Lunar 1 Review with Fan Fiction
Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2011 7:54 pm
Art:
*For the time the graphics were decidedly retro but that fit the game quite well and helped give some continuity between the Sega CD games and this one. However, if the game was remade today the graphics are really dated and would need upgrading but I dislike how SSH did it. A serious effort to make larger sprites with plenty of detail and beautiful backgrounds with things probably zoomed in a little more would be a good idea. Camera angle would have to be played around with overhead, isometric, and over the shoulder (with rotation of the screen) being the obvious choices. All of the sprites and backgrounds would have even more detail if zoomed in, which means there should be close ups for cut scenes so that they look somewhat like the anime cut scenes probably with less detail with anime cut scenes being left for really important events. However, if the game art can be done with as much detail as the anime cut scenes zoomed in then such cut scenes are supplanted. This may require the power of a newer generation console to do so.
Sound:
*The music should be fully orchestrated, but they did fix this in SSH.
*The new Lunar 1 music is underwhelming for the most part with some obvious exceptions and the old music for TSS may have been better to use if it was upgraded and orchestrated. However, given the more playful feel of the world and the new visual style compared to TSS the old music may seem alien to their context.
Gameplay:
*Battles are fun and interesting due to the movement and attacks system, battle formation, limited area of effect spells, and the types of enemies, their attack profiles, and their formations. While a nearly perfect way to deal with all battles in 1 round before enemies get to act exists in a number of fights it will still typically take two rounds with 1 round of enemy attacks to deal with all enemies. This means that strategy is involved in what enemies to kill in the first round based on what type of attack they are planning to use and what's the best way to kill as many enemies as you can in 1 round. This is in addition to how you wish to be positioned at the start of a fight and the end of a round which gives yet another layer of strategy. Thus the standard menu based turn based traditional RPG battle mechanic is altered considerably for the better. The system itself is trying to capture the feel of pen and paper systems like D&D while being tactical like in Strategy RPGs while retaining the traditional turn based combat mechanic of traditional RPGs. Overall the system does an excellent job of this and the incorporation of a hex grid for the battle map is interesting and novel.
*Dungeons are generally well designed in that you will have run out of MP for the casters and healers by the time you get to the boss at the end of a dungeon assuming you explore the whole thing. This is some evidence that Lunar is a very closely balanced game.
*Bosses are fairly well designed in that they are just hard enough to present a challenge but not so difficult as to make the player frustrated.
*Bosses have the problem that with so few meaningful attacks against single enemies that don't cause you to run low on MP quickly your options in a boss fight are almost always the same. Buff up first round and use saint litany and then heal up in later rounds and spam best low MP single target abilities. There are very few exceptions to this rule. Really only boss battles where there is more than one enemy and boss battles that are meant to be significantly harder than normal such as the last boss.
*If a game is very closely balanced like Lunar then it can become relatively easy to lose a character or wipe due to RNG. Either by being ganged up on or being hit with a really devastating attack multiple times in a row. To rectify this how many enemies can attack a specific member of the party should be limited even if it runs on RNG. Such as no more than two enemies per round ganging up on any one character with the same applying to bosses with multiple single target attacks per round. This also means that the game should be balanced in w ay that no single character will die if they are attacked by two enemies in the one round. One of the biggest breakers of this rule are the Killer Buzzes in the Meryod Woods. The instant death attack of the Fiends in Althena's tower don't represent a real problem though as they are the hardest common enemy in the game and are in the last dungeon. Another thing to do is to not allow an enemy to use the same kind of attack twice in a row if its very powerful, this is especially important against bosses since if the RNG is against you they can get much harder than the rest of the game as the same super powerful moves are used on you over and over with nothing in between.
*Lunar 1 has far too few abilities to use for each character. Alex and Kyle really suffer for this. Alex should have had magic spells such as fire spells like he had in TSS and a spell linked with Althena's sword would have been nice. Kyle should have had more sword skills or even melee debuffs that are useful. Mia is far too limited with her tactical options in most battles for her damage spells with a wider gamut of possibilities being nice such as light, moderate, or heavy damage single target spells, area of effect spells, and entire screen spells being available with differing MP costs for both fire and ice to balance things. I would also like to see more buff spells such as an Magic Endurance boosting spell, Wisdom boosting spell, more attacks spells to cover a wider gamut of contingencies. Nash also has too few options for attack spells and should have a similar treatment to Mia for his lightning spells and his debuff spells are downright pathetic and should be buffed and made to be decent. Jessica has a debuff that isn't effective and no attack spells which seems odd since she is pretty aggressive. An upgraded version of calm litany would have been nice for more MP as well as an upgraded saint litany and an all party version of cleanse litany would be nice. You also get your effective spells far too late in the game not getting them until the red dragon cave which is past the halfway point.
-Also it clearly shows Lunar has no customization of character abilities or stats or anything of the like. How to give choice is beyond me at this point so that it fits Lunar's feel but there are a number of options available. The crests system from Lunar 2 could be brought into Lunar 1 for instance.
*The Dragon spells cost far too much MP for what they do with the sole exception of black dragon grief. The fact Alex is a lowish max MP character should have been taken into account with the spells being usable in combat for boss battles without having to spam silver lights.
*Having a grand total limit to items for Nall is a bad idea. It introduces a sense of scarcity of inventory slots that doesn't seem smart. Instead it would have been better if Nall has an unlimited inventory limited by the number of the same item you can have. Similarly having small party inventories as a mechanic is a bad idea unless most boss battles require very few items, but Lunar handles this well except for perhaps the last boss and even with a much larger Nall inventory for Lunar I'd keep the limited player inventories since it adds a level of strategy and preparedness. It should also be said that an artificially low number of items such as in Tales games is not wise if the dungeons and bosses are balanced around this fact as Tales of Vesperia was. It makes the party too item dependant. Lunar 2 has a more than adequate system if limited inventories for characters is not desired with a maximum number of items equal to 20 with a common item bag for all characters which works because you aren't forced to use almost your entire inventory of certain items per dungeon or boss battle.
*Starlights should give more MP than they give currently probably a flat 45-60 MP per starlight. They are pretty expensive and give such a low return even early in the game. This may also mean silver lights are less important in the last few boss battles since you could sub in starlights instead.
*It has to be stated Lunar's battles are dated turn based affairs by modern standards. Given the solid design of the combat system though they still represent a decent battle system overall but if the battles were to be upgraded and modernized then here I think a more tactical approach which takes advantage of the hex system the game uses may be in order. This likely means battles will last 2-4 rounds instead of 1-2 so that it doesn't feel like a turn based system masquerading as a tactical one. This also means fewer battles would be required per dungeon and enemy composition and placement could mean that repeat battles wouldn't happen hardly at all.
-To do this HP for everyone, player and enemy, would have to go up so enemies don't drop in the first round unless they are ganged up on or everyone pops AoEs. Terrain should also be added. This could be an interesting way of doing things since enemies being on screen instead of random battles and you being able to dodge some battles and ignore them is rare in tactical games.
*requiring grinding in the 1st dungeon is a bad idea. The game should be structured in a way that you can avoid some enemies in every dungeon yet get enough levels and have good enough gear to beat the dungeon and the game over time. If you full clear every dungeon to kill all the monsters and get all the equipment in chests then you should be at an advantage and the game slightly easier over being able to nominally beat the game albeit at a higher difficulty if you aren't a completionist. The dungeons I found grinding to be the better option were the White Dragon cave, Meribian Sewers, Lann Island, Crystal Spire if you don't use the dragonfly wing bug, if it were longer the Meryod Woods would count, the Blue Dragon cave might count if Alex doesn't have the flame sword, and the last three bosses of the game are tough and grinding really helps. The really bad thing about this is that the game encourages grinding in its first 1/2 for a variety of dungeons only to drop the difficulty by a fair bit for the second half except for the blue dragon shrine which shouldn't be grind happy since the narrative is supposed to be a race to the blue dragon before Ghaleon gets there. The last problem is by making the last 3 bosses so powerful it really encourages grinding all the enemies dead in Althena's fortress to do well against Royce, and grinding in the Goddess tower to beat Xenobia and Ghaleon.
