Trivial question...

For discussion of Lunar: Dragon Song (Lunar: Genesis), the only Lunar game on the DS
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jay_are
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Trivial question...

Post by jay_are »

So Lunar DS was received poorly, which killed the series for a while.
...
But WHAT if this game had received strong sales somehow? What if the Lunar name had been big enough that it would lead to 1 million + copies sold?
If JRPG fans had liked the cynical features of the game and wanted more, disregarding the fact that the story isn't very good, but helped by the somehow still good visuals outside of battles and good music overall.
Assuming that this game was going to happen anyway, how would you react if we had gotten Lunar Dragon Song 2 with more cynical gameplay and not very good story?? What if we had gotten a whole trilogy of this due to good sales?

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Re: Trivial question...

Post by Leo »

Then even more people would have been pissed off.

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Re: Trivial question...

Post by Sonic# »

Would you rather love a mediocre series that keeps getting new installments, or a good series with some very dark patches and no new installments?

Do I prefer The Fast and the Furious or Highlander? ;)
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"Than seyde Merlion, "Whethir lyke ye bettir the swerde othir the scawberde?" "I lyke bettir the swerde," seyde Arthure. "Ye ar the more unwyse, for the scawberde ys worth ten of the swerde; for whyles ye have the scawberde uppon you, ye shall lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded. Therefore kepe well the scawberde allweyes with you." --- Le Morte Darthur, Sir Thomas Malory

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Re: Trivial question...

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Really on the fence on this question i've asked myself here xD
I liked Dragon Song enough that I'd buy part 2, but I hated it for what it did to the series.
Not being able to recommend it confuses people. They'd be like "Wait, I thought Lunar was your favorite game?". Etc.
My dislike for the game is not so personal. If that was all I was going to get ever from the series, i'd take it and have a little fun with it, but with pain in the heart knowing the series will die on a bad note.

I ask because some franchises have already done this to me, but much worse even. To a point that im not buying their new games at ALL unless i find them ultra cheap, and even then i won't enjoy playing.

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Re: Trivial question...

Post by Leo »

jay_are wrote:Really on the fence on this question i've asked myself here xD
I liked Dragon Song enough that I'd buy part 2, but I hated it for what it did to the series.
Not being able to recommend it confuses people. They'd be like "Wait, I thought Lunar was your favorite game?". Etc.
My dislike for the game is not so personal. If that was all I was going to get ever from the series, i'd take it and have a little fun with it, but with pain in the heart knowing the series will die on a bad note.

I ask because some franchises have already done this to me, but much worse even. To a point that im not buying their new games at ALL unless i find them ultra cheap, and even then i won't enjoy playing.
Don't acknowledge it. Allow the game to join Scrubs season 9, Terminator 3, TMNT 3, Jurassic Park 3 and X-Men 3: The Last Stand on the list of things that didn't happen.

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Re: Trivial question...

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Leo wrote:Don't acknowledge it. Allow the game to join Scrubs season 9, Terminator 3, TMNT 3
Looool. TMNT 3. TMNT has had many revivals. I'm assuming they weren't epic, but a lot better than TMNT3... or the ones that came before that. I watched the newest one with Megan Fox as April and the ugly turtles. I was expecting hell and the lowest level of turd. But it was great! Probably the one i liked the most out of all the TMNT movies.

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Re: Trivial question...

Post by Leo »

jay_are wrote:
Leo wrote:Don't acknowledge it. Allow the game to join Scrubs season 9, Terminator 3, TMNT 3
Looool. TMNT 3. TMNT has had many revivals. I'm assuming they weren't epic, but a lot better than TMNT3... or the ones that came before that. I watched the newest one with Megan Fox as April and the ugly turtles. I was expecting hell and the lowest level of turd. But it was great! Probably the one i liked the most out of all the TMNT movies.
Come to my house so I can tell you to get the hell out of my house.

Lol you're probably right when you stand it up next to time travel with an old lamp, but still... I don't hate cancer enough to wish Michael Bay had it.

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Re: Trivial question...

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Sonic# wrote:Would you rather love a mediocre series that keeps getting new installments, or a good series with some very dark patches and no new installments?
Do I prefer The Fast and the Furious or Highlander? ;)
Whoa Fast and Furious is a great franchise -- what are you talking about...
...well admittedly I've only watched a couple of them...

