More of a general question

For discussion of Lunar: Eternal Blue, the original game for the Sega CD
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brit
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More of a general question

Post by brit »

I just got a copy of Eternal Blue and I'm not sure how the game saves. Does it do it automatically? When I first put the disc in it told me there wasn't enought ram space so I went into the memory and erased all the old game data from the previous owner of the system. When I started the game again it didn't give me that message again, but playing the game there doesn't seem to be anywhere to save in the menus.

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jay_are
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Re: More of a general question

Post by jay_are »

Ehhhh?
No it doesn't save automatically.
Yes you need to erase the old data from the previous owner (That RAM barely has enough for 2 games)
You probably already found out but the Save menu is in Ruby's list of options when you open the menu and select her. And you need points to save, but it's never too much unless you save every 15 minutes.

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Alunissage
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Re: More of a general question

Post by Alunissage »

The Magic EXP required to save is always 15 x Hiro's level. The amount you get from whatever enemies you're around goes up much faster than that.

There are checkpoint saves as well, where the game does save automatically. There's no indication of where these are, though.

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AkagisWhiteComet
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Re: More of a general question

Post by AkagisWhiteComet »

The internal memory on the Sega CD model 2 console carries roughly 122 blocks of memory. Lunar Eternal Blue takes up 14 of those and the Silver Star takes up 40 (!). You can run out of memory quick with most games.

Sega thankfully made an official backup RAM cartridge for the console. It carries roughly right above 2.000 blocks worth of save data. I bought one quickly after I purchased my Sega CD in early ’94. It’s a necessity for some games. For example, the game Third World War cannot be saved at all unless you have one since it requires 125 blocks (console only has 122).

If you have the RAM cartridge and you’re playing Eternal Blue or Silver Star you’re given option once a save spot has been made in either three slots as to where you want your saved data allocated to. You can switch over either between internal or the RAM cart, and then you can simply copy the date in the Sega CD BIOS control to where you want it stored.

The RAM cart is pretty safe. I’ve not had any data erase off of mine and I’ve gone nearly a decade at points of the console not being turned on with the cart in. Actually I did have my console destroy a save of Eternal Blue that maxed out the game timer and set Hiro to Level 0 which was hilarious. All I could do was move around on the world map in an invisible state. I just always make sure I have a double save at important points. If you buy a RAM cart you will probably have to get it used as the cart is fairly hard to come by. I paid like $15 for it new but you’ll pay way above that for it now. I’m not aware of any sort of knock-off cart having been made. The only one is the official one.

As mentioned above, LUNAR Eternal Blue’s save points are with Ruby and they require you to use magic points each time you save. As you progress along, the cost of a save goes up since also as mentioned above it goes up with Hiro's level. By the end of the game it can be ridiculously high if you level grinded (as you'll have to do before Neo-Vane). This was one of the big complaints about the game originally, since Working Designs saw it as a challenge of sorts, but it ultimately was just a frustration factor for the player. It became a “Do you save here? Or continue on and potentially get killed and have to go back to an even earlier save?” kind of thing. You periodically pass checkpoints just like in the Silver Star but they are pre-determined points that do not save into the actual save slots of your data.

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Alunissage
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Re: More of a general question

Post by Alunissage »

AkagisWhiteComet wrote: Actually I did have my console destroy a save of Eternal Blue that maxed out the game timer and set Hiro to Level 0 which was hilarious. All I could do was move around on the world map in an invisible state.
Oh wow. Do you still have that save? I'm guessing not, but I would really, really love to know what his stats looked like, if they were visible.

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AkagisWhiteComet
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Re: More of a general question

Post by AkagisWhiteComet »

:( .... I don't. I thought I did and I checked all my image hosting but couldn't find it.

It was weird. I guess it was last year in the fall I pulled out the Sega CD and started up Eternal Blue. When the game loaded to the load screen it had an odd save above Epilogue also reading Epilogue, but the Level was "0" and the time was "277 HRS 27 MINS". I guess that's the max the in-game clock can go. When I started it it placed me outside the area where the Dragon Ruins are and the landscape was "multi-leveled" (kind of like when you turn off a layer when using an emulator). When i moved instead of any visible character moving, a "layer" of the ground moved. The only character in the "party" was Hiro with no Ruby present. When you press "C" to bring up the status screen it would freeze the game, but you could read that Hiro was Level 0 with 0 HP and 0 MP. Anytime "C" was pressed the game would have to be reset.

I hastily made a copy of my final save in the Star Dragon Tower over that save...

I did pull up my last save point before the final boss. I'm at Level 45 for Hiro and it costs 675 MP for each save. Strangely enough Hiro's wind magic is only at level 18 which seems kind of low but I beat the game ok first time through.

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Alunissage
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Re: More of a general question

Post by Alunissage »

You pretty much never need Hiro's wind magic again after, oh, Jean joins the party. Or earlier. The one place I recall it being very helpful, aside from the Ghost Manor where it's specifically required, is in the Blue Spire before you get Lucia. At that point the 3MP for Boomerang is a definite savings over the 4MP for Poe Sword because you have so little MP at that point.

It's also useful when you first get Ronfar because Lucia is out of commission at that point and after that is still not all that likely to unleash actual attack spells, and both Hiro and Ronfar are kind of weak attackers. But once you get Ronfar you're generally better off putting M Exp toward his Health spells, or even Chance, than doing anything with the Wind spells beyond, maybe, getting the second one (Squall, I think?) so you have one multi-enemy spell. Even then, it's an Ally Zone spell so it's only useful if enemies are actually clustered around Hiro. It might be of use in the Illusion Forest, though, when those stupid Goblins keep summoning more of themselves. I've mentioned before that I had a battle that lasted through at least forty Goblins because I couldn't take out more than two of them per round. The thing that finally ended it was a successful Chance Dice spell that poisoned four of them at once so they all keeled over in the same round, but I may have used Squall in that battle too.

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Leo
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Re: More of a general question

Post by Leo »

I love those goblins. That's one of the points I use to level up for a while.

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