PS1 release and the Japanese digital PSN PS1 release, because it is simply the same game discs converted into downloadable files.
In fact, Sony doesn't even allow changes to be made to these games, because they MUST be 100% the same experience as the original PS1 release.

The only thing you MIGHT ever notice with PS1-PSN releases, is that they might have slowdown when the game (any PS1 game) reaches a certain sensitive part in the code that is a bit difficult to handle or emulate on whatever modern hardware you use (PSP, PS3, PS Vita).
And maybe slightly faster loading times due to it being digital, but it's very minimum.

With Lunar 2's Japanese PSN release, the differences are the same as Saturn to PS1,
and USA PS1 - JAP PS1.
brit wrote:I think I found something else, but I'm not a 100 percent sure.
Screenshots!
Oh ........................
Hmmm... That's weird! As in, REALLY FREAKING WEIRD. Why would Working Designs' version have that change that at ALL??
If they're going to change it, it should be for the better, not worse! Here's a gif, but I am going to get to that part myself and take a screenshot from inside the system to have an accurate picture comparison, just dont know when.

http://postimg.org/image/6v7bnaclf/

Something to note in anatomy, and this is really basic, the distance between your eyes should be the same as your eye's width.
How these artists forget that, is beyond me. I'm far from a professional artist, and I know this, so why don't they? Ughhhh.
In the Sega CD version, it was correct. http://lunar-net.com/eb/screens/1/image ... UE_623.jpg

Anyway, out of the 2 PS1 versions, the Japanese version's face is better.

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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by Alunissage »

Well, obviously one of the two sets of pics is stretched or compressed vertically compared to the other. So it's a bit hard to judge. I think it looks better with the shadows, but I too wonder how this would've happened. The shadow thing seems far more likely to be a Saturn vs PSX difference to me, since it seems really unlikely that WD would've done anything with the animated scenes themselves (although I do remember a mention in the SSSC Making Of that for a much earlier game they had to edit a cutscene), certainly not on the scale of adding shadows... especially given the other animation infelicities. Need Shiva Indis to weigh in on this; she's the Lunar animation expert.

I'm just about to that scene myself (in the WD game) so will watch it closely. Last night I stopped just after talking to everyone in the first part of the Carnival.

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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by jay_are »

One of them is stretched?
In my gif, I made sure both pictures have the same proportion.

The original's proportion is this: http://lunar-net.com/ebc/screens/3/EBC0255.JPG
She still has space for 2 more eyes in between her eyes.

As for Saturn - PS1 difference... huh? Both of these games are PS1 versions. (Japan's PS1 and PSN releases vs WD)

Here is one horizontally shrunk to match that proportion closely, but I still want an in-game screenshot of the Japanese version.
http://postimg.org/image/hbnfpmblv/

EDIT:
All right! In-game screenshot comparison: http://postimg.org/image/5b1zow477/

On a side note. Does anyone remember a discussion about Napalm Shots having a bad name due to the irrelevance of Napalm in Lunar?
I don't remember how that ended, but now I see that it is "Spark Shot" in Japanese. (スパークショット)

Here's another bit of differences.
In the springs, when Lucia walks into the male's bath, right before the movie sequence starts, you can hear Hiro's voice doing something like "HNNG!!"
This is not present in the USA version.
In the movie sequence, when Ruby covers Hiro's eyes, Lucia looks at Hiro silently in the USA version. In Japanese, she says something. No idea what though. Probably didn't make sense in English?

And here's a shocking difference. When I beat Plantella, in the USA version, the monster just vanishes like any other monster. But in the Japanese version, you see a really spooky effect of Plantella getting burnt, and a sound effect that gave me chills. I dont see any videos on Youtube. I'll probably fight her again and record this.

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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by Alunissage »

Yes, stretched. Not the gif, the proportions of the character herself. I mean, look at the distance between scalp and chin, and all that. Fuss with all those things and make sure the outline is matching exactly. Also, make sure the frames are the same ones from the two scenes, since I think she does change position and expression a little as the scene runs. And are you comparing two screenshots you yourself took from game discs on the same system, or the ones on LNet with the ones Brit took? I'm no expert, but it seems to me that there are a lot of variables here.

Not one of them, though, accounts for the shadows and lack thereof. I'm really lost on that one.

I don't recall any discussion about the name of Napalm Shot, but I can tell you that in the Japanese MegaCD game she DOES have a spell named Napalm Shot (ナパームショット). So it seems very unlikely to me that the name was omitted because of any sensitivity to whether it makes sense in the Lunar background. All of her spells are high-techy compared to everyone else's, probably to indicate her alienness and that she comes from a much more technologically advanced time and all that. She just has fewer spells in EBC, so not all the names were used. The EBC names are kind of screwed up in the US version, though; she has two spells named Atomic Burn (three in the demo, since that's what the spell that became Solar Bomb is called in it) and two named Plasma Rain (one becomes the other, but in the Japanese game, the second one is named Homing Cannon). I need to check all my information on these, because it's unsurprisingly rather hard to figure it out.