Anyway! I'm not so sure which I'd rather have now... I'm leaning more towards the latter: good series with no new installments. Having a bunch of mediocre installments leads to a lot of false hope and trying to constantly drum up interest in the next iteration knowing that it's a crapshoot whether it'll be worth it. I'm still sorry for my part in getting folks interested in Lunar: DS, and that's kind of burned me from emotionally investing myself in any future installments of the series. KF
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Re: Trivial question...

Post by Leo »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj8r8I-g_2Q

This should be on an infinite loop when you enter the Dragon Song board.

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Re: Trivial question...

Post by jay_are »

Kizyr wrote:I'm still sorry for my part in getting folks interested in Lunar: DS, and that's kind of burned me from emotionally investing myself in any future installments of the series. KF
This is sad. I wouldn't blame you for it though, you did your part, the person that should REALLY be burned is whoever decided to implement the "exp or items", "running drains HP", and aaaall the problems and mediocricies the game has. I can promise you though, even with those things, I liked this game much more than other big games that were releasing new entries during the same era this game appeared. (Zelda Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, New SMB [DS], Final Fantasy X-2, MegaMan X7, Dirge of Cerberus, Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic 2006). In fact there were worse in N64. (Oh god Castlevania).

All of these games belong to big beloved franchises, and while the first 3 I mentioned are also loved by many, all of these games are garbage to me. Lunar DS at least comes on top of them for me.
Leo wrote:Come to my house
Oh ok cool!
Leo wrote:so I can tell you to get the hell out of my house
Oh... lmao i had a good laugh with this!

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Re: Trivial question...

Post by Leo »

I agree about New Super Mario Bros. The level design was unbearable dull. I've played Super Mario World hacks that were a lot better. FFX-2 was laughable as well.

Yeah I'm probably a bit more proud of that line than I should be. :lol: Glad ya liked it.

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Re: Trivial question...

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Leo wrote:I agree about New Super Mario Bros. The level design was unbearable dull.
FINALLY!!!! Someone understands!!!
The music was annoying too. Like really annoying. It takes brains to make something that can specifically torture me as much as New SMB DS music does. Except for maybe the castle theme or ghost houses, have you heard that "Bah! Bah!" Ughhh.
New SMB 2 on 3DS took that to the next level and made the SAME music, but entirely composed of the Bah! sound.

All of that being said, New SMB U is the better one of all these games. The level design is good, the overworld is good and fun to navigate and isn't just a straight line with forks to the right. And the music is much less annoying except when you have a purple Yoshi. The graphics are beautiful too. It makes me stare in awe at several parts of the game, and the DS game COULD have done all that if they had cared enough. *sigh* Better late than never. : )

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Re: Trivial question...

Post by Leo »

I played the Wii version of NSMB with friends because...well multiplayer in Mario without taking turns. I enjoyed it once through but I don't want to play it again. I'm not familiar with the Wii U game since I have yet to even touch any of the current consoles.

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Re: Trivial question...

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jay_are wrote:
Kizyr wrote:I'm still sorry for my part in getting folks interested in Lunar: DS, and that's kind of burned me from emotionally investing myself in any future installments of the series. KF
This is sad. I wouldn't blame you for it though, you did your part, the person that should REALLY be burned is whoever decided to implement the "exp or items", "running drains HP", and aaaall the problems and mediocricies the game has. I can promise you though, even with those things, I liked this game much more than other big games that were releasing new entries during the same era this game appeared. (Zelda Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, New SMB [DS], Final Fantasy X-2, MegaMan X7, Dirge of Cerberus, Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic 2006). In fact there were worse in N64. (Oh god Castlevania).

All of these games belong to big beloved franchises, and while the first 3 I mentioned are also loved by many, all of these games are garbage to me. Lunar DS at least comes on top of them for me.
...ok I just can't get your rating system... Lunar DS over Wind Waker or Metroid Prime? (I would actually put it on par with New Super Mario Brothers though -- I played that once and promptly forgot everything about it, it was that bland... I would rather just replay SMB3 or SMW for the 100th time). Oh well, hard to account for taste.

