Lunar Threads

Hi everyone! So, i was about to ask, i am creating a Lunar fan game with RPG Maker VX Ace, and as many of you know this system is kind of limited for a such complex system like Lunar, what is "torturing" me is that i can`t make the range battle system, i have worked with Punisher in Lunar: The Last Hope, and this issue is something that bothered me always...
I want to ask then, does it REALLY matters to NOT have a range system like original Lunars?
I can do a formation system for more tactics but that it is, combats will be like Final Fantasy (characters return to their original pose after attacking).
I have done the Battle HUD, Menu HUD and the basic combat system, i am using a very good script for battles called Theolized SBS, so animations are top notch, just like the original, but again, the range system seems almost impossible to make, a guy named Jakoo did it, but its not workable in any way...
So let me know your opinions people! we need a Lunar game, but i dont want to make garbage, if the range system matters so much, i wont be doing anything...
Cheers.

I think it's very important to a have a range system. Dragon Song did not have this and it was one of the things I looked forward to! Dragon Song would've been a little better if it kept the same battle system despite it's failure across the board.

The range battle system is important to LUNAR imo

Good luck with your creation! However, be prepared for a lot of feedback! ^.~

Oh man, but Dragon Song was an abomination on all areas of the game, not just the battle system haha, it looked like Suikoden but way worst... Now that i think about it, Lunar Legend did have the same battle formula of Final Fantasy and it was a decent game for most people; not as good as the original of course.

My opinion,

I believe 'range' as an aspect is important in RPGs, and out of most of the various RPG aspects that have developed and evolved it's one that often seems to go through a lot of concepts and iterations.

Even the Final Fantasy series has had a range aspect starting with IIRC IV (II) where characters on the front row had offensive advantage compared to the rear where those characters had defense advantages. That's a very basic concept of utilizing range but it did provide some strategic elements (i.e., when Cecil, Tellah, and the Twins are in your party you would usually put Cecil in the front with everyone else - magic users - in the rear).

What I always liked about LUNAR (speaking of it in SEGA CD -circa time period) was that it actually had a fairly good range device that worked well with the strategy aspect of later battles. One example that serves as good function is area spells. There are area spells that can provide stat buffs for the party, but often rely on all of the party members being in a close congregation otherwise you'll have to utilize an extra turn or two to buff everyone. The player then has to make a strategic choice. Does the player spend the first two or three turns shoving buffs on their characters and taking some initial damage without dealing it, or does the player shove their offense forward while the rear constantly applies buffs?

Another good function LUNAR provided is that if you had strong characters you could often throw them up front to act like barricades where enemies performing physical attacks against rear characters would often have to push their way through characters. Their range value would often make it where the AI would waste a full turn simply trying to navigate around characters it had not targeted. Some of the later battles with a full party meant you could throw three people up front and unless an enemy managed to get through your rear characters may take one or two physical hits.

There's a lot more I could probably go into but it would become a thesis.

What I'd like to close with though is that a game's battle system - for myself - often becomes more memorable than the story, especially in an era where we get a tremendous amount of JRPGs with cliche's and similar progressions. A prime example for myself was Time And Eternity on the PS3. I can give you a very rough synopsis of the story but the unique over-the-shoulder 2D battle mechanics in that game were very memorable and were (and arguably still are) fairly unique for this genre. If the battle mechanics are not well fleshed out - even if that doesn't include some sort of range element - a good story won't account for it's shortcomings.

Thanks for your detailed reply, everything you said is very true and the range its important, with this said i just made my mind and i will use the beta-range system my friend did for Lunar, i say beta because its not fully finished but its workable and better than the basic turn based system of Final Fantasy...
For now it will work, in the future maybe it gets better.
EDIT: Nevermind lol, i tried it and its a mess as it is now... damn battle system

Do your best to stick to the original battle system as much as possible if you're going to create a LUNAR game. The main games have this and if this is going to be a sequel or prequel or any type of game dedicated to the series, the battle system should follow.

ShugoHanasaki wrote:Do your best to stick to the original battle system as much as possible if you're going to create a LUNAR game. The main games have this and if this is going to be a sequel or prequel or any type of game dedicated to the series, the battle system should follow.

Well, this is how it looks now, let me know what you think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c4VC1NMnyU

Looks good so far. I like the originality of the skills and their animations. I did notice when you guard, you aren't able to move around the battlefield but that's just a small detail (although a big detail in regards to the strategies that went on in boss fights). I remember being able to move around the battlefield with defend. Maybe you can implement a move feature if defend doesn't work. Excellent work so far!! Can't wait to play it one day!

