First playthrough

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Hey everyone. I used to play a lot RPGs years back, now I mostly just play Tekken at locals. My wife regularly plays RPGs.

We've begun our first play through of the LSSSC on the PS2 together, and we're both really enjoying it so far. It's nice to have an old RPG where we don't know what to expect because it's all new to us.

Cheers. I'll have fun looking around the forum.

[Alunissage]

Welcome! I hope you enjoy it. I look forward to hearing what you think.

Be aware that pretty much everything in the game will be spoiled in some thread or another around here, though hopefully not too much in thread titles.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Captured the PITA fluffy bug in Iluk. Just arrived in the red dragon area. Enemy difficulty is starting to creep up. We sold the old equipment off when we upgraded to all the ice based weapons available in Reza before heading to the red dragon area. Not sure if that was wise since they have a stronger elemental base to their damage. We figure when we're done with this area, there should be more new weapons to upgrade to.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Fought the Bronze Dogs last night. Learned the fate of the red dragon, and got a tower shield complete with its own animated sequence. One step closer to becoming the Dragon Master.

[Alunissage]

Did you get the Flame Sword in the Red Dragon Cave? It's easy to miss.

[Kizyr]

Captured the PITA fluffy bug in Iluk. Just arrived in the red dragon area. Enemy difficulty is starting to creep up. We sold the old equipment off when we upgraded to all the ice based weapons available in Reza before heading to the red dragon area. Not sure if that was wise since they have a stronger elemental base to their damage. We figure when we're done with this area, there should be more new weapons to upgrade to.

Seriously the Fluffy Bug is the most irritating part of any incarnation of the remakes. One of a handful of things I am not glad they added.

...then again there was a similar thing in TSS that was also obscure enough to be easy to miss...

[ShugoHanasaki]

I thought the fluffy bug thing was fun, lol! (^^;;)

[sharkythesharkdogg]

I think we found the flame sword? I remember a lot of different creatures chasing us all around the caves while we searched for all the different treasure chests. Is it the chest that you find after hoping across several little rock outcroppings to an area with a single chest? I'll check and see what we have equipped.

The fluffy bug area just had a lot of enemies that hit like bread trucks. We'd leave, heal at the statue in town, and go back to getting beat up.

Now we're trying to level up a little and earn money for some newer equipment around the town where they've lost the ability to sing.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Yeah, we have an item called the flame sword, but it's a little weaker than the equipment Alex currently has.

Is there a reason to hold on to it? We've been selling off our old equipment.

[Gryzz]

I'm on my first playthrough, too! Just started Disc 2 and finally pieced out why this game is even called Lunar in the first place. Am I slow? It was also a long time since I actually started so maybe I forgot a few lore details from earlier on.

RE Flame Sword: Elemental equipment yields better attack power against specific monsters, but I don't think I picked that one up. The only equipment I ever sell off is non-elemental.

---



Edit: Spent this morning finally finishing up the game after starting it months ago. Clocked in at lv47 and just a smidge under 24 hours. Lunar 2 is next, but I'm kinda leaning on playing the Sega CD version instead of "Complete"...

[Alunissage]

Yeah, we have an item called the flame sword, but it's a little weaker than the equipment Alex currently has.

Is there a reason to hold on to it? We've been selling off our old equipment.

Yeah, that's the one. TBH I don't recall whether the elemental bonus damage is enough to make it worthwhile to equip in the next dragon cave over the higher-stat ones; it certainly wouldn't be in other dungeons. I just wanted to mention it because if you don't notice that you can hop across the rocks, it's not at all obvious.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

So far, we're both really enjoying the game. I'm a little sad because I didn't think we were as far into the game is it looks like we might actually be.

Blue dragon = best dragon. At least so far. What an absolute cool dude. Now we have a rad helmet, and we ran into reluctant adversary Ms. Phacia. She also seems like someone you can reason with. I'll be curious to see her either get murdered/betrayed by her Vile Tribe partners or have something equally bad happen to her. She's too nice to stay how she is in the position she's in.

It's cool we're not the only ones playing through it the first time.

Observations/questions so far:
Why does it feel like 80% of the monsters you run into have the chance to poison you?

I thought once we got the ability to unlock the red chests, that would be how we found a lot of the bonus artwork. That's not the case, so I wonder how we'll track them down.

I wonder if the black dragon is truly the last dragon, or if there's a secret extra dragon.

I wonder if they'll let Jess keep her personality, or if she'll become less self-assured and more demure once Kyle completes his story arc, and they get together.

