Okay, I finally got around to finishing this game.
Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2010 12:59 pm
I sorta got hung up on the wonkiness that is Lyton and its not-awful music, and not being really sure what exactly I was supposed to be doing with those stones in the cave. I let the game sit for a long time because that dungeon had gotten so annoying, but that other topic about the different cutscenes inspired me to pick it up and finally play all the way through it. Here's some thoughts I had on it:
1: Did they seriously have to autotune Luna/Althena's voice so much in the raising of the Azure City? She sounded like a damn robot. That was definitely a case of bad autotune taking all the color and texture out of an otherwise good singer's voice and making the recording sound sterile. It's kind of surprising, honestly, since they did such a good job of incorporating real instruments into lots of the remastered background music to make it sound more natural (ocarina for a bunch of songs, guitar for Althena's theme in the Epilogue, muted trumpet for the beginning of Reza's music, etc). The raising of the Fortress of Althena is my favorite cutscene from the PS1 version, but the awful handling of her voice really ruined it for me in this version.
2: There was an interesting little bit of dialogue at the very end from Ghaleon. I don't remember the exact wording, but he mentions how Althena's power will never really die and it will be (and has been?) handed down between different gods and goddesses forever. This is an interesting idea, both because of the subtle nod to how Lucia will eventually claim her power in Lunar 2 (and kind of offhandedly confirms that Lucia is, in fact, a goddess), but it also raises the question of just where that power came from in the first place. Did Althena get it from another god or goddess? I'm suddenly quite intrigued by the idea of learning Althena's origin story.
3: The dialogue at the end between Alex and Luna when she's snapped out of Ghaleon's thrall but is still in the Dark Althena outfit is much better in this version. She says in this version that she has to destroy "this body" to destroy the Azure City and stop the flow of magic into it, which is a change from the PS1's version where she says she's simply a prisoner because if she leaves the magic will flow back out of the Fortress/Azure City and destroy Lunar. This version also doesn't have the Working Designs addition of playing the ocarina to wake her up, so it's kind of implied that she's just bluffing when she's throwing lighting bolts at him to convince Alex to get out. So yeah, she's trying to make Alex leave so she can kill herself to save the world. That's pretty damned dark, and a much more compelling predicament than before. (Also, the voice actress may have been kind of annoying in the earlier parts of the game, but her delivery here was miles above what was in this scene in the PS1 version.)
4: Since the game is so easy, I found myself avoiding enemies and using Jessica's "Banish Litany" and Alex's Black Dragon spell a lot more than I otherwise would have; I simply wasn't worried about not getting the experience points or silver. The random battles in the final dungeon did finally start getting a little difficult (I actually had to revive some KO'd characters for the first time ever!), but at that point I'd raided Ramus's shop for 99 free Healing Fruits and Star Lights so it didn't matter.
5: Final battle. Mia uses her Arts move and Ghaleon casts "Chaos Shield" in the same round. The following three rounds consist of nobody receiving any damage. I lol'd.
All in all, I liked it more than I thought I would. I think in general this is the best iteration of the story in any version of the game, and it's all very pretty, and the only thing that's genuinely lacking is the difficulty factor. (Oh yeah, and Nall's voice actor. Holy god is he annoying.)
1: Did they seriously have to autotune Luna/Althena's voice so much in the raising of the Azure City? She sounded like a damn robot. That was definitely a case of bad autotune taking all the color and texture out of an otherwise good singer's voice and making the recording sound sterile. It's kind of surprising, honestly, since they did such a good job of incorporating real instruments into lots of the remastered background music to make it sound more natural (ocarina for a bunch of songs, guitar for Althena's theme in the Epilogue, muted trumpet for the beginning of Reza's music, etc). The raising of the Fortress of Althena is my favorite cutscene from the PS1 version, but the awful handling of her voice really ruined it for me in this version.
2: There was an interesting little bit of dialogue at the very end from Ghaleon. I don't remember the exact wording, but he mentions how Althena's power will never really die and it will be (and has been?) handed down between different gods and goddesses forever. This is an interesting idea, both because of the subtle nod to how Lucia will eventually claim her power in Lunar 2 (and kind of offhandedly confirms that Lucia is, in fact, a goddess), but it also raises the question of just where that power came from in the first place. Did Althena get it from another god or goddess? I'm suddenly quite intrigued by the idea of learning Althena's origin story.
3: The dialogue at the end between Alex and Luna when she's snapped out of Ghaleon's thrall but is still in the Dark Althena outfit is much better in this version. She says in this version that she has to destroy "this body" to destroy the Azure City and stop the flow of magic into it, which is a change from the PS1's version where she says she's simply a prisoner because if she leaves the magic will flow back out of the Fortress/Azure City and destroy Lunar. This version also doesn't have the Working Designs addition of playing the ocarina to wake her up, so it's kind of implied that she's just bluffing when she's throwing lighting bolts at him to convince Alex to get out. So yeah, she's trying to make Alex leave so she can kill herself to save the world. That's pretty damned dark, and a much more compelling predicament than before. (Also, the voice actress may have been kind of annoying in the earlier parts of the game, but her delivery here was miles above what was in this scene in the PS1 version.)
4: Since the game is so easy, I found myself avoiding enemies and using Jessica's "Banish Litany" and Alex's Black Dragon spell a lot more than I otherwise would have; I simply wasn't worried about not getting the experience points or silver. The random battles in the final dungeon did finally start getting a little difficult (I actually had to revive some KO'd characters for the first time ever!), but at that point I'd raided Ramus's shop for 99 free Healing Fruits and Star Lights so it didn't matter.
5: Final battle. Mia uses her Arts move and Ghaleon casts "Chaos Shield" in the same round. The following three rounds consist of nobody receiving any damage. I lol'd.
All in all, I liked it more than I thought I would. I think in general this is the best iteration of the story in any version of the game, and it's all very pretty, and the only thing that's genuinely lacking is the difficulty factor. (Oh yeah, and Nall's voice actor. Holy god is he annoying.)