Dragon Master Lunar81 wrote:Looks good so far. I like the originality of the skills and their animations. I did notice when you guard, you aren't able to move around the battlefield but that's just a small detail (although a big detail in regards to the strategies that went on in boss fights). I remember being able to move around the battlefield with defend. Maybe you can implement a move feature if defend doesn't work. Excellent work so far!! Can't wait to play it one day!

Thanks a lot man, the move while defending thing is IMPOSSIBLE to replicate, so for that is a big NO. Lunar`s for Sega CD didnt have this function so i dont think its totally a must, they only implemented it in the remakes, of course it was so cool to move around to avoid a boss attack or something of the sort...
I think what is holding me or us back to make this is perfectionism, we want it to be exactly like Lunar and that is not possible (for now).

Ghaleon777 wrote:

ShugoHanasaki wrote:Do your best to stick to the original battle system as much as possible if you're going to create a LUNAR game. The main games have this and if this is going to be a sequel or prequel or any type of game dedicated to the series, the battle system should follow.

Well, this is how it looks now, let me know what you think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c4VC1NMnyU

Very interesting! I see you're focusing on more of the EB/EBC style then the SSSC. The battle system seems to be pretty good! Obviously things won't be exact because the original coding is with the creators and I think if you used it without their permission that might cause legal issues...However! It's a great representation of the battle system so far! I can see LUNAR fans liking this as an alternative.

ShugoHanasaki wrote:

Ghaleon777 wrote:

ShugoHanasaki wrote:Do your best to stick to the original battle system as much as possible if you're going to create a LUNAR game. The main games have this and if this is going to be a sequel or prequel or any type of game dedicated to the series, the battle system should follow.

Well, this is how it looks now, let me know what you think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c4VC1NMnyU

Very interesting! I see you're focusing on more of the EB/EBC style then the SSSC. The battle system seems to be pretty good! Obviously things won't be exact because the original coding is with the creators and I think if you used it without their permission that might cause legal issues...However! It's a great representation of the battle system so far! I can see LUNAR fans liking this as an alternative.

Thanks Shugo! Well, it may look OK in that video, but bigger monsters become a mess when attacking just one character, i am trying to do a quick fix for this but well, i am not the creator of this system, i am trying to contact my friend but he is not replying.
Who knows? maybe in a year we will do it 100%.

I look forward to it! ^^

I know you're already down the path of using RPG Maker, but... what's the feasibility of a ROM hack in this case?

There're some pretty famous ones for other games (like the Earthbound Halloween one that Toby Fox did, and of course all the Mario/Zelda/Metroid ones out there), but I don't know how feasible that is for the Lunar series (particularly since the most famous ones are for NES/SNES, not any of the CD-based systems that I'm aware of). KF

Kizyr wrote:I know you're already down the path of using RPG Maker, but... what's the feasibility of a ROM hack in this case?

There're some pretty famous ones for other games (like the Earthbound Halloween one that Toby Fox did, and of course all the Mario/Zelda/Metroid ones out there), but I don't know how feasible that is for the Lunar series (particularly since the most famous ones are for NES/SNES, not any of the CD-based systems that I'm aware of). KF

Man, i thought of this hundred of times haha! But i don`t think its possible, there aren`t any programs who can hack Lunar in such a way to edit all its contents to create my own... it would be a dream coming true if that would be possible though.
Anyway, my idea is to fusion all the Lunar characters from Lunar 1 and 2 and do a game based on quests of some sort. My friend wanted to make a whole new story, a sequel to Lunar 2, but no, i think it`s not a good idea since:
1) the need to create new characters
2) we are not writers and probably will end in a weak story with lots of overused clichès and stuff

So, my biggest plan for this fan game is to do a fusion and let the player use all his/her favorite characters, even Ghaleon.
I am putting lots of effort for this game, even if its not perfect, it wont be, but it will be good enough to let the players revive the old times, the old school Lunar`s!
I have everything resource-wise, i just need to finish the basic battle system and im good to go.

Okay, I've watched the video. That looks...very cool. Well done.

I started to reflexively wince at the idea of playing lots of misc characters doing stuff and then remembered that I've put hundreds of hours into Hyrule Warriors... =D If you didn't want to bring in familiar characters, though obviously you do, using the name(s) of some of the mysterious past Dragonmasters mentioned in the games could be fun to build a freeform story around. After all, they probably didn't ALL save the world dramatically.