-The shear importance of just a one or two levels would have to be eliminated if this were to happen since that structure encourages grinding and completionism to even beat the game. It also means grinding for 30 minutes can make you very over leveled for where you are in the game.
*The crystal spire should not force all party members to give up weapons. This can already be gotten around by using a bug involving a dragon fly wing but the dungeon is more than difficult enough as is without having to make it harder by taking away weapons.
*You should never have cut scenes that get triggered by exploration that lead to a boss fight unless there is prior warning of the boss' presence.
-one great way to do this in a open save game is restoration points where your MP and HP get regained in a dungeon. This alerts players that something is up and they should save. Also having checkpoints at certain areas in dungeons in addition to save points anywhere is beneficial. To make sure the restoration point isn't abused the dungeon should be large enough or the path to get to it hard enough that to get to said point takes time and effort and fights and isn't easy to accomplish.
-Check points may make sense with certain areas or tiles or cut scenes triggering an autosave that can be loaded back from should the party die. This takes a hard drive though.
-Other than restoration points getting full HP and MP when gaining levels could suffice but this seems harder to balance but it may be a better way to go if dungeons allow you to get to restoration points easily.
-Something Lunar may benefit from is a recouping of some lost MP after each battle whether it is a set amount per level of experience or based on how well you do in combat. However the problem with a rating system or anything of the like is that it creates a game where you never hold back your most powerful attacks actually limiting tactical options.
-Having enemies stay dead for the duration of a dungeon is a good idea and is wonderful when you can save in a dungeon and previously killed enemies stay dead as long as the restoration points are not easy or simple to get to.
-Lunar screws up with the red dragon cave since the restoration point is well timed but the dungeon is simply too long and you have to go back to it repeatedly which is not how this mechanic should work.
*Having dungeons where you might need to leave after doing 2/3 of it for completion's sake and come back and finish the rest for completion's sake is not a bad idea at all. It gives players choice and makes dungeons harder and seem more challenging and rewarding to get through. It also gives the idea you have some freedom to explore which is evidently lacking in games like FF X, somewhat, or especially FF XIII.
-obviously this cannot be done if there is no going back from the dungeon. Also it can be dangerous to do this for all dungeons since sometimes forward momentum in the plot is what's best. This also requires dungeon design that doesn't require that you fight all or even the big majority of all enemies to get to the end.
*Many dungeons would have been better had they been more puzzle centric as in Myght's tower or Damon's spire or if they were more mazelike as many dungeons were in TSS, EB, or Talon Mine in SSSC's case. In many ways it feels dungeons are dumbed down and made to be fairly linear throughout the whole game. This is especially obnoxious in SSH. It is sad to see that the Sega CD version of Lunar 2's dungeons were not used a basis for the PSX remake ones since those dungeons were some of the best I've ever crawled through.
*Lunar lacks good boss battles for a while once you reach the Stadius zone and this feels like a bad idea since doing a number of dungeons in succession which are slog fests instead of being moderately difficult with a boss at the end is a bad idea.
*Kyle should not have shields. That should have been an Alex thing with Kyle having slightly less defense but more attack to balance him out as 2 handed swords fit Kyle best.
*All staves should boost Wisdom and have a magical attack to them. The fact the mages lose a decent auto attack in the Stadius zone onwards is kind of annoying.
*The dragon wings are the best "airship" I have ever seen with the ability to go back to previous towns but still requiring exploration and adventure forward to unexplored areas.
*The concealed chests should be eliminated since from the party's PoV they are obvious and RPGs should be about immersion while this set up is to make things harder for the player while breaking immersion. However, Lunar does avoid the problem of items hidden in objects that are mundane and not at all different form the surroundings such as tables or cupboards. In addition, Lunar doesn't have you steal items from people's homes which is a huge plus. I would add that some people might give you items for free by talking to them since you may have saved the village or are trying to save the world. Or in Burg's case because they just know you and wish you luck on your adventure.
*Damon's spire is perhaps the best dungeon in lunar 1 due to the number of enemies, the weaknesses of various enemies, the info given, and the cool cut scenes between floors due to Damon's tests.
*It is a terrible idea to have rare items only be gained by doing some extremely hard to do and totally unable to figure out minus a gamefaq event or series of events. It is poor game design. If rare items are available through events they should be alluded to in the main story or when you first visit a town by talking to NPCs and ways to find the items should be given through a string of clues at the very least.
*Talon mine was an excellent dungeon because it was a maze with a restoration point with an important plot twist in Phacia that wasn't too long and even had a boss. Ruid was also well designed due to the nature of the fights which weren't too easy or too hard for the most part if you used your brain and had a decent boss fight at the end.
*Having the Grindery and Althena's fortress both be dungeons that once you enter you cannot leave is not a good idea unless players are warned in some way. This is less a problem with the Grindery since its cut scenes before getting in are short except that the scenario here can push you into those scenes too easily and this is more of a problem with Althena's Fort. This is because its a nasty dungeon that requires real preparation for three hard boss battles and allows no backtracking which means if you screwed up back in Meribia you face reloading from a save point before much of the plot explosion.
*The Grindery dungeon design is poor in that you can't go back during the bowels section. The bowels are an annoying maze without a gamefaq that has moderately to fairly difficult enemies (tank golems) trying to deplete your MP over the course of the dungeon and be challenging by being long like the blue dragon cave. This is not what the narrative needs at that juncture and the bowels should have been shorter and more to the point. The enemy difficulty is fine but may need to be a little harder with some enemies such as the knights and with the Quarters right afterwards the pacing of the game suffers yet again due to too long dungeon crawling sessions. Also if you aren't prepared when you go to the spring of transmission you may accidentally walk into a railroad of hard fights since the grindery is so close to it. The Grindery Quarters are also just too easy. No set up to be the final dungeon has enemies that easy and it is kind of short which is good due to the length of the Bowels, which should be of equivalent length (~35-45 minutes) since the two should be seen as one long dungeon with a restoration point in the middle.
*The fortress of Althena seems about right in terms of length and its right on in difficulty once you get cursed but easy before that, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Its a long dungeon but that's not bad given its the second to last dungeon and the start of the final phase of the game. Although maybe you should get cursed at the 25% mark instead of the 50% mark to make things more challenging. The problem comes with Althena's tower which is fairly long and incredibly easy once you get past the puzzles thanks to a goddess statue in the dungeon. It also has stupidly easy puzzles which require meta knowledge in one case and feel more like speed bumps than puzzles and should probably be left out. Althena's tower could have done without the vast bulk of the puzzle floors and gone straight into the upper part of the tower with no goddess statue to make things challenging on the final leg of the game before the last boss battle. However, given you face two bosses in a row and are practically forced to go back to the statue after fighting Xenobia to prep for Ghaleon it seems best to leave the goddess statue in the dungeon and simply have more enemies respawn if you leave a floor for any reason to not have to fight through the entire dungeon again if there are two bosses at the end. Also the enemies in the goddess tower shouldn't all respawn after going into Xenobia's chamber. That is a really annoying thing to do since to fully recover before Ghaleon it is best to go back to the goddess statue anyway. Its like fighting through the dungeon, which takes around 30 minutes, twice after Althena's fort which was the longest dungeon in the game. In addition, despite being the most badass enemies in all of Lunar the ultra fiends give too little experience. They should give at least 50% - 75% more than they currently give.