But anyway, the other thing is shortly after Lunar DS was released, I was still in like a post-Lunar-glow and was rating the game at least a little favorably (say, 6/10 or 7/10, a bit above Magical School Lunar). So I was doing a bit of "personal advertising" there, talking up its highlights, and disregarding its huge flaws. It took a few months before I could look at it more objectively. ...I actually still leave my 7/10 review up just so that I don't forget that I'm not very good at objectively judging a Lunar game when it's been out for less than 3 months. KF
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Re: Trivial question...

Post by Leo »

I had more fun with Quest 64.

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Re: Trivial question...

Post by jay_are »

Kizyr wrote:(I would actually put it on par with New Super Mario Brothers though -- I played that once and promptly forgot everything about it, it was that bland... I would rather just replay SMB3 or SMW for the 100th time)
Exactly! I've found another bro. See? Lunar DS may have commited a crime... but it wasn't the only one. It's like something was in the air XD
Kizyr wrote:...ok I just can't get your rating system
LOL Oh man. My rating system is simple. I judge 5 things: 1- Looks. 2- Audio. 3- Gameplay mechanics (and story if it's important to the game). 4- Overall fun, and 5- Overall addictiveness / replay value. Reason my post is long is because i basically review 2 games >.< But I kept each branch short.

In Metroid Prime...
Looks: Compare Metroid Prime (dark and confusing) to Half Life (brimming with interesting detail) or Metroid Fusion (brimming with art). I'll give Prime 1/2 cause it still works and isn't necessarily bad.

Audio: Compare Metroid Prime (backgroundy, forgettable and often just garbage) to any other Metroid from NES to GBA (full of melody and mood). 0/2. Humanity wouldn't be proud of this OST if it was the only thing left on earth, like it would be if it was the NES or SNES game.

Gameplay: Is scanning a million things and reading raw data a genius gameplay mechanic?
You know how FPS games let you move with 1 stick, and look with the 2nd stick? Metroid Prime only has 1 stick to move and look (holding another button to look, while you're stopped). But shooting things is good and satisfying. 1/2

Fun: Well, shooting things is fun, but for how long? It always feels the same. Reading is often the same too, not everything has unique data. There are no jokes or interesting things to read. The story is barely there. Getting stuck looking for an item to scan so a door can open isn't fun. The sense of exploration, discovering new places, acquiring items, using your brain... none of that is here, these remain in the classic Metroids. 0/2

Addictiveness / replayability: I could only finish the DS Metroid, cause it had better control (stylus to look) but there's no reason to come back to any of the games once you've played 1 hour of each at MOST. I've had a blast in 30 minute games while Prime never gave me anything in over 40 hours across all games. 0/2

Total: 2/10. IGN gives the whole Prime series 9 to 9.7/10
Wind Waker suffers from almost all of these same problems, just not as bad.

How does Lunar DS win? Better graphics and Much better music. This already gives it a 4. The only thing wrong with Lunar DS is that the gameplay area is flawed, which hurts the fun of the game too. But I always wanted to see, listen, and read what would come next. Compare it with Phantasy Star 1 on SMS. Great RPG, but has crappy battle music + HORRENDOUS encounter rate (what a mix : D) and as if that wasn't enough, dungeons force you to use strategy maps or draw your own. Compare the dungeons and grinding of Dragon Quest 1 to Lunar DS. Lunar DS wins! And DQ 1 is a legendary game, the JRPG that made the genre?... FF8 has very crappy embarrassing characters and dialogue, Lunar DS wins. Compare the villain of Lunar DS to the lame FF9's Villain and final boss / ending overall...

Lunar DS totals 6 to 8 /10. Your 7/10 doesn't contradict this, and online reviews go around that too. Even IGN agrees. Any lower rating is much more picky about things. Some might complain about how bland the graphics are, while I think it's true, no one would have complained if we had been given a mind blowing story with ultra fun gameplay.

And just so it doesn't seem unfair that I'm comparing Lunar DS with older games, there's Dragon Quest 3 : )
That one wins in every category and more for me.

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Re: Trivial question...

