dragonmaster for a bad guy

[Angelalex242]

Not in the beginning, anyway...

But 50 years down the road, when Hiro looks like Grandpa Gwyn and Lucia hasn't aged a day? (Physically?)

[Alunissage]

Argh, I had a post all typed up and then before hitting the submit button I got called away and left the house and by the time I got back to this it's a page and a half longer.

I'm pretty sure Blue Star Prayer is a revive spell, and it may be necessary to kill off everyone or something of the sort. Or it may be legacy text that's never used. Since you (Angela) presumably have high-level saves, view Lucia's spells and let us know what's there; my saves are a distant memory. I suppose I should dig out the DexDrive sometime.

I don't know how you all by any stretch of the imagination could think of Lucia as older than Luna. It is, nevertheless, possible to be 20 and sexless. Phyco, you can believe all you want about her being drawn that way to avoid the ratings, but it's directly conttradicted by the developer statements I quoted. Oh, and I think that kiss at the end was really a mistake and inappropriate to put in, but I think I said that already. Back to the age, she's presented as being more serious than Luna, sure, and perhaps her devotion to her mission makes her seem older. But as far as relationships are concerned, she's clearly very young. I mean, imagine if Hiro really had been an opportunist and seduced her by means of taking advantage of her naivete. Can you really think of that as anything but statutory rape? However old seeming in some respects, she's clearly childlike

G1, you're, right, I'm being too hard on Hiro. He pretty much always rubbed me the wrong way, from the beginning with his chiselling out the Eye. (Phyco, people may have been defacing ancient ruins in the name of arcaeology, but that doesn't make it right. Actually, he was originally conceived as a grave robber of sorts.) I still don't think of his and Lucia's story being more mature, though, even if it's about his gradual maturation to the point Alex starts out with. Alex in general is far more mature, quiet and serious. But then, I never liked the Lunar 2 cast as much in general. I found Hiro to be a better person than I thought in looking through these screenshots and should probably play it in English again.

However, keep in mind that when he meets her and is willing to help her in her mission he says something about it being the right thing to do and then turns red and says something like "(besides, she's so incredibly beautiful...)". He didn't need to say that. Helping her for the right reason would be the third option. I suppose he probably hasn't seen many human females, though (as opposed to Ruby). And yeah, in EB he was trying to look as much as Ronfar in the changing scene. His character was improved in that scene in the remake.

[NallOne]

I definitely enjoyed that scene more in the remake than I did in the original. It added a bit to the hilarity and charm of the scene with Hiro getting punished when in reality he was trying to protect them from Ronfar's lecherous, peering eyes.

If I get around to it in the near future I think I am going to replay both games in quick succession just to compare the two relationships. I've never played them both very close together, and it has been awhile since I've played either of them as it is. Just see if I perceive things differently now that I am a bit older. I still say Hiro and Lucia's 'relationship' was a hormonal bore fest, though. :wink:

[Alunissage]

Yeah, likewise. I played TSS quite a bit (for me) for several years before I played any of the others, but only played EB and EBC about once apiece in English and about halfway through (on average) in Japanese. It's been four years since EBC, so I'm probably overdue for a replay. I may well like the characters much better now; part of my negativity toward them is that they weren't the first set, and part with the changes made in Lunar for the worse, like Althena's Cult.

[NallOne]

TSS and EB were both played probably a good four years apart for me, and I was extremely young at the time so they couldn't really sink in very well. SSSC was a horrible experience for me because for some reason it took me over a year and a half to finish, so the story was more or less lost on me. I think that is why I loved EBC so much - It was the first Lunar game I actually got to sit down and enjoy while being old enough to understand it.

I really didn't mind Althena's Cult very much. I think my biggest let down for both SSSC and EBC was the limited amount of magic. I mean, I've never looked to Lunar for it's battle system but something that TSS left me with for a long time after I first played it was the large amount of spells and skills everybody had. I always compared my future RPGs to that and wondered why so few of them had even close to that many spells at the characters' disposal. I was really expecting the same from SSSC, so I was quite crushed. (Not so much for EBC, as compared to TSS the magic and skills in EB didn't add up to very much either.) That really doesn't have anything to do with your Althena's Cult comment at all. Oh well, it's always fun to reflect.

I think I might even end up liking SSSC more now than I did originally. Possibly even more than EBC. It is weird that I hold the Lunar series very near and dear to my heart yet it has been so long since I've played any of them, and even when I did it wasn't very much. TSS and EB only once each, SSSC only once, and EBC the most at four times. It's no wonder I liked that one best. I have no idea why I chose to replay that game three more times rather than going back to SSSC for at least one of them. Even if only as a refresher.