World Design:
*Having dungeons that separate well traveled places on the map is silly if travel is common, which is assumed in Lunar. The only way this makes sense is if the monsters in such dungeons are very low level encounters and thus normal people could form a small group and adventure through the dungeon. This rule does not apply to dungeons separating places on the map that few if any people get to.
-Nanza is a very good idea and pretty brilliant since if there is a well traveled area that has a dungeon with low-mid level monsters a mercenary guild, an escort service, and probably a fort would be created to help people get through the area.
-The only two dungeons that would be affected are the Meryod woods and Tamur pass. I really don't like the Meryod woods and think its should be eliminated with Jessica running into plaster Mel some other way such as having a scene activate while walking back to Reza on the overworld. Another solution is to have the Meryod woods exist but have no enemies on the path to Meryod itself and only have enemies appear when you go off the beaten path and explore the woods for items. Tamur Pass seems like a similarly bad idea with a similar solution being proffered with a roadway that has no monsters being there or there but a rockslide triggered by Xenobia has blocked the way and you must go around through the mountains on a pathway with enemies to get to the other side with Xenobia laying a trap for the party.
*Towns feel different with different sub cultures and atmosphere in Lunar to its credit. What markets are present is addressed as well as what is sold per town. However, some extra effort into making each town truly unique by covering more aspects of its culture instead of assuming everyone has a common major culture and then sub cultures abounding for towns would have been nice. Mostly Lunar uses the old farming town, port city, fishing village, wilderness town, thieves town molds to give each town some flavor. This isn't bad at all and I would have liked some more common molds and probably more towns. The exceptions to this are mainly Lyton and Pao which both feel very unique and are excellently written. However, a lot is unaddressed in most towns: where is each town's defense force? What do they produce to eat? What are their dialects if any (though Meryod covers this one well thanks to WD)? How are people segregated by age? How are children raised and what stories are they given? How are women and men differently treated? What is good versus bad behavior (Reza and Nanza does this well as some good examples)? What games, jokes, and entertainment predominate (other than taverns)? What is each town's history? How is religion handled and temples? How is law and justice handled? What body ornamentation and art is there? How is leadership handled? Architecture is also very important to culture and Lunar does very well with this aspect making each town look very different and each town has a different vibe because of this and the kind of town it is. Lunar also adds the commonality that all towns love music as entertainment and drinking with common ideas about law and order, common worship of a global religion, and all towns being bright, cheery, and clean. It would also be nice if geopolitics and intertown trade were covered more. Why does Meribia have a big army for instance? Just because of its size? If so what threat does it face to warrant an army? What are each town's exports and how does that play out with global trade and fleshing out the setting?
*Some towns should be bigger since town exploration if the dialogue is good, which it is, and the town uniquely flavored culturally is always fun. Tamur is far too small for instance and really starting with Reza the towns seem to get smaller and this is bad because the bulk of town exploration should not be in the first 1/3 of the game as it is in Lunar. Early on Lunar handled things fairly well, Vane feels big enough for its importance when the guild is included and Meribia is a little large. Really most towns should aim to be about the size of Saith.
-Another thing I'll mention is that the towns could be set up more realistically with enough beds for everyone in town and houses for everyone in the streets even if they are empty or better yet have families at home with people wandering the city or at a bar which could lead to all kinds of interesting dialogue about why some people are gone for whatever reason. People in towns should also have crafts or jobs represented so that the towns feel alive with people just wandering around or getting plastered in the early afternoon being rare. Another idea is to have each town be at a different time of the day with say Meribia being morning, Burg mid day, and Saith late afternoon. This allows for even more ability to flesh out the towns via dialogue geared around these times and what happens in the town at these times. The times could even change as the game hits major scenes meaning the dialogue has been updated for that town. A way to tell people quickly and easily re-exploration is a good idea.
*Having over world monsters only makes sense if the setting reflects this fact such as tales of Vesperia. Lunar does well with this problem and creates a very unique feel for the game world because of this.
*Holy equipment should require that the maker's be divine casters or just clerics of some sort and should not be just made by anyone just as magical equipment should require people who cast spells to make. Lyton and Tamur make these mistakes.
*Equipment should not get much better at every town you go to. Perhaps it can get better the farther from safe places you get but having gear get better just because its the next town is silly. For instance gear should be better in the frontierlike and, if you adventure, dangerous Stadius zone. But otherwise gear shouldn't get way more powerful at each new town but at places that are the heart of trade (Meribia) , politics (none), religion (Althena's Shrine) , or magic (Vane) or a global thieves bazaar (Reza bazaar) or a prestigious assassin's or mercenary's guild should have gear available that is pretty awesome if maybe unaffordable right now but becomes affordable in time.
*Some disposable items and accessories should be sold by special places instead of most places as you get further in the game. Some disposable items that should be rarely sold outside a place with serious cult of Althena presence would be holy water and angel's tears. Starlights should be sold by places with magical caster presence. Accessories should be sold by places with caster or clerical presence having been made with magic or the divine abilities of Althena's clerics.
*The economy could make more sense. For instance, the progression of power for weapons is downright bad. While it starts out good going short sword to arming sword to longsword it eventually screws up with magic items being thrown in too early and the katana being better than magical swords and the great sword being better than many magical blades and being wielded one handed. The progression of weapons power wise should be logical with costs going up with actually rare and enchanted weapons and armor. Instead of mundane pieces that are better than some magical items and cost more than them for no rational reason.
*Ghaleon's minions from the Vile Tribe are far too powerful and of enormous levels. Also they fluctuate wildly in levels. When the crystal spire is attacked they are fairly weak, when Meribia is attacked they are also fairly weak but much stronger than any of the human armies save Pao, which seems odd the human armed and trained soldiers are that weak. But once you get to the Frontier or even Tamur Pass the vile tribesman are insanely powerful and could stand toe to toe with humanity's greatest warriors and there are legions of these beings. It makes no sense. The easiest way to fix this is simply making enemies from the vile tribe after Meribia's invasion augmented by magitech in some way making them into inhuman super soldiers or being constructs instead such as the tanks or prisms. The Meribian invaders would also have to be more deadly so that they would be a threat to a trained military force, which should be more powerful than you at that point in the game, but that is doable given the fact there is a restoration point you can go to after every battle. Also it may be a good idea showing the Meribian army fighting the vile tribe in the streets and Mel's mansion and being pushed back in certain areas or winning in others. This scene could be far more interesting if it was designed with an all out war in mind instead of people cowering, the Meribian army retreating endlessly, and you being forced to take on hard enemies that you can kill at this point without too much trouble despite not being a seasoned soldier and having only adventured for a limited time. I would peg soldiers such as Meribia's army or Vane's magic corp at being able to take on Damon's spire and in numbers, with decent casualties, possibly getting through the red dragon cave's normal enemies but what makes the party so special is that as a small team of friends they can do this and they can pass the trials of the dragons and Damon, which the vast majority of people couldn't do. The vile crustacean still works though because its perfect to sic on magic wielders who can barely scratch it.
*Ramus' endgame shop is a great idea to have free items and other RPGs could learn from this and have the last shops in RPGs give away free stuff to the people who are trying to save the world form destruction or tyranny. It is nonsensical except to the morally depraved due to their greed to charge the only hope of saving the world money to get the gear they need to win. The one change I would make is having Ramus start giving away free stuff before going to the Frontier instead of right before Althena's Fort since in his eyes that would be the end of the adventure for Alex. Ramus gets duped twice just like the player in this case.
