Lunar Genesis Impressions (may be some spoilers)

For discussion of Lunar: Dragon Song (Lunar: Genesis), the only Lunar game on the DS
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DragonmasterDan
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Lunar Genesis Impressions (may be some spoilers)

Post by DragonmasterDan »

I finally recieved Lunar Genesis today (along with my copy of PS2 Dragon Force). Upon getting my copy I check ed to see if I was fortunate enough to recieve one of those cool cloth screen wipes, unfortunately my copy ordered from NCSX.com did not ;(. The packaging is nice and there are several inserts along with the standard game registration card. The manual is clean though doesn't have as much art as I would like.

Upon booting the game itself you get a simple Game Arts and then Japan Art Media screen. When you start a new game an image of Athena and two Dragons starts with tect below the window, nice Lunar esque music is playing which realy bring back the feel of earlier games in the series. After this short history lesson is shown the game begins with Jian in a house, the lok of the game is very Lunar esque from the town view standpoint and the characters keep the Lunar style feel despite no longer being super deformed. The game engine is somewhat similar to Grandia 1, but the character spires look nicer and more detailed and there is no control over the camera angle. The B button is used to run instead of walk. The various people you talk to all have small character protraits and there face moves as they would be speaking. The potraits fit the Kubooka style of art seen in the main chapters of the series. Once you leave a building the town is shown with various places you can go, there are little markers indicating which spots are spots you can stop in. While you can stop at other places in town the next main destination to visit is the fountain in the village center. Walking up to an umbrella shows you a still art shot of Lucia, she then joins your party. Walking up to the center of the fountain you find an Althena statue which can be used as has been seen in earlier games in the series for healing. Once Lucia is in your party you have the option of visiting the overworld map, unfortunately no places are available for me to click besides the town you start in as of now. Anyway, those are my first impressions.

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Alunissage
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Post by Alunissage »

The opening picture of Althena shows all four dragons, not just two. The other two are heading away from the viewer.

Another thing to note is that every NPC has a name. This is important, since the missions you get at Gad's Express involve taking things to various NPCs.

Although the overworld map looks like you could choose anywhere to go, from the various cities and locations in the first area you can only select the forest; you have to go through the forest (which is a dungeon a la Weird Woods in LL/SSSC and has the name used in the Japanese versions for Weird Woods) to get to anywhere. I would guess some item like the dragon wings will show up later, though.

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GhaleonOne
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Post by GhaleonOne »

BTW, there's some more impressions here:

http://www.lunareb.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ulti ... 5;t=000038

Sounds like all the Lunar fans are enjoying it enough.
-G1

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Sagagadego'09
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Post by Sagagadego'09 »

GhaleonOne wrote:BTW, there's some more impressions here:

http://www.lunareb.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ulti ... 5;t=000038

Sounds like all the Lunar fans are enjoying it enough.

thats good! in other words that ashely winchester the from gamefaqs was trolling then! 8)
Last edited by Sagagadego'09 on Tue Aug 30, 2005 12:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Lunar Eclipse »

I need to stop reading these things before I spoil the game for myself, but you guys are just making me want it more and more! The individualistic townsperson situation sounds really cool!
Let those who war with life forfeit their own! -- Mareg, Grandia II

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NallOne
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Post by NallOne »

dsgamer'05 wrote:
GhaleonOne wrote:BTW, there's some more impressions here:

http://www.lunareb.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ulti ... 5;t=000038

Sounds like all the Lunar fans are enjoying it enough.

thats good! in other words that ashely winchester the from gamefaqs was trolling then! 8)



I wouldn't say he was trolling just because his opinion of the game wasn't very positive, but I'll admit that he hardly ever gives a fair review to games anymore. (Which is horrible when you consider how many games he reviews)

Good to hear that the Lunar fans are satisfied though. I know I probably will be. ^_^
- Mike
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Greensky
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Post by Greensky »

I like the sound of everyone have a portrait :shock:

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DragonmasterDan
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Post by DragonmasterDan »

Further notes, with a little help from Kizyr I have completed the games first dungeon. Here are some other impressions. The overworld areas are nice with a decent amount of areas to explore, it is VERY similar to Grandia 1 in this sense, the same goes with dungeons. For those who aren't aware this game functions like the Lunar remakes (with exception to Lunar Legend and Magical School) in that there are no random encounters, every enemy can be seen on the map. There are two modes for battling, experience mode and item mode, if you battle for experience you recieve no items from fighting, if you battle for items you recieve no experience.

The battle system has a drawback , if you choose to attack you cannot select which enemy is being attacked, it picks the enemy randomly this can be frusturating when one enemy character is weak or is in need of being taken out and your characters chose to attack someone else. Overall I'm entertained with the game and it's better than I expected from seeing early screens and what I knew about it, despite my gripes I think I will be happy with the final product. Also keep in mind my Japanese skills are practically nonexistant (I did study Japanese but not in years and I didn;t learn all that much) so the story portion of the game isn';t fully understandable to me, with that said I am impressed, so far fun scenerios, and quality dungeon crawling.

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