Revisiting Lunar Genesis / Dragon Song
Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 5:54 am
Six years ago I imported Lunar Genesis. I think I actually completed it in Japanese before the North American release. And by the time I got that I was more than a little burned out, and never got past the Sungrid Bridge in my NA game. So I missed out on some interesting story discussions and the like.
Two months ago I broke my arm and found myself with a lot of time on my hands. Once I was able to type again, I decided that now was the time to get back to this, prompted in part by my reading through a bunch of the longer posts here about backstory and the like. In particular, I wanted to do a playthrough without the significant handicaps I suffered the first time:
- not understanding the details of what was going on (I knew the basic story and major scenes, but had to figure out things like looking for the stupid Stone Flower or getting honey for Leoncavallo myself)
- likewise, missing details like what some of the weapons and armor did that would have helped, like Flora's multishot bows
- agonizingly slow battles (the use of L and R to speed these up was added to the NA and EU releases)
- noise of public transport triggering many instances of unintentional running from battles
- being in the first wave of players, so no help on things like what equipment for sale in the current town is also located in the next dungeon
- not using the cards until the last dungeon because I didn't know that they were multi-use or what they would do
- having only vague ideas of what sundries were being dropped by what and what jobs to take
- having to save after every single battle that didn't get something broken in it, since I didn't know what was doing the breaking or how to prevent it
And so on. Whereas now there are a lot more resources available -- not just things like monster card lists, but having the (Japanese) strategy guide, having various threads here for reference, and having time.
So, that's what I've been doing. I decided to play the European version (this being one of two games I own in three regions), which is identical to the NA one except for the name, title screen, and publisher splash screen. As of tonight I'm about to go back to the Blue Dragon Cave for the Stone Flower. Here are some stats:
Hours on game save: 85
Levels: 66 (Jian), 65 (Gabryel), 61 (Flora)
Pages of notes in Word: 130
Pages in my stats and items spreadsheet: 14
Unique jobs taken: 97
Job descriptions and requirements recorded: 200 (40 to go)
Unique sundries found: 86
Monsters' information transcribed from guide: 136
Collectible cards missed: one (Gabryel's, darn it)
Conspicuous name translation errors and inconsistencies noted: about 15
Dialogue and text recorded: probably upwards of 95%
And some of that dialogue is pretty funny. Whatever the game's storytelling weakness, it does maintain some of that Game Arts absurdity.
Moses: What's this? A package for me! Well, what can I say. Looking good... I have my admirers!
Wait a second... This is the package I sent to her...! Does this mean... I've been dumped?!
It may be surprising, but I'm actually having a lot of fun with this project. ^_^
Two months ago I broke my arm and found myself with a lot of time on my hands. Once I was able to type again, I decided that now was the time to get back to this, prompted in part by my reading through a bunch of the longer posts here about backstory and the like. In particular, I wanted to do a playthrough without the significant handicaps I suffered the first time:
- not understanding the details of what was going on (I knew the basic story and major scenes, but had to figure out things like looking for the stupid Stone Flower or getting honey for Leoncavallo myself)
- likewise, missing details like what some of the weapons and armor did that would have helped, like Flora's multishot bows
- agonizingly slow battles (the use of L and R to speed these up was added to the NA and EU releases)
- noise of public transport triggering many instances of unintentional running from battles
- being in the first wave of players, so no help on things like what equipment for sale in the current town is also located in the next dungeon
- not using the cards until the last dungeon because I didn't know that they were multi-use or what they would do
- having only vague ideas of what sundries were being dropped by what and what jobs to take
- having to save after every single battle that didn't get something broken in it, since I didn't know what was doing the breaking or how to prevent it
And so on. Whereas now there are a lot more resources available -- not just things like monster card lists, but having the (Japanese) strategy guide, having various threads here for reference, and having time.
So, that's what I've been doing. I decided to play the European version (this being one of two games I own in three regions), which is identical to the NA one except for the name, title screen, and publisher splash screen. As of tonight I'm about to go back to the Blue Dragon Cave for the Stone Flower. Here are some stats:
Hours on game save: 85
Levels: 66 (Jian), 65 (Gabryel), 61 (Flora)
Pages of notes in Word: 130
Pages in my stats and items spreadsheet: 14
Unique jobs taken: 97
Job descriptions and requirements recorded: 200 (40 to go)
Unique sundries found: 86
Monsters' information transcribed from guide: 136
Collectible cards missed: one (Gabryel's, darn it)
Conspicuous name translation errors and inconsistencies noted: about 15
Dialogue and text recorded: probably upwards of 95%
And some of that dialogue is pretty funny. Whatever the game's storytelling weakness, it does maintain some of that Game Arts absurdity.
Moses: What's this? A package for me! Well, what can I say. Looking good... I have my admirers!
Wait a second... This is the package I sent to her...! Does this mean... I've been dumped?!
It may be surprising, but I'm actually having a lot of fun with this project. ^_^