Scenario Design:
*The scenario from the start of the game to the Marius zone is pretty straightforward, very exploration based, and quite well done. The first 1/3 of the game shows it has been concentrated on. Apart form gameplay issues and story issues I have with it this section needs no real scenario tweaking from my perspective with one exception I will mention next.
*Fetch quests such as the hag's forest, the Iluk fields, or the Lyton shrine should not take terribly long. The Hag's forest is a little too long and so is the Iluk fields, especially if you don't know which bug gives the item or want to explore the whole thing for items. Both dungeons could stand to be shorter and in the Iluk field's case altered. The Lyton shrine just seems like a bad idea. and should be eliminated. It breaks game progress, is rather long, has some serious fights and gives very little forward momentum for all your work after an episode where forward momentum crawled in the Marius zone's end.
*The Lyton to Tamur section is handled poorly since it takes hours of dungeon crawling through three dungeons to advance the plot significantly. This brings up the very real problem of many RPGs, including Lunar, in that the farther you get in the less story and characterization rewards you get for dungeon crawling comparing minute of dungeon to minute of cut scene or town exploration. In games where this problem occurs early it seems to really turn people off to the game since it is going for dungeon crawl over story advancement. My best example is Grandia. Lunar thankfully ratchets up the narrative in the last 33% of the game making this less of a problem than other games.
*The game from the start of the Marius zone till the end of the Black Dragon fortress has no real going back for any good reason, which makes sense in the Marius zone after getting there which is helped by the theft of the dragon wings since it gives the player the idea of forward momentum but its pacing gets bogged down. This is because of an annoying Meryod Woods, due to the power of the monsters, and the second and more severe problem of having the Iluk fields right before the red dragon cave, which is really long. So its a double whammy of dungeons which doesn't feel justified if forward momentum is so important to the zone. In addition, things really get bogged down from Lyton until Pao possibly going all the way back to Iluk. That whole section feels more like an obstacle to be overcome for some cut scene rewards and to get on with the plot eventually more than anything I would actually want to play for fun. Iluk and the red dragon cave are somewhat forgivable because it comes after great forward progress at the end of a continent. However starting with Lyton I really only slogged through it because I knew awesome stuff was in the works once I became dragon master. Otherwise instead of being a story driven game it really becomes a dungeon crawler with short cut scene rewards after serious dungeon after serious dungeon until the end of the black dragon fortress.
*The Iluk fields aren't too big but the number of puffy bugs should be greatly decreased to maybe just a handful in the entire dungeon with one giving the necessary bug as is already the case or after fighting enough puffy bugs you get the bug you need automatically. The red dragon cave may also be a little too long. The party should be able to clear the 2nd half of the dungeon up to the boss with the HP and MP they have after the restoration point. However, the boss will need to have the party go back to the restoration point to be healed up for the fight or the party can be healed up again after making it through the hall of fire just in time for the boss battle. Also the restoration point should be usable only once or twice after the first time if it can be gone back to with the option of taking the red dragons healing and using up a charge so to speak after the initial healing. I like the blue dragon cave design but it is a bit too long mainly because of the seriously powerful enemies and should have a boss possibly summoned by Phacia reluctantly after she deals with the blue dragon. Or if Phacia is to remain the good sister throughout then it could be Xenobia as she never deals with a dragon in game. The Blue Dragon could also heal you up as a restoration point after getting to him to prep for the boss. The boss would be water based to get the most out of the fire element stuff you have at that point.
*It is a race to find the dragons before Ghaleon once you get to the red dragon and this is another reason the Lyton shrine should be eliminated. It is hard enough explaining how getting to the red dragon wasn't a race but the Marius zone exists and nothing short of a major rewrite will fix the plodding nature of getting to the red dragon cave after Ghaleon enslaves Quark. The Black Dragon can wait though since Tamur pass is meant to be Xenobia delaying you if not killing you and once you reach Tamur you can discover that Pao needs medicine for some condition which means Ghaleon is already using Luna to enslave the black dragon. Thus going to Myght, going through the Illusion forest, and winding up in Pao just to go through the black dragon fortress are really Ghaleon screwing with the people of Pao and possibly waiting to screw with Alex and company.
*Tamur being larger and more worthy of exploration would make the section of the game once you get there easier to get through. It is also at this point that you could afford the really awesome gear found in Vane or Althena's shrine if items don't just get better because you went to the next town as recommended earlier. Having gear to pick up gives a reason to go back to re-explore and a reason should be given to do this at this point in the narrative especially since no one knows where the black dragon cave really is. Also having Laike be the only person who goes with Alex to Myght's tower seems like a bad idea unless that dungeon is not as puzzling as its set up to be, which would be sad since it is a good dungeon design. Really the whole party should come along and this should be a standard dungeon that has a good design to it already. I do not know how to handle Laike but his character makes little sense as written anyway. The best solution may be one or two people, like Nash, staying behind in Tamur for some reason and Laike joining up. This could be the two women going with Alex and Laike since among other things Myght's a womanizer and it helps with their exp compared to the boys as they get to do the black dragon fortress with no help from the girls which puts them behind the boys level wise. This way everyone has similar exp except Alex. Another solution would be Laike taking a fast way up to Myght he allows for people he knows but the party having to take the long way the first time to meet Myght. The Illusion Forest is also well done with the way forward being easy to do unless you want to explore everything and get all the items but the dungeon is designed well enough that the entire thing can be explored before running out of MP. Once you get to Pao the story starts to pick up and from the conclusion of the Black Dragon fortress is pretty solid with some problems along the way as mentioned elsewhere. You should also meet up with Tempest near the start of the dragon fortress or the enemies on the 1st floor should be set up to be taken out with just 3 people without too much trouble. Because of the amount of dungeons you face after Tamur with little in the way of story rewards each dungeon should at most take 40 minutes if fully explored with the exception of the top of the Black Dragon Fortress so that the narrative has forward momentum to it.
*As mentioned before a real reason to go back before going to the Frontier would have been a good idea especially to talk to Alex's dad. That said in many ways the scenario in the last 1/3 of the game is excellently done with some serious flaws that will be mentioned. Now what helps Lunar once you get to the Frontier is that Talon mine is an excellent dungeon properly balanced to not be too hard which gives vital story as does Cadin. Ruid isn't terribly long or terribly difficult for the most part and sets up some really awesome cut scenes with Nash, Ghaleon, and Vane vs the Grindery. The fact you can explore the world after this is also a big bonus and this fact should be highlighted probably by you being forced to go to a nearby town like Meribia using the dragon wings, say to meet with survivors from Vane. This would also help give the idea that some towns will give you cool stuff like Lann or Reza since the dialogue has changed in most towns. The fact you can explore the world again helps take the edge off the plot rail if you know about it. The Grindery is also too long hurting pacing and the easiness of the enemies in the Quarters made things feel odd since no final dungeon should be that easy. The Magic Emperor was also way too easy to be a serious last boss contender. Not to mention it was pretty obvious there was a lot unsaid so far in the narrative so it couldn't be the ending. As before Lunar telegraphed its plot point with the false ending especially with the cheery "its done" music despite the fact the fortress of Althena and evil Luna are on the jewel case of the game! What keeps the story going up to Althena's fort and to Ghaleon is that at the end of Grindery there is the plot explosion that happens. The bevy of good cut scenes and the shear amount of plot and characterization make the narrative so strong it doesn't seem to matter we just got a false ending and now have to finish the job for real. Also some exploration is allowed in Meribia which helps take the edge off the plot rail you're on.