Yeah, that's the one. TBH I don't recall whether the elemental bonus damage is enough to make it worthwhile to equip in the next dragon cave over the higher-stat ones; it certainly wouldn't be in other dungeons. I just wanted to mention it because if you don't notice that you can hop across the rocks, it's not at all obvious.

I equipped it for the water dragon cave, and it did seem to be the strongest choice. We were all leveled and ready for a big fight at the end of the caves, and nada. Just a little chit chat with Phacia. Too bad we can't be friends.

[Alunissage]

The artwork (bromides) are found by talking to certain NPCs at the right points in the games. Sometimes you need to talk to them at one point to get the bromide from them later. There are also a few special items to get this way.

I don't recall Jessica's personality really changing much. This game doesn't have so much in the way of clear-cut character arcs, to my mind, more slow development in general. But to be honest I've had these characters in my head so long that I might be misremembering.

I'm enjoying your updates as you go.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

I spent last night going through some of the first dungeons looking for the red chests, but I didn't find any. The only new one I found was in the witches house where we originally ran into Nash. So I'm left thinking that I must have misremembered where we would run into the chests. All the ones we've opened so far are in towns. Do I need to bother back-tracking through any old dungeons for the chests, or is that correct?

As for the bonus art, we're not trying to 100% the game, so I'll just see which ones I luck into. My new theory is that I should occasionally talk to people that either mention certain characters a lot (like how the lady in Althena's Temple just loves Phacia, and the a body guard in Hell Mel's castle just loves Jess) and see if they eventually hand over some bonus collectible stuff.

Other than that, we'll just play the game to have fun more than wringing every last secret out of it. We can always replay it.

Glad some folks are enjoying watching a newbie go through the game for the first time. I guess that will get more and more unusual as the games age out.

Is the series pretty much dead like Suikoden, or are there things maybe in the works?

[Sonic#]

I've been lurking on this thread, but I've enjoyed your takes.

Do I need to bother back-tracking through any old dungeons for the chests, or is that correct?

A few more red chests are in dungeons, but they aren't necessary for beating the game. Kind of like the bromides, I'd recommend not worrying too much about them unless you really want to backtrack.

As for the bonus art, we're not trying to 100% the game, so I'll just see which ones I luck into. My new theory is that I should occasionally talk to people that either mention certain characters a lot (like how the lady in Althena's Temple just loves Phacia, and the a body guard in Hell Mel's castle just loves Jess) and see if they eventually hand over some bonus collectible stuff.

That's actually not a bad plan, though if I recall correctly, the windows for getting items from some of these people is narrow.

Is the series pretty much dead like Suikoden, or are there things maybe in the works?

It's dead. There's always a slight possibility we would get another port (sort of like with the Grandia HD Collection, when that series has otherwise been dormant for over a decade), but Lunar Dragon Song was essentially the swan song for the series.

[Alunissage]

You do want to get the Red Chest in the Cave of Trial. Save the contents until you're able to get through that really brutal forest south of Meryod (?), which you might not be able to manage until after getting the Black Dragon's dragon magic. And save before you use it, too, because you will randomly get one of two results.

There's also a Red Chest in the Weird Woods (closer to the Saith side than the Burg side) and one in the Meryod Forest (behind a big tree, so it's hard to see). Oh, and in the South Nanza Pass and the Mansion side of the Meribian Sewers. I think the rest are in houses and towns.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Okay, thanks. I think we've tracked down all the red chests for now. We've now made it to Tamur after being rescued by mysterious people on horseback from that blasted Xenobia. *fistshake* We've run into Laike (aka NOT dragonmaster Dyne) again, and he's offering to help Alex meet Myght over in Myght's Tower. So, I'm clearly expecting to meet this guy.



I theorize there will be no flying machine. Instead he'll teach Alex how to open the 8 gates and basically jump and/or ninja run to wherever the black dragon is located.

For now, we're wandering around the forest of illusion getting items out of the blue chests until we're ready to have Alex go meet this guy.

I like how there's just random curmudgeons living in random towers around the world.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

So everyone stayed at the tavern while Alex and Not-Dyne headed over to Myght's tower. Nash was behaving a little strange as we left. We spent a fair amount of time trying to relate "crank, stinky, rude genius" to the symbols on the floor. I was stuck on "C"ranky being for the crescent moon, and "R"ude indicating the planet with rings, and "S"tinky and "G"enuis? I went back and forth on which was which. A sun is a star, and a star is a sun. They're both s-words and they're both gaseous. So after that didn't work, I tried to relate it to the order of the dragons we met.