I'd like to replay TSS and EB sometime, but my only Sega CD suffered a rather sad fate at the hands of a 20 foot (or so) drop from my bedroom window. (Moral of the story: Don't keep backless bookshelves next to open windows.)

[Alunissage]

Yow. Sorry to hear about it...though I have to admit it's kind of a funny image. I used to have a backless bookshelf in front of a window, but it was never opened so that wasn't a danger. (The books did get a bit sunbleached, though.)

The thing I meant with the Cult is just the air of spiritual malaise in EB. TSS didn't have that. It had a quiet, austere, mysterious religion, cool and remote. After that it became yet another evil church knockoff. At least they were the Chosen in EBC, which was a better name. But Lunar as a whole just felt sick and empty and sad to me somehow. Maybe in part just from starting in the desert, maybe because of being on the run for half the game. TSS just felt friendlier. I dunno.

EB did at least have some interesting spells with the powering up, and that kind of made sense...who used Alex's Flame when he had, oh, Glow Beam? Or whatever the name was. And Lemina had a fairly respectable twelve spells, and Jean got a new set of magic partway through. Still nothing on TSS's, though. I do feel Nash got shortchanged in both versions. In TSS he had something like 12 thunder spells, and they were all fairly similar -- not to mention difficult to tell which was which, especially with no icons or even MP cost listed. In SSSC he got the stripped-down set that Lemina had established of a single, zone, and all version of his elemental spells, and then the other five were status spells that hardly anyone used. (I did use the sleep one to get through the forest around the female bathing spring.) Of course, in TSS he also was a semi-decent attacker sometimes.

But now I'm just rambling, and finally getting sleepy now that it's close to 4am. Yes, I very much want to replay all the games. I'd probably settle for finishing the TSS one I have in progress and saved just before Talon Mine. Maybe after Dragon Song.

[NallOne]

After Dragon Song? So lucky to have it now. I have insufficient funds as well as a terrible backlog of games I should have been done with this time last year, so I've decided just to wait until Christmas for DS. (My birthday is a few days before Christmas, so I get spoiled rotten in December. The rest of the year is rather empty though. I hate by birthday being so close to it. )

I see what you mean about Althena's Chosen. I have a lot of gripes with the story and setting of EBC even though it is my favorite. I think my biggest problem with it was Althena no longer being around. That always irked me to no end. It just didn't make sense to me that Luna would do that. I don't see why she couldn't have lived a nice happy life with Alex and then returned to Goddess-hood. It was hard for me to accept a lot of other aspects of the story because I was so angry about that - The Fake Althena and her Chosen being part of that. I don't think I should really get into this here though. It is the making of a whole new topic.

I really loved the entire evolution of magic in EB/EBC. While it seemed on the surface that you had a very small amount of spells than in TSS, you ended up with only the most useful variations of them. In TSS, by endgame you were using the same handful of spells anyway so the majority of the others were completely useless and overlooked by that point. It was still fun to have such a huge list to cycle through though. All I really just did was reiterate what you said...so I'll stop with a simple "I agree".

Now I think I'll follow your example and head to bed. The sun is up already. Tsk tsk.

[Kizyr]

The kiss at the end of EB inappropriate? Hardly... I found it the best scene of the game, capping everything off.

Lucia is obviously older than Luna. Luna was the human form of a goddess; Lucia wasn't even human. She might've remained in stasis, but her mentality was similar to a child's from being away from others so long--hence the naivete. Besides which, the characters in each game tend to be about the same age. For TSS, it was 15-18. For EB, it was 17-21 or so. Lucia is likely several thousand years old, having been around at least since the Blue Star was made uninhabitable.

Our idea of archaeology is obviously going to be different from Lunar's. We don't have magical artifacts in ancient ruins. Particularly magical artifacts used to open otherwise magically sealed doors miles away. Plus which, 'adventuring' isn't much more than going through ruins and dungeons opening up treasure chests and killing monsters. Only when there's a point attached to it does it become interesting.

...I'm not even going to get on the whole 'Hiro only helped Lucia to get in her pants' bit, since you seem entrenched in that idea. I found his goals to be noble, so what if she happened to be beautiful on top of that. Not helping would've been the cowardly thing. Besides which, destiny, like fortunetelling, is one thing that works out in games. Hiro was meant to chisel away that jewel that morning. Hiro was meant to encounter Lucia first (as opposed to Gwyn). Hell, Hiro was meant to have Ruby as a companion much of his life.

And, above all, someone like Hiro was meant to be part of the only group who could save the world from Zophar. It all started from that Dragon Jewel he lifted in the beginning. KF

[Angelalex242]

Re:Viewing Spells
That's the PROBLEM with Lucia! You can't SEE her spell list! Or her stats save HP. Or anything else about her. Trying to figure out her spells is a mostly a matter of cleverly trying put Lucia in various circumstances...in the front of the party, in the back of the party, etc.