*For the time the graphics were decidedly retro but that fit the game quite well and helped give some continuity between the Sega CD games and this one. However, if the game was remade today the graphics are really dated and would need upgrading but I dislike how SSH did it. A serious effort to make larger sprites with plenty of detail and beautiful backgrounds with things probably zoomed in a little more would be a good idea. Camera angle would have to be played around with overhead, isometric, and over the shoulder (with rotation of the screen) being the obvious choices. All of the sprites and backgrounds would have even more detail if zoomed in, which means there should be close ups for cut scenes so that they look somewhat like the anime cut scenes probably with less detail with anime cut scenes being left for really important events. However, if the game art can be done with as much detail as the anime cut scenes zoomed in then such cut scenes are supplanted. This may require the power of a newer generation console to do so.
Sound:
*The music should be fully orchestrated, but they did fix this in SSH.
*The new Lunar 1 music is underwhelming for the most part with some obvious exceptions and the old music for TSS may have been better to use if it was upgraded and orchestrated. However, given the more playful feel of the world and the new visual style compared to TSS the old music may seem alien to their context.
Gameplay:
*Battles are fun and interesting due to the movement and attacks system, battle formation, limited area of effect spells, and the types of enemies, their attack profiles, and their formations. While a nearly perfect way to deal with all battles in 1 round before enemies get to act exists in a number of fights it will still typically take two rounds with 1 round of enemy attacks to deal with all enemies. This means that strategy is involved in what enemies to kill in the first round based on what type of attack they are planning to use and what's the best way to kill as many enemies as you can in 1 round. This is in addition to how you wish to be positioned at the start of a fight and the end of a round which gives yet another layer of strategy. Thus the standard menu based turn based traditional RPG battle mechanic is altered considerably for the better. The system itself is trying to capture the feel of pen and paper systems like D&D while being tactical like in Strategy RPGs while retaining the traditional turn based combat mechanic of traditional RPGs. Overall the system does an excellent job of this and the incorporation of a hex grid for the battle map is interesting and novel.
*Dungeons are generally well designed in that you will have run out of MP for the casters and healers by the time you get to the boss at the end of a dungeon assuming you explore the whole thing. This is some evidence that Lunar is a very closely balanced game.
*Bosses are fairly well designed in that they are just hard enough to present a challenge but not so difficult as to make the player frustrated.
*Bosses have the problem that with so few meaningful attacks against single enemies that don't cause you to run low on MP quickly your options in a boss fight are almost always the same. Buff up first round and use saint litany and then heal up in later rounds and spam best low MP single target abilities. There are very few exceptions to this rule. Really only boss battles where there is more than one enemy and boss battles that are meant to be significantly harder than normal such as the last boss.
*If a game is very closely balanced like Lunar then it can become relatively easy to lose a character or wipe due to RNG. Either by being ganged up on or being hit with a really devastating attack multiple times in a row. To rectify this how many enemies can attack a specific member of the party should be limited even if it runs on RNG. Such as no more than two enemies per round ganging up on any one character with the same applying to bosses with multiple single target attacks per round. This also means that the game should be balanced in w ay that no single character will die if they are attacked by two enemies in the one round. One of the biggest breakers of this rule are the Killer Buzzes in the Meryod Woods. The instant death attack of the Fiends in Althena's tower don't represent a real problem though as they are the hardest common enemy in the game and are in the last dungeon. Another thing to do is to not allow an enemy to use the same kind of attack twice in a row if its very powerful, this is especially important against bosses since if the RNG is against you they can get much harder than the rest of the game as the same super powerful moves are used on you over and over with nothing in between.
*Lunar 1 has far too few abilities to use for each character. Alex and Kyle really suffer for this. Alex should have had magic spells such as fire spells like he had in TSS and a spell linked with Althena's sword would have been nice. Kyle should have had more sword skills or even melee debuffs that are useful. Mia is far too limited with her tactical options in most battles for her damage spells with a wider gamut of possibilities being nice such as light, moderate, or heavy damage single target spells, area of effect spells, and entire screen spells being available with differing MP costs for both fire and ice to balance things. I would also like to see more buff spells such as an Magic Endurance boosting spell, Wisdom boosting spell, more attacks spells to cover a wider gamut of contingencies. Nash also has too few options for attack spells and should have a similar treatment to Mia for his lightning spells and his debuff spells are downright pathetic and should be buffed and made to be decent. Jessica has a debuff that isn't effective and no attack spells which seems odd since she is pretty aggressive. An upgraded version of calm litany would have been nice for more MP as well as an upgraded saint litany and an all party version of cleanse litany would be nice. You also get your effective spells far too late in the game not getting them until the red dragon cave which is past the halfway point.
-Also it clearly shows Lunar has no customization of character abilities or stats or anything of the like. How to give choice is beyond me at this point so that it fits Lunar's feel but there are a number of options available. The crests system from Lunar 2 could be brought into Lunar 1 for instance.
*The Dragon spells cost far too much MP for what they do with the sole exception of black dragon grief. The fact Alex is a lowish max MP character should have been taken into account with the spells being usable in combat for boss battles without having to spam silver lights.
*Having a grand total limit to items for Nall is a bad idea. It introduces a sense of scarcity of inventory slots that doesn't seem smart. Instead it would have been better if Nall has an unlimited inventory limited by the number of the same item you can have. Similarly having small party inventories as a mechanic is a bad idea unless most boss battles require very few items, but Lunar handles this well except for perhaps the last boss and even with a much larger Nall inventory for Lunar I'd keep the limited player inventories since it adds a level of strategy and preparedness. It should also be said that an artificially low number of items such as in Tales games is not wise if the dungeons and bosses are balanced around this fact as Tales of Vesperia was. It makes the party too item dependant. Lunar 2 has a more than adequate system if limited inventories for characters is not desired with a maximum number of items equal to 20 with a common item bag for all characters which works because you aren't forced to use almost your entire inventory of certain items per dungeon or boss battle.
*Starlights should give more MP than they give currently probably a flat 45-60 MP per starlight. They are pretty expensive and give such a low return even early in the game. This may also mean silver lights are less important in the last few boss battles since you could sub in starlights instead.
*It has to be stated Lunar's battles are dated turn based affairs by modern standards. Given the solid design of the combat system though they still represent a decent battle system overall but if the battles were to be upgraded and modernized then here I think a more tactical approach which takes advantage of the hex system the game uses may be in order. This likely means battles will last 2-4 rounds instead of 1-2 so that it doesn't feel like a turn based system masquerading as a tactical one. This also means fewer battles would be required per dungeon and enemy composition and placement could mean that repeat battles wouldn't happen hardly at all.
-To do this HP for everyone, player and enemy, would have to go up so enemies don't drop in the first round unless they are ganged up on or everyone pops AoEs. Terrain should also be added. This could be an interesting way of doing things since enemies being on screen instead of random battles and you being able to dodge some battles and ignore them is rare in tactical games.
*requiring grinding in the 1st dungeon is a bad idea. The game should be structured in a way that you can avoid some enemies in every dungeon yet get enough levels and have good enough gear to beat the dungeon and the game over time. If you full clear every dungeon to kill all the monsters and get all the equipment in chests then you should be at an advantage and the game slightly easier over being able to nominally beat the game albeit at a higher difficulty if you aren't a completionist. The dungeons I found grinding to be the better option were the White Dragon cave, Meribian Sewers, Lann Island, Crystal Spire if you don't use the dragonfly wing bug, if it were longer the Meryod Woods would count, the Blue Dragon cave might count if Alex doesn't have the flame sword, and the last three bosses of the game are tough and grinding really helps. The really bad thing about this is that the game encourages grinding in its first 1/2 for a variety of dungeons only to drop the difficulty by a fair bit for the second half except for the blue dragon shrine which shouldn't be grind happy since the narrative is supposed to be a race to the blue dragon before Ghaleon gets there. The last problem is by making the last 3 bosses so powerful it really encourages grinding all the enemies dead in Althena's fortress to do well against Royce, and grinding in the Goddess tower to beat Xenobia and Ghaleon.
