Lunar Threads

There are certainly hurdles. As well as translation, I suspect there may be legal issues I haven't considered regarding ports via emulation. But if it can be made to happen, it can also be applied to the previously mentioned Grandia Parallel Trippers, and any number of 8-bit handheld titles provided the authors are amicable. Hopefully the games could be released at a really low price, with no physical production cost risk.

THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME HOPE!!! <<Cries with joy>>

8-bit Game Arts games live on! On the Japanese phones are the screens a bigger size? I was wondering how they would look since they're such text heavy games. DrSMS for GBA to skews Master System and game gear games to fit on a screen that's much bigger than the average phone screen. (Not that I've used it to play Strolling school or anything)

I don't know what the size of a Japanese phone screen is these days. My phone has a diagonal of only two inches, and the GG emulation isn't stretched to fill it, so there's a black border on all four sides making the display even smaller! The resulting image is probably just over a quarter of the size of a GBA screen. However, reading text isn't a problem, as the screen is bright and the picture is sharp. Handheld games typically have large text for easy reading anyway (I know of several mobile-exclusive games that use an even smaller font), and modern phone screens are at least good enough for basic web browsing and displaying a whole text message on screen without having to scroll.

Good idea! I never even though about that! I just wonder how we could get everything done for a phone here....

Any ideas for Magic School?

The 900i phones I was talking about usually have a 2.4 inch screen. You can view some of the specs here:

http://900i.nttdocomo.co.jp/main.html?jpage=pv001 (JP only)

You can also view some of the games available. Click on any of the model tabs (F900iT, e.g.) and click 900i Features on the top-right. Then the first button will let you see the games available. (Cute side bit: if you click on Final Fantasy (second option), the names of the characters in the screenshots they show are: DoCoMo, Square, Enix, and iMode). KF

so is it even possible to play through the game without knowing how to read japanese? I guess if you just woinder around everywhere, but that would take forever. lol
joe

Well, there's a translation patch floating around that translates Chapters 1-4 into English, but from there on Kizyr made this awesome walkthrough which got me through the rest of it. www.lunar-net.com/lunarws/

It's a pretty short game, but it's fun.

I have the game, but I've been unable to play it My sega sattelite is a piece of poop. ;_;

localflick wrote:Well, there's a translation patch floating around that translates Chapters 1-4 into English, but from there on Kizyr made this awesome walkthrough which got me through the rest of it. www.lunar-net.com/lunarws/

It's a pretty short game, but it's fun.

We're talking about Magical School Lunar for the Saturn, not Lunar: Walking School for the Game Gear. You're thinking of the wrong game. KF

I'm surprised this topic is still here...

Why? There are older threads around, and there hasn't been aggressive pruning.

I was surprised because I haven't been on the boards in a while and I didn't think people would be visiting it still...

I felt like I should finally give this a go after replaying Eternal Blue SCD.

In a word, this game is frustrating. Too many random battles, and no way to recover during long dungeon crawls.

Still, it has its moments.

I'm at Chapter 4. I shiver to think of enduring a Zophar's Palace caliber dungeon in this game.

I haven't done tests to confirm this, but it seems that you can reduce the encounter rate by staying in place for a minute before moving. So, once you enter a dungeon, don't move for a minute (go to the bathroom, make some coffee, etc.) then start moving.

When I get around to replaying the game, I'm going to test this theory out, but it seemed to work. KF

Right now, I'm up to Chapter 6. Perhaps I can test this later... I noticed once that I could run through most of the sunken ship in Chapter 5 and didn't run into a single enemy...

The random encounters is the only thing I don't like about this game. Aside from that, I'm enjoying it a lot. Thanks, Kizyr for your hard work!

Jasonb12 wrote:Right now, I'm up to Chapter 6. Perhaps I can test this later... I noticed once that I could run through most of the sunken ship in Chapter 5 and didn't run into a single enemy...

The random encounters is the only thing I don't like about this game. Aside from that, I'm enjoying it a lot. Thanks, Kizyr for your hard work!

Thanks. I'm glad you're enjoying it.

I'm the same way. The random encounters are literally the only thing bringing the game out. This little trick, and learning enemy weaknesses, can take the edge off however. I managed to get it to where I spent maybe 1-2 turns at most on any given group of enemies. KF

Kizyr wrote:I haven't done tests to confirm this, but it seems that you can reduce the encounter rate by staying in place for a minute before moving. So, once you enter a dungeon, don't move for a minute (go to the bathroom, make some coffee, etc.) then start moving.

When I get around to replaying the game, I'm going to test this theory out, but it seemed to work. KF

There's a glitch that causes this. I know because I went through every floor of the Ghost Island cave without a single random battle.

There's no HP or MP recharge, so it has to be a glitch. A good one, but still.

I think I only ran into it once. In any case, I'm up to Chapter 9 and on the verge of wrapping this game up. Haven't been playing due to Finals... =(

Well, does anyone think that Magical School LUNAR! may have a chance at a North American release now?

I think there's room for MSL; the marketplace is more spacious than it's ever been. But getting a Saturn game to the most likely platforms, handhelds and download services, would take possibly costly porting work.

Well, just finished it this morning! It would be great if it saw a stateside release, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

Now that the translation for Walking School is done, I may decide to run through it in the future...