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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by jay_are »

Alunissage wrote: And are you comparing two screenshots you yourself took from game discs on the same system, or the ones on LNet with the ones Brit took? I'm no expert, but it seems to me that there are a lot of variables here.
The first gif I made as a comparison with the pics from Brit's link, but then I made a comparison with a screenshot I took from the game VS the one on the Lunar-net's Lunar2 walkthrough. (here it is in case you missed it: http://postimg.org/image/5b1zow477/)

Yes she does change the face a bit during that scene, but that's the same moment on both versions.

Oh, I recorded Plantella dying: http://vid957.photobucket.com/albums/ae ... a%20JP.mp4
I wonder if they had to remove that to make space for something else in the USA version... seems unlikely.

Well seems Lucia's spells are confusing still... but I guess it makes sense that she can use a completely different level of magic no one uses outside the Blue Star.

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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by Alunissage »

Wow, the flame IS kind of freaky. I don't remember any particular mention of that as a change, but that doesn't mean anything.

I don't know the situation when the LNet screenshot was taken, so that's why I'm concerned about comparing tangerines and oranges.

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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by jay_are »

I recorded the Japanese version, and looked for a video of someone playing the USA version. Here are the links:

http://vid957.photobucket.com/albums/ae ... _JP_PS.mp4

https://youtu.be/bArBt8_9fWU?t=295

Thanks Brit for pointing this out : D Now you can be 100% sure!
Last edited by jay_are on Sat Oct 10, 2015 7:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by Alunissage »

Okay, you wondered why I brought up the Saturn version? This is why:
L2-SS Dragon guide Lucia photo sm.jpg
L2-SS Dragon guide Lucia photo sm.jpg (132.23 KiB) Viewed 28591 times
That's a cruddy phone photo of a page from one of my Saturn L2 guides (the Dragon Magazine one). Note that it shows the shadow on her nose that's missing in the PSN video. (Now, the same screenshot also shows up in the same publisher's PS-version guide... but the whole guide is the same, plus some extra pages for the PS-only stuff. And the Saturn one would've come first.)

So, either the Saturn and PS(J) videos were different always, or they were the same in the original releases and only the PSN version is different now. I think it's a lot more likely that they were different at time of release, for unknown reasons, and that WD used the Saturn video.

Unfortunately, while I have All The Games, it's nontrivial for me to get to that scene in all the versions. I'm not even sure what box my Asian-region Saturn is in. Too tired to look around for utilities that might help me get at just the videos, so I'll, um, ask Kizyr if he has any convenient save from when he did his JP/NA comparison.

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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by Kizyr »

Unfortunately, I don't have any convenient saves in any of the versions I have. Given what I'm comparing against my notes (I do have much more detailed notes than what I put in the Japanese-to-English Differences guide), I'm not seeing any unexpected differences. In other words, what people are noting here are the other Japanese PS1 to NA PS1 localization changes, and most of what I'm noticing besides that are the Japanese Saturn to Japanese PS1 changes.

At some point, I could play the Saturn and PS1 versions back-to-back to get a more comprehensive set of changes. Most of what I've noted are the more prominent storyline or gameplay ones (e.g., the addition of the extra dungeons, and addition of a few bromides). There are other smaller things though that I didn't note (e.g., Saturn version doesn't have different animation when running, enemies drop items less often). KF
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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by jay_are »

The psn release cannot have any changes, so what we're seeing here was in the original disc already.
Makes sense that it was bad in the Saturn version!
Simply because that one came first.
They must have updated it for the PS1 game, just like they added Hiro's running animation, as Kizyr mentions, and things like transparency.
And WD must have used the Saturn video, yes.

Hey, I don't mind playing through the Saturn version up to this part! (Unless theres a video on Youtube) I have the game and console. It was in plan to play it someday anyway ^_^

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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by Kizyr »

At some point I may still go back again and replay all the games back-to-back in both languages, regardless. I'm better at catching nuances in language than I was before, so there may be quite a few minor things I missed before, or things I can look into that people are specifically curious about.

Mind you, that's a long-term project... I'd rather not do that until after things that've been on my to-do list for years, like the drama CDs or fixing up the fan section of LunarNET. KF
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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by Alunissage »

I'm still puzzled that you (jay_are) think the PSN video is better. The face needs those shadows. It's really flat otherwise. N.b., I did look on YouTube for a Saturn video but didn't find one, so feel free to make one. ^_^

Kiz, I'm transcribing the dialogue as I go, so I can provide that to you to look at while you play it in Japanese so you can make direct comparisons. Of course, I'm kind of slow...am just about to reenter Nota after the Mystic Ruins, and there are some spots I need to go back and transcribe.

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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by jay_are »

No no, its not just the shadows.
The eyes, nose and mouth are different.
More humanly in the Japanese PS1 version.
In the Saturn screenshot from that magazine and the USA version, it has unfortunate proportions.

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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by Alunissage »

Don't read too much into the proportions of the photo I took. I wasn't trying very hard to hold the book level with the camera. Though looking at it again, yeah, it IS kind of a long face in the book. But honestly, I think the facial proportions in this game are a lost cause.

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Re: EBC playthrough thread

Post by jay_are »

But the picture you took shows the same as the USA version in the gif comparison (which may be the Saturn too) so im not comparing the proportions with the photo you took, but in the gif i made.

Well, time to play the Saturn version and triple confirm this! : D

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