-The shear importance of just a one or two levels would have to be eliminated if this were to happen since that structure encourages grinding and completionism to even beat the game. It also means grinding for 30 minutes can make you very over leveled for where you are in the game.
*The crystal spire should not force all party members to give up weapons. This can already be gotten around by using a bug involving a dragon fly wing but the dungeon is more than difficult enough as is without having to make it harder by taking away weapons.
*You should never have cut scenes that get triggered by exploration that lead to a boss fight unless there is prior warning of the boss' presence.
-one great way to do this in a open save game is restoration points where your MP and HP get regained in a dungeon. This alerts players that something is up and they should save. Also having checkpoints at certain areas in dungeons in addition to save points anywhere is beneficial. To make sure the restoration point isn't abused the dungeon should be large enough or the path to get to it hard enough that to get to said point takes time and effort and fights and isn't easy to accomplish.
-Check points may make sense with certain areas or tiles or cut scenes triggering an autosave that can be loaded back from should the party die. This takes a hard drive though.
-Other than restoration points getting full HP and MP when gaining levels could suffice but this seems harder to balance but it may be a better way to go if dungeons allow you to get to restoration points easily.
-Something Lunar may benefit from is a recouping of some lost MP after each battle whether it is a set amount per level of experience or based on how well you do in combat. However the problem with a rating system or anything of the like is that it creates a game where you never hold back your most powerful attacks actually limiting tactical options.
-Having enemies stay dead for the duration of a dungeon is a good idea and is wonderful when you can save in a dungeon and previously killed enemies stay dead as long as the restoration points are not easy or simple to get to.
-Lunar screws up with the red dragon cave since the restoration point is well timed but the dungeon is simply too long and you have to go back to it repeatedly which is not how this mechanic should work.
*Having dungeons where you might need to leave after doing 2/3 of it for completion's sake and come back and finish the rest for completion's sake is not a bad idea at all. It gives players choice and makes dungeons harder and seem more challenging and rewarding to get through. It also gives the idea you have some freedom to explore which is evidently lacking in games like FF X, somewhat, or especially FF XIII.
-obviously this cannot be done if there is no going back from the dungeon. Also it can be dangerous to do this for all dungeons since sometimes forward momentum in the plot is what's best. This also requires dungeon design that doesn't require that you fight all or even the big majority of all enemies to get to the end.
*Many dungeons would have been better had they been more puzzle centric as in Myght's tower or Damon's spire or if they were more mazelike as many dungeons were in TSS, EB, or Talon Mine in SSSC's case. In many ways it feels dungeons are dumbed down and made to be fairly linear throughout the whole game. This is especially obnoxious in SSH. It is sad to see that the Sega CD version of Lunar 2's dungeons were not used a basis for the PSX remake ones since those dungeons were some of the best I've ever crawled through.
*Lunar lacks good boss battles for a while once you reach the Stadius zone and this feels like a bad idea since doing a number of dungeons in succession which are slog fests instead of being moderately difficult with a boss at the end is a bad idea.
*Kyle should not have shields. That should have been an Alex thing with Kyle having slightly less defense but more attack to balance him out as 2 handed swords fit Kyle best.
*All staves should boost Wisdom and have a magical attack to them. The fact the mages lose a decent auto attack in the Stadius zone onwards is kind of annoying.
*The dragon wings are the best "airship" I have ever seen with the ability to go back to previous towns but still requiring exploration and adventure forward to unexplored areas.
*The concealed chests should be eliminated since from the party's PoV they are obvious and RPGs should be about immersion while this set up is to make things harder for the player while breaking immersion. However, Lunar does avoid the problem of items hidden in objects that are mundane and not at all different form the surroundings such as tables or cupboards. In addition, Lunar doesn't have you steal items from people's homes which is a huge plus. I would add that some people might give you items for free by talking to them since you may have saved the village or are trying to save the world. Or in Burg's case because they just know you and wish you luck on your adventure.
*Damon's spire is perhaps the best dungeon in lunar 1 due to the number of enemies, the weaknesses of various enemies, the info given, and the cool cut scenes between floors due to Damon's tests.
*It is a terrible idea to have rare items only be gained by doing some extremely hard to do and totally unable to figure out minus a gamefaq event or series of events. It is poor game design. If rare items are available through events they should be alluded to in the main story or when you first visit a town by talking to NPCs and ways to find the items should be given through a string of clues at the very least.
*Talon mine was an excellent dungeon because it was a maze with a restoration point with an important plot twist in Phacia that wasn't too long and even had a boss. Ruid was also well designed due to the nature of the fights which weren't too easy or too hard for the most part if you used your brain and had a decent boss fight at the end.
*Having the Grindery and Althena's fortress both be dungeons that once you enter you cannot leave is not a good idea unless players are warned in some way. This is less a problem with the Grindery since its cut scenes before getting in are short except that the scenario here can push you into those scenes too easily and this is more of a problem with Althena's Fort. This is because its a nasty dungeon that requires real preparation for three hard boss battles and allows no backtracking which means if you screwed up back in Meribia you face reloading from a save point before much of the plot explosion.
*The Grindery dungeon design is poor in that you can't go back during the bowels section. The bowels are an annoying maze without a gamefaq that has moderately to fairly difficult enemies (tank golems) trying to deplete your MP over the course of the dungeon and be challenging by being long like the blue dragon cave. This is not what the narrative needs at that juncture and the bowels should have been shorter and more to the point. The enemy difficulty is fine but may need to be a little harder with some enemies such as the knights and with the Quarters right afterwards the pacing of the game suffers yet again due to too long dungeon crawling sessions. Also if you aren't prepared when you go to the spring of transmission you may accidentally walk into a railroad of hard fights since the grindery is so close to it. The Grindery Quarters are also just too easy. No set up to be the final dungeon has enemies that easy and it is kind of short which is good due to the length of the Bowels, which should be of equivalent length (~35-45 minutes) since the two should be seen as one long dungeon with a restoration point in the middle.
*The fortress of Althena seems about right in terms of length and its right on in difficulty once you get cursed but easy before that, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Its a long dungeon but that's not bad given its the second to last dungeon and the start of the final phase of the game. Although maybe you should get cursed at the 25% mark instead of the 50% mark to make things more challenging. The problem comes with Althena's tower which is fairly long and incredibly easy once you get past the puzzles thanks to a goddess statue in the dungeon. It also has stupidly easy puzzles which require meta knowledge in one case and feel more like speed bumps than puzzles and should probably be left out. Althena's tower could have done without the vast bulk of the puzzle floors and gone straight into the upper part of the tower with no goddess statue to make things challenging on the final leg of the game before the last boss battle. However, given you face two bosses in a row and are practically forced to go back to the statue after fighting Xenobia to prep for Ghaleon it seems best to leave the goddess statue in the dungeon and simply have more enemies respawn if you leave a floor for any reason to not have to fight through the entire dungeon again if there are two bosses at the end. Also the enemies in the goddess tower shouldn't all respawn after going into Xenobia's chamber. That is a really annoying thing to do since to fully recover before Ghaleon it is best to go back to the goddess statue anyway. Its like fighting through the dungeon, which takes around 30 minutes, twice after Althena's fort which was the longest dungeon in the game. In addition, despite being the most badass enemies in all of Lunar the ultra fiends give too little experience. They should give at least 50% - 75% more than they currently give.