Although...you know what the quest mechanic makes me think of? Dragon Song. In the course of transcribing (nearly) all of the jobs available in that game I got really wistful thinking of how those could have been actual mini-quests/itty bitty side stories -- the names of the jobs and their materials are often kind of evocative. And a lot of them could be of the do something nice now to get a cool item/reward in the future flavor. That would've helped make the delivery mechanic actually worthwhile to the player. (Sigh.)

That reminds me... I see the video is a bit old. Please tell me that the battle reward is silver now instead of gold? Or, if you wanted to make an obscure joke, argentium. (Argentium is like sterling silver; both are 92.5% silver alloys but the remainder in argentium is a different metal that keeps the whole from tarnishing. Germanium, maybe.)

Alunissage wrote:Okay, I've watched the video. That looks...very cool. Well done.

I started to reflexively wince at the idea of playing lots of misc characters doing stuff and then remembered that I've put hundreds of hours into Hyrule Warriors... =D If you didn't want to bring in familiar characters, though obviously you do, using the name(s) of some of the mysterious past Dragonmasters mentioned in the games could be fun to build a freeform story around. After all, they probably didn't ALL save the world dramatically.

Although...you know what the quest mechanic makes me think of? Dragon Song. In the course of transcribing (nearly) all of the jobs available in that game I got really wistful thinking of how those could have been actual mini-quests/itty bitty side stories -- the names of the jobs and their materials are often kind of evocative. And a lot of them could be of the do something nice now to get a cool item/reward in the future flavor. That would've helped make the delivery mechanic actually worthwhile to the player. (Sigh.)

That reminds me... I see the video is a bit old. Please tell me that the battle reward is silver now instead of gold? Or, if you wanted to make an obscure joke, argentium. (Argentium is like sterling silver; both are 92.5% silver alloys but the remainder in argentium is a different metal that keeps the whole from tarnishing. Germanium, maybe.)

Hehe thanks Alunissage. Like i said, just a bit of polishing and it`s done, its a HUGE script of code to make that, but it`s 80% done.
I never played Hyrule Warriors, though, a friend told me to try it since its pretty good, i must check it out for sure!
I thought already on using some references to some past dragonmasters and build a quite bit of story after that. And you read my mind about the quests of Dragon Song, this is something i thought it was cool from that game, so i definitely will use this on this one, and that is a really good idea to do some "bitty side stories", they could be original side stories from different characters and some adventures they did or something of the sort, really good point on there.
And dont worry, i am using Silver for this

And i just recreated the Lunar 2 Battle HUD, though, i am not convinced to use this one for the full release, but it was fun remaking it
PD: i know the Dragon`s Tear icon is not right, i need to rip this icon already

Hyrule Warriors may not scratch a Zelda gameplay itch (heheh), but if you want to play as various major characters besides Link and see how they'd fight and make contextual comments. I kind of love that Darunia makes dad jokes, for example.

The Dragon Song jobs...

Find and deliver something to send to the mine workers
Engine x2 Rope x4 Rusty Helmet x1 Clay x13 Powder Keg x2

Find and deliver materials that could be used to make the ultimate metal
Adamantine x1 Coral x1 Stardust x1 Silver x4

Find and deliver something that will clean water
Tidal Heart x1 Mermaid's Scale x21

And many more, those are just a few that I could see being game sidequests.

Alunissage wrote:Hyrule Warriors may not scratch a Zelda gameplay itch (heheh), but if you want to play as various major characters besides Link and see how they'd fight and make contextual comments. I kind of love that Darunia makes dad jokes, for example.

The Dragon Song jobs...

Find and deliver something to send to the mine workers
Engine x2 Rope x4 Rusty Helmet x1 Clay x13 Powder Keg x2

Find and deliver materials that could be used to make the ultimate metal
Adamantine x1 Coral x1 Stardust x1 Silver x4

Find and deliver something that will clean water
Tidal Heart x1 Mermaid's Scale x21

And many more, those are just a few that I could see being game sidequests.

I will check that game later for sure.

And that is a good idea for a sidequest, also "Defeat x monster in x place and get x award", things like that are what i am envisioning for this project, but there will be small original stories too, for example some stuff that happened between Leo and Ronfar, or some quest they went together... there are many ways to do this, i will think of them a lot when the time comes. I hope to finish the base of this until the winter vacations ends, after that job and duties again haha

Hello people... just wanted to say that the project is still going on... BUT, the problem was that i lost EVERYTHING, due to a dumb error of mine of deleting everything by accident. (Don´t ask me why... but i never did a backup either...)
but well, time to start again, not from 0 because i still have many templates and resources, but i am seriously considering starting without the perfectionism on mind, this is a fan game after all...
thanks for your attention!