White dragon = white moon or white star?
Red dragon = red sun?
Blue Dragon = blue planet? Neptune is blue, it has rings.
Black dragon = ......moon? because it's night time?

None of it worked, and so we cheated and used the interwebs. Sorry gang, we did try. Apparently we were supposed to get a clue that wasn't translated? Or maybe that was another version of the game, and we're just bad. Anyway, getting through the rest of the tower was fine, and we met Myght and the lady that hangs out with Myght just to explain how the exits work. She's gotta be bored.

Laike hung back to chat it up with Myght while Alex returned to town. He found two of the party members inebriated, Mia getting complaining of being harrassed, and Nash no where to be found. You can tell he really likes Mia because he's M.I.A. Hachachacha! Anybody? No? Look, it can't all be A+ material, I don't have professional writers. No worries because he shows up 5 seconds later acting like everything is fine.

The gang then walked outside to find the previous couple that rescued them from Xenobia about to hang some poor schmuck because he was running a medicine scam. It seems that is a huge taboo over in the prarie area where they live, and it's time for the death sentence. I get the feeling these two are decidedly against big pharma. The group stops them, and then Alex and the strange dude have a battle to establish alpha male/pecking order details. It's important to hash out all that stuff so it doesn't lead to drama. After new guy acknowledges Alex's sword skills he introduces himself as Tempest, and the lady introduces herself as Fresca. Man, I haven't had a Fresca in years. Forgot about that drink. I moved on the San Pelligrino.

Anyway, Tempest decides to up the romance level by giving Alex a pretty necklace and complimenting him. Fresca seems fine with this, but Alex is not. He claims it's because it's too nice of a gift, but we all know his heart belongs to Luna.

It's now time to go to the Forest of Illusion! Everyone wanders around, fights things, gets lost, gets angry at each other, and all the magic users say they can feel a presence. They stop to make camp for the night, we have our standard dream sequence, and the following morning we run into two members of the prairie people. The eventually undo the charm magic blocking our ability to see the exit to the forest allow us to follow them to their village.

We played on from there, but I'll write more later.

[Alunissage]

You weren't missing anything with the puzzle. In Japanese the solution is spelled straight out, in English it's totally missing. I really wish it had been an actual solvable puzzle.

The beverage did actually inspire Fresca's English name (she's Pilya in Japanese), which WD tried to hide in TSS by having her say it's short for Franchesca.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Too bad about the puzzle, I like little puzzles so I agree it would have been fun. C'est la vie.

After we arrived in the prairie village, we're greeted with warnings of a strange sickness affecting several members of the village thanks to a curse from the "Dark Songstress." After some meeting and greeting with the elder, we went to speak with Tempest. While chatting about the sickness and the songstress the group is struck. All the ladies, including Fresca (Grape Fresca now, because purple hair) tumble to the ground with the mysterious illness.

So with team estrogen out of the way, it's up to team testosterone (and also Nash). Tempest runs off to the temple, and Alex, Kyle, and Nash follow. While working through the dungeon, we run across several enemies named Nipple Yankers. Amazing. I hope later one there's a higher level version of this enemy called Purple Nurples.

We meet with the spirit of the black dragon, who explains what his fate has been, and bestows Alex with the dragon armor. Alex can't equip it yet, because he has yet to display purity of heart. No worries, he'll get his chance soon enough. We had to the roof of Black Dragon HQ, and we are greeted with the corpse of the black dragon being used as transportation for Ghaleon, and we learn the identity of the Dark Songstress. I gotta say I'm dumb. I really suspected they were going to take the singing ability of Luna and transfer it to one of the Vile Tribe ladies and Ghaleon would have made one of them the Dark Songstress. Nah, it's just our girl Luna, but now with a little less pupil in her eye.

Ghaleon has Luna paralyze us and beats us senseless with the black dragon corpse (what a jackass). Alex plays the song near to Luna's heart and is able to temporarily undo Ghaleon's. This undoes the paralysis, and allow's Alex to don the black dragon armor. It's go time.

After we stop the black dragon corpse, Ghaleon laughs it off like he's toying with us, but we know the drill. He leaves under the guise of having better things to do (he's totally scared, guys). While flying away he invites us to meet him and "The Grindery." That sounds like s skeezy night-club, but what choice does the group have? Nash is still acting suspicious, so we'll need to keep and eye on him.

We return to the village, and meet up with the ladies. Laike is there, and tells use it's probably time to check wtih Myght on the progress of the air ship.