World Design:
*Having dungeons that separate well traveled places on the map is silly if travel is common, which is assumed in Lunar. The only way this makes sense is if the monsters in such dungeons are very low level encounters and thus normal people could form a small group and adventure through the dungeon. This rule does not apply to dungeons separating places on the map that few if any people get to.
-Nanza is a very good idea and pretty brilliant since if there is a well traveled area that has a dungeon with low-mid level monsters a mercenary guild, an escort service, and probably a fort would be created to help people get through the area.
-The only two dungeons that would be affected are the Meryod woods and Tamur pass. I really don't like the Meryod woods and think its should be eliminated with Jessica running into plaster Mel some other way such as having a scene activate while walking back to Reza on the overworld. Another solution is to have the Meryod woods exist but have no enemies on the path to Meryod itself and only have enemies appear when you go off the beaten path and explore the woods for items. Tamur Pass seems like a similarly bad idea with a similar solution being proffered with a roadway that has no monsters being there or there but a rockslide triggered by Xenobia has blocked the way and you must go around through the mountains on a pathway with enemies to get to the other side with Xenobia laying a trap for the party.
*Towns feel different with different sub cultures and atmosphere in Lunar to its credit. What markets are present is addressed as well as what is sold per town. However, some extra effort into making each town truly unique by covering more aspects of its culture instead of assuming everyone has a common major culture and then sub cultures abounding for towns would have been nice. Mostly Lunar uses the old farming town, port city, fishing village, wilderness town, thieves town molds to give each town some flavor. This isn't bad at all and I would have liked some more common molds and probably more towns. The exceptions to this are mainly Lyton and Pao which both feel very unique and are excellently written. However, a lot is unaddressed in most towns: where is each town's defense force? What do they produce to eat? What are their dialects if any (though Meryod covers this one well thanks to WD)? How are people segregated by age? How are children raised and what stories are they given? How are women and men differently treated? What is good versus bad behavior (Reza and Nanza does this well as some good examples)? What games, jokes, and entertainment predominate (other than taverns)? What is each town's history? How is religion handled and temples? How is law and justice handled? What body ornamentation and art is there? How is leadership handled? Architecture is also very important to culture and Lunar does very well with this aspect making each town look very different and each town has a different vibe because of this and the kind of town it is. Lunar also adds the commonality that all towns love music as entertainment and drinking with common ideas about law and order, common worship of a global religion, and all towns being bright, cheery, and clean. It would also be nice if geopolitics and intertown trade were covered more. Why does Meribia have a big army for instance? Just because of its size? If so what threat does it face to warrant an army? What are each town's exports and how does that play out with global trade and fleshing out the setting?
*Some towns should be bigger since town exploration if the dialogue is good, which it is, and the town uniquely flavored culturally is always fun. Tamur is far too small for instance and really starting with Reza the towns seem to get smaller and this is bad because the bulk of town exploration should not be in the first 1/3 of the game as it is in Lunar. Early on Lunar handled things fairly well, Vane feels big enough for its importance when the guild is included and Meribia is a little large. Really most towns should aim to be about the size of Saith.
-Another thing I'll mention is that the towns could be set up more realistically with enough beds for everyone in town and houses for everyone in the streets even if they are empty or better yet have families at home with people wandering the city or at a bar which could lead to all kinds of interesting dialogue about why some people are gone for whatever reason. People in towns should also have crafts or jobs represented so that the towns feel alive with people just wandering around or getting plastered in the early afternoon being rare. Another idea is to have each town be at a different time of the day with say Meribia being morning, Burg mid day, and Saith late afternoon. This allows for even more ability to flesh out the towns via dialogue geared around these times and what happens in the town at these times. The times could even change as the game hits major scenes meaning the dialogue has been updated for that town. A way to tell people quickly and easily re-exploration is a good idea.
*Having over world monsters only makes sense if the setting reflects this fact such as tales of Vesperia. Lunar does well with this problem and creates a very unique feel for the game world because of this.
*Holy equipment should require that the maker's be divine casters or just clerics of some sort and should not be just made by anyone just as magical equipment should require people who cast spells to make. Lyton and Tamur make these mistakes.
*Equipment should not get much better at every town you go to. Perhaps it can get better the farther from safe places you get but having gear get better just because its the next town is silly. For instance gear should be better in the frontierlike and, if you adventure, dangerous Stadius zone. But otherwise gear shouldn't get way more powerful at each new town but at places that are the heart of trade (Meribia) , politics (none), religion (Althena's Shrine) , or magic (Vane) or a global thieves bazaar (Reza bazaar) or a prestigious assassin's or mercenary's guild should have gear available that is pretty awesome if maybe unaffordable right now but becomes affordable in time.
*Some disposable items and accessories should be sold by special places instead of most places as you get further in the game. Some disposable items that should be rarely sold outside a place with serious cult of Althena presence would be holy water and angel's tears. Starlights should be sold by places with magical caster presence. Accessories should be sold by places with caster or clerical presence having been made with magic or the divine abilities of Althena's clerics.
*The economy could make more sense. For instance, the progression of power for weapons is downright bad. While it starts out good going short sword to arming sword to longsword it eventually screws up with magic items being thrown in too early and the katana being better than magical swords and the great sword being better than many magical blades and being wielded one handed. The progression of weapons power wise should be logical with costs going up with actually rare and enchanted weapons and armor. Instead of mundane pieces that are better than some magical items and cost more than them for no rational reason.
*Ghaleon's minions from the Vile Tribe are far too powerful and of enormous levels. Also they fluctuate wildly in levels. When the crystal spire is attacked they are fairly weak, when Meribia is attacked they are also fairly weak but much stronger than any of the human armies save Pao, which seems odd the human armed and trained soldiers are that weak. But once you get to the Frontier or even Tamur Pass the vile tribesman are insanely powerful and could stand toe to toe with humanity's greatest warriors and there are legions of these beings. It makes no sense. The easiest way to fix this is simply making enemies from the vile tribe after Meribia's invasion augmented by magitech in some way making them into inhuman super soldiers or being constructs instead such as the tanks or prisms. The Meribian invaders would also have to be more deadly so that they would be a threat to a trained military force, which should be more powerful than you at that point in the game, but that is doable given the fact there is a restoration point you can go to after every battle. Also it may be a good idea showing the Meribian army fighting the vile tribe in the streets and Mel's mansion and being pushed back in certain areas or winning in others. This scene could be far more interesting if it was designed with an all out war in mind instead of people cowering, the Meribian army retreating endlessly, and you being forced to take on hard enemies that you can kill at this point without too much trouble despite not being a seasoned soldier and having only adventured for a limited time. I would peg soldiers such as Meribia's army or Vane's magic corp at being able to take on Damon's spire and in numbers, with decent casualties, possibly getting through the red dragon cave's normal enemies but what makes the party so special is that as a small team of friends they can do this and they can pass the trials of the dragons and Damon, which the vast majority of people couldn't do. The vile crustacean still works though because its perfect to sic on magic wielders who can barely scratch it.
*Ramus' endgame shop is a great idea to have free items and other RPGs could learn from this and have the last shops in RPGs give away free stuff to the people who are trying to save the world form destruction or tyranny. It is nonsensical except to the morally depraved due to their greed to charge the only hope of saving the world money to get the gear they need to win. The one change I would make is having Ramus start giving away free stuff before going to the Frontier instead of right before Althena's Fort since in his eyes that would be the end of the adventure for Alex. Ramus gets duped twice just like the player in this case.