Post by Alunissage »

That's certainly an interesting analysis. Just goes to show that there's room for all tastes. It's kind of funny to read the Prime/Fusion bit when the other gaming community I used to be a part of focused on Metroid speedrunning and Prime was probably the favorite with Fusion the least favorite -- but that's all about the ability to explore and get things out of sequence. Completely different mindset.

You do remind me of the things I like about Dragon Song. Still think the music is more than acceptable, if a bit thin (a lot of the sound tracks are ambient sounds rather than music), liked some of the dungeon stuff, and feel it had potential before it got thrown into a blender with some shortsighted ideas. I do need to finish it in English; I played through most of it (and transcribed most of the dialogue in the process) but paused somewhere near the end and then switched computers and never got around to copying over my notes and starting again.

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Re: Trivial question...

Post by jay_are »

Alunissage wrote:Completely different mindset.
Lol so weird right? It must feel like finding someone that thinks Lunar Eternal Blue absolutely sucks because it's nothing like TSS.

...

EXCEPT, in a game like Eternal Blue, the departure from TSS is positive, as there is new and great content.
In Metroid Prime VS Fusion, just look at the intro of both games. Actually, look at the intro of ALL Prime games. Put them into a blender for combined strength, and they don't come close to Fusion's intro. It's really dramatic and yet new to see Samus' suit get infected, and how they go about fixing it. That's a departure from Metroid, but it's executed really good, the pictures look beautiful, the dialogue is well written and intense, and there is MUSIC to set the mood.

Metroid Prime 1's intro feels like a watered down 3D version of Super Metroid's intro.
Metroid Prime 2 ... dude honestly, i've seen it a few times and I cant remember. An accident happens I think and the game starts when she crashes?
Metroid Prime 3 ... ... I remember the system gets a virus or something, then people talking telling me to do stuff in-game and me being confused and seeing nothing shocking or fantastic. Just point and click. Not much visual, musical, or juicy storyline content. Just raw events.
Metroid Prime Hunters (DS) has practically no intro, just text. The better one is Prime 1, at least it looks like a 3D Super Metroid, but it's also unnecessarily extended to be much longer. Take a cup of hot coffee. Now divide it into 5 cups and with water so 5 people can drink. What's it gonna taste like? LIKE METROID PRIME.

I could go on to explain the actual game, but I kinda already did in the previous post. The comparison with those intros pretty much reflected what the rest of the games were going to be like for me.
One day though I must finish all these games, and I'll be sure to review. I even want to add pictures to it. and compare side by side how much more design and beauty there was in the 2D games. People will talk SO highly about the Prime games, and yet every game I've played, crappy or not, had more entertainment to it.

I did make a picture comparison review of how I see Wind Waker VS Minish Cap (which is the closest game to it since it's Zelda, came out in the same era and it's also about Toon Link, to be a fair comparison)

http://postimg.org/image/wxplrnjnn/

Minute by minute, I prefer everything I do, see and hear in Minish cap a ton times more. How Wind Waker gets all the praise is beyond me.

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Re: Trivial question...

Post by Alunissage »

As I said, completely different mindset. The story and brightness of the graphics aren't what some people play Metroid games for. Flexibility in exploration, lots of different routes for getting the various powerups, etc. Fusion is programmed to be linear, so it drives speedrunners batty with its constraints. And of course long intro scenes and in-game unskippable cutscenes do too.

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Re: Trivial question...

Post by jay_are »

Alunissage wrote:Flexibility in exploration, lots of different routes for getting the various powerups, etc.
You make it sound so awesome XD If I had never played them, I would buy the games by that description.

Flexibility in exploration is what we want in adventure games like these. You just totally skipped the scanning parts (which this game is completely composed of) and the horrible gamecube controls which you play with to explore for example. We both also forgot to mention the actual map. You know, when you press the button to see the map to see where you are and where you've been to? In Super Metroid and Fusion, it's clear as day. In Metroid Prime, it's 3D, you get to rotate the map. I can hardly ever figure it out. Too many areas that are similar to each other and it's just not as clear or intuitive. It does look fancy, but it doesn't work that good.
As for speedrunners, well... doesn't a speedrun come after you've already analyzed the whole game and gone through all that pain and probably 100+ hours of investigating and trying stuff?
Last edited by jay_are on Fri Apr 03, 2015 1:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

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