3RRCD Lunar SS

Lunar…a story about love, friendship, and betrayal. I remember
growing up hearing all this crazy stuff about this wonderful series but
when I asked for details there were none in sight. It seemed like the
game was only good because of its reputation (like Final Fantasy for
example) but boy was I wrong: Lunar IS a great game. Lunar was
basically the system seller in Japan as far as I understand and it was
pretty well-known in the States too. I know a lot of people must have
played it, a lot claim to at least. But the only details I really got from
them were "great story" and "cool animations." Sure the animation
added to the story and that the story was amazing but a game is more
than a story. If I want a great story I'll read a goddamn book.

The basic story goes as follows: You live in a world that was saved by
four main heroes. One of those heroes started off from where Alex
(YOU in the game) started off, in a village named Burg. Alex spends his
whole life admiring Dyne, one of the four heroes, who is also the most
famous one and a famed Dragonmaster. Admiring an adventurer, Alex
doesn't hesitate to embark on an adventure of his own with a little
peer pressure from his good friend Ramus and thus the adventure
begins. It's really a great story with many twists and turns that are
most welcome, especially around the time of its release. The ratings
are based on comparisons to other Sega CD games, not just everything
in general. Keep in mind that while I played this game and wrote this
review I haven't played Eternal Blue yet (the sequel to the game),
except watching the beginning intro, which is awesome.

Gameplay

The gameplay is excellent but that's not saying much seeing as how
this is a relaxed, turn-based RPG. The characters don't move too slow
nor do they move too fast on screen, it's basically perfect. One thing I
really loved was how the characters automatically walked around
stuff, for example you're walking down a zig-zag line and instead of
holding down, then right, then down, then left, etc……you could just
hold the direction (down in this case) and basically get to the same
place. Unlike most RPGs the random battles are FUN. No more, "ohh
shit, more stupid enemies to fight", and more, "Awesome, time to kick
a little ass, and figure out what this new spell does." The enemies are
greatly varied and are put into all kinds of positions, like organized
ranks where magic creatures are in the back and berserkers are in the
front.

The characters that are usable are phenomenal, instead of a healer
being weak as shit your healer is actually quite strong and very
formidable with a claw or mace. Even the mages can use great
weapons like poison darts, boomerangs, and bows and still be quite
useful with them, instead of only using a boring staff or cane. And you
basically have a character for every situation; some characters can
run farther than others, some can attack more times, some are just
tanks. Also before you start hackin' at evil creatures you can ask for
Nall's, your winged-cat companion, advice on how difficult an enemy is,
that way you know when to run like hell.

One thing that may bother other people, but that I find essential, is
that items aren't labeled. In other words you have to figure out what a
Calm Herb does by TRYING IT instead of reading a description, which
adds to the 'discovery' element that SHOULD be present in RPGs. The
tasks necessary to advance aren't as clearly laid out like in most
RPGs, you actually have to do some 'work' and look around and talk to
people in the game until you figure it out. Usually I can just go right
through an RPG without getting stuck but this game had some parts
that took me some time to figure out. It wasn't too hard that I had to
use a guide for but then it wasn't something too easy that I can just
glide right through either. But I did get lost sometimes for up to an
hour even without knowing what to do, but it was very satisfying when
I figured them out. Great gameplay, I couldn't play this game any other
way. I'm sure the remakes have slaughtered this aspect of the game, I
know the GBA remake did.

100%

Graphics

Well we are talking Sega CD here and with the exception of the
animated scenes and musical score it's nothing a Genesis can't do.
The game is quite colorful and the art and animated scenes are great,
though I have seen better animations in other games like Heimdall and
Sonic CD. In fact I think this game was an artsy approach at RPGs. The
pictures and animations usually gave the characters more personality.
Despite the horrible color selection on the Sega Genesis/Sega CD the
art actually looked great. Though I think some more detail should have
been put into some images. For example Jessica looks completely
different in different parts of the menu, which bothered me at first but I
got used to it. The magic spell animations were usually wonderful and
very smooth moving, but they weren't anything over the top to try to
impress anyone like some other games do. Other than that the sprites
are all very clear without massive pixelization, environments are varied
enough so that I know where I am just by looking at the screen,
typically. Though some caves had the same overall look to it, the same
art but not the same maze. The opening intro is really cool and shows
some of the better animations.

80%

Sound

I was kind of disappointed by the sound personally. I really didn't like
the intro music; it took a while to grow on me. The game also didn't
really have THAT many tracks. The few tracks that the game did have
were high-quality and great sounding but the lack of variance left me
disappointed. The sound effects were nothing incredible but then
again they didn't suck. Now that I think about it, I can't really think of
an RPG that had GREAT sound effects. However I did enjoy the sound
effects, they did what they were supposed to. There weren't any sound
effects that added to the atmosphere or mood, I think maybe water
washing up on the shore or maybe dripping water in caves would have
helped the atmosphere a little. I would have enjoyed maybe a steadily
climbing heartbeat as you got closer to the Dragon equipment while
searching in caves. Those caves did get confusing and the personal
reaction from Alex would have really added to the mood of being
someone special and supernaturally connected to dragons. Funny
thing is that my favorite piece of music in this game wasn't even CD
quality; it was the music for when the evil characters appear. Overall
the sound was good but definitely something that could have been
improved on.

70%

Replay Value

Just like damn near every RPG, this game has no replay value. The only
replay value someone would get is from reliving the story over again.
You really can't change tactics: you can't use different characters at
different points in the game. The story is insanely great and is the
ONLY reason that I can think of as to why you would want to play this
game over again. Then again a lot of us don't really need replay value
in our RPGs because they already take a huge chunk of our lives away.
This game is your typical 30-40 hour game, though I have read other
reviews that say the game is hard but its short, obviously they are
retarded or they used a manual to get through the game, which is
blasphemy when playing an RPG like this one. I can understand using
one on an open-ended RPG but not a linear one. By the way the game is
linear as can get with no multiple endings or paths, at least none that
I'm aware of. The only reason I'm giving this section a score even is
because the story is great enough to want to play it over.

40%

Overall

Overall you can chalk this game up as one of my favorite games. The
story is great, the battling is fantastic, and the animations and art are
really cool. I loved the enemy designs and how varied they were. I
loved the general old school RPG layout, there was an OVERALL
seriousness to the game, no time-wasting mini-games (which can be
fun sometimes but in this game's context would make no sense), it's
simple to figure out equipment scheme, and no stupid unnecessarily
long love story to it. But the game did have a great little love story to it.
The game had personality too. I loved the humor integrated into the
game. Some of the little jokes were hysterical, especially the crazy guy
in Althena's Shrine and the hick town of Meryod.

I'm really glad this game didn't have the typical Japanese hero, who is
a wuss and doesn't want to do what destiny tells him to do and so on
and such…..I think you guys know what I mean, though you may like
that kind of character. The game is well worth the price and trouble of
finding it. Just make sure when you play it and beat it that you don't
use a guide. It's just wrong. I gave this a game an overall 95 even
though only one section was over 80. I think gameplay outweighs
ANYTHING in games, especially RPGs. Graphics are only good for
fighting games and great sound is only good for FPS, but that's all my
opinion. You must find and beat this game...it's your destiny…you have
the green eyes.

95%

Review by: freneticburn