Scenario Design:
*The scenario from the start of the game to the Marius zone is pretty straightforward, very exploration based, and quite well done. The first 1/3 of the game shows it has been concentrated on. Apart form gameplay issues and story issues I have with it this section needs no real scenario tweaking from my perspective with one exception I will mention next.
*Fetch quests such as the hag's forest, the Iluk fields, or the Lyton shrine should not take terribly long. The Hag's forest is a little too long and so is the Iluk fields, especially if you don't know which bug gives the item or want to explore the whole thing for items. Both dungeons could stand to be shorter and in the Iluk field's case altered. The Lyton shrine just seems like a bad idea. and should be eliminated. It breaks game progress, is rather long, has some serious fights and gives very little forward momentum for all your work after an episode where forward momentum crawled in the Marius zone's end.
*The Lyton to Tamur section is handled poorly since it takes hours of dungeon crawling through three dungeons to advance the plot significantly. This brings up the very real problem of many RPGs, including Lunar, in that the farther you get in the less story and characterization rewards you get for dungeon crawling comparing minute of dungeon to minute of cut scene or town exploration. In games where this problem occurs early it seems to really turn people off to the game since it is going for dungeon crawl over story advancement. My best example is Grandia. Lunar thankfully ratchets up the narrative in the last 33% of the game making this less of a problem than other games.
*The game from the start of the Marius zone till the end of the Black Dragon fortress has no real going back for any good reason, which makes sense in the Marius zone after getting there which is helped by the theft of the dragon wings since it gives the player the idea of forward momentum but its pacing gets bogged down. This is because of an annoying Meryod Woods, due to the power of the monsters, and the second and more severe problem of having the Iluk fields right before the red dragon cave, which is really long. So its a double whammy of dungeons which doesn't feel justified if forward momentum is so important to the zone. In addition, things really get bogged down from Lyton until Pao possibly going all the way back to Iluk. That whole section feels more like an obstacle to be overcome for some cut scene rewards and to get on with the plot eventually more than anything I would actually want to play for fun. Iluk and the red dragon cave are somewhat forgivable because it comes after great forward progress at the end of a continent. However starting with Lyton I really only slogged through it because I knew awesome stuff was in the works once I became dragon master. Otherwise instead of being a story driven game it really becomes a dungeon crawler with short cut scene rewards after serious dungeon after serious dungeon until the end of the black dragon fortress.
*The Iluk fields aren't too big but the number of puffy bugs should be greatly decreased to maybe just a handful in the entire dungeon with one giving the necessary bug as is already the case or after fighting enough puffy bugs you get the bug you need automatically. The red dragon cave may also be a little too long. The party should be able to clear the 2nd half of the dungeon up to the boss with the HP and MP they have after the restoration point. However, the boss will need to have the party go back to the restoration point to be healed up for the fight or the party can be healed up again after making it through the hall of fire just in time for the boss battle. Also the restoration point should be usable only once or twice after the first time if it can be gone back to with the option of taking the red dragons healing and using up a charge so to speak after the initial healing. I like the blue dragon cave design but it is a bit too long mainly because of the seriously powerful enemies and should have a boss possibly summoned by Phacia reluctantly after she deals with the blue dragon. Or if Phacia is to remain the good sister throughout then it could be Xenobia as she never deals with a dragon in game. The Blue Dragon could also heal you up as a restoration point after getting to him to prep for the boss. The boss would be water based to get the most out of the fire element stuff you have at that point.
*It is a race to find the dragons before Ghaleon once you get to the red dragon and this is another reason the Lyton shrine should be eliminated. It is hard enough explaining how getting to the red dragon wasn't a race but the Marius zone exists and nothing short of a major rewrite will fix the plodding nature of getting to the red dragon cave after Ghaleon enslaves Quark. The Black Dragon can wait though since Tamur pass is meant to be Xenobia delaying you if not killing you and once you reach Tamur you can discover that Pao needs medicine for some condition which means Ghaleon is already using Luna to enslave the black dragon. Thus going to Myght, going through the Illusion forest, and winding up in Pao just to go through the black dragon fortress are really Ghaleon screwing with the people of Pao and possibly waiting to screw with Alex and company.
*Tamur being larger and more worthy of exploration would make the section of the game once you get there easier to get through. It is also at this point that you could afford the really awesome gear found in Vane or Althena's shrine if items don't just get better because you went to the next town as recommended earlier. Having gear to pick up gives a reason to go back to re-explore and a reason should be given to do this at this point in the narrative especially since no one knows where the black dragon cave really is. Also having Laike be the only person who goes with Alex to Myght's tower seems like a bad idea unless that dungeon is not as puzzling as its set up to be, which would be sad since it is a good dungeon design. Really the whole party should come along and this should be a standard dungeon that has a good design to it already. I do not know how to handle Laike but his character makes little sense as written anyway. The best solution may be one or two people, like Nash, staying behind in Tamur for some reason and Laike joining up. This could be the two women going with Alex and Laike since among other things Myght's a womanizer and it helps with their exp compared to the boys as they get to do the black dragon fortress with no help from the girls which puts them behind the boys level wise. This way everyone has similar exp except Alex. Another solution would be Laike taking a fast way up to Myght he allows for people he knows but the party having to take the long way the first time to meet Myght. The Illusion Forest is also well done with the way forward being easy to do unless you want to explore everything and get all the items but the dungeon is designed well enough that the entire thing can be explored before running out of MP. Once you get to Pao the story starts to pick up and from the conclusion of the Black Dragon fortress is pretty solid with some problems along the way as mentioned elsewhere. You should also meet up with Tempest near the start of the dragon fortress or the enemies on the 1st floor should be set up to be taken out with just 3 people without too much trouble. Because of the amount of dungeons you face after Tamur with little in the way of story rewards each dungeon should at most take 40 minutes if fully explored with the exception of the top of the Black Dragon Fortress so that the narrative has forward momentum to it.
*As mentioned before a real reason to go back before going to the Frontier would have been a good idea especially to talk to Alex's dad. That said in many ways the scenario in the last 1/3 of the game is excellently done with some serious flaws that will be mentioned. Now what helps Lunar once you get to the Frontier is that Talon mine is an excellent dungeon properly balanced to not be too hard which gives vital story as does Cadin. Ruid isn't terribly long or terribly difficult for the most part and sets up some really awesome cut scenes with Nash, Ghaleon, and Vane vs the Grindery. The fact you can explore the world after this is also a big bonus and this fact should be highlighted probably by you being forced to go to a nearby town like Meribia using the dragon wings, say to meet with survivors from Vane. This would also help give the idea that some towns will give you cool stuff like Lann or Reza since the dialogue has changed in most towns. The fact you can explore the world again helps take the edge off the plot rail if you know about it. The Grindery is also too long hurting pacing and the easiness of the enemies in the Quarters made things feel odd since no final dungeon should be that easy. The Magic Emperor was also way too easy to be a serious last boss contender. Not to mention it was pretty obvious there was a lot unsaid so far in the narrative so it couldn't be the ending. As before Lunar telegraphed its plot point with the false ending especially with the cheery "its done" music despite the fact the fortress of Althena and evil Luna are on the jewel case of the game! What keeps the story going up to Althena's fort and to Ghaleon is that at the end of Grindery there is the plot explosion that happens. The bevy of good cut scenes and the shear amount of plot and characterization make the narrative so strong it doesn't seem to matter we just got a false ending and now have to finish the job for real. Also some exploration is allowed in Meribia which helps take the edge off the plot rail you're on.