...But then, it never occurred to me to test Lucia in the event of someone getting killed. My party was always too strong for that.

Re:Luna kicking the can.
She just couldn't handle the grief of being without Alex, I'd guess. I'd further guess that in her fortress, she must've made a choice so permanent that not even the Dragons could fix it for her, even if they wanted to. I can't see Nall cheerfully allowing Luna to kick the bucket unless there was truly nothing he could do. He was still in tears a thousand years later, after all. This assumes, of course, that as with real life, wives outlive their husbands by several years in general. We might likewise assume Luna outlived Alex, and decided she didn't want that pain for eternity. There's no evidence for that of course save general birth and death rates RL.

I think my original factfinding quest got lost at some point, but oh well.

Hiro/Lucia:This is, unfortunately, mostly unknowable. Some postulate that Hiro just took her mission on with her. Assuming mortals CAN do that. Another theory was the 'marital problems' involved in an endless distraction. Well, endless for the half century or so Hiro lasts. Then again, Hiro trying to take on a divine mission would sort of require his entire mindset to change. You can't take on a divine mission without thinking...not as man does, but as gods do. And despite Hiro's combat prowess, I'm still not sure exactly how he might aid with channeling that massive energy batter the Silver Star is back into the Blue Star. Even if, as I postulated earlier, the energy is actually stored on the Blue Star, Hiro doesn't seem to be equipped to be an energy conduit like Lucia is.

[Alunissage]

Would I ask you to view her spells if it weren't possible?

Go into the magic menu. You can't highlight/select her to see her spells. But have Ronfar cast Calm Litany. After that the whole party will be highlighted and you can select Lucia and see the names of her spells.

Kiz, yes, of course Lucia is chronologically older than Luna (though probably not than Althena). That's not what I meant, and I think you know that. If you put a five-year-old in stasis for five thousand years and then took her out, she'd be mentally and emotionally five, not 5005. No, I'm not applying those numbers to Lucia, just illustrating a point.

I feel chiselling away at a statue and actually chipping it to be more vandalism than hitting switches and opening chests. And you know, it'd be hilarious if it turned out that the Dragon Ruins had some important purpose that Hiro totally sabotaged by removing the jewels. It's not really relevant now, though.

I don't like the kiss in part because of my personal bias in not caring to watch anything of the sort in general. I thought the ending of SSSC was about perfect in that regard...they exchange a look and hold hands and that's it. I found that far more meaningful.

I'll lay off about Hiro and pants. It's an opinion I formed from playing the original EB, complete with carnival peeping scene, and I realize that his character was strengthened a bit in the remake. I think I just don't like seeing someone go on and on about someone else being attractive; it just rubs me the wrong way, as if beauty is the only characteristic that's worth having. At least Lucia herself isn't vain, it seems. Her devotion to her mission is more admirable, and that's the one Hiro keeps trying to change. I guess there seems to be an implication that he wouldn't have been much interested in or very enthusiastic about helping her if she hadn't been young and attractive. Unfortunately, one thing we'll never see in a game is someone who's actually plain and average-looking being loved and appreciated for better reasons than physical attributes. Unless you count Miria's regard for Borgan, I suppose.

[Angelalex242]

Oh. That's how you do it. Hi, I'm an idiot. I always wondered what the exact names of her low level group and all target spells were. I had to estimate, mostly from memory...Does that work for Grandpa Gwyn and Blue Spire Lucia? If it works right, we should see Solar Flare and such in the Spire...

In other news...I finally got around to looking through screenshots.

Ghaleon tells Hiro the way to beat Zophar is to take Althena's power from him and use it on him.

...I wonder if that third fight of Hiro/Lucia vs. Zophar was Hiro taking his advice.

Hey, at least I have evidence this time.

[Kizyr]

Kiz, yes, of course Lucia is chronologically older than Luna (though probably not than Althena). That's not what I meant, and I think you know that. If you put a five-year-old in stasis for five thousand years and then took her out, she'd be mentally and emotionally five, not 5005. No, I'm not applying those numbers to Lucia, just illustrating a point.

Regardless, she's only young and naive only as it applies to dealing with other people. Otherwise, regarding her focus on her mission, her knowledge of the cosmos (Althena, Zophar, Lunar, the Blue Star, etc.), ancient history, and general attitude, she's very mature. Only focusing on one aspect by which to judge her "mental" age is limited.

I feel chiselling away at a statue and actually chipping it to be more vandalism than hitting switches and opening chests.

That still overlooks my point about it being an entirely different world. Not to mention the part about it being fate. Had he never chipped away that jewel, Lucia wouldn't've accomplished her mission (or she would have but without learning about humanity's power), and the world would be destroyed.

I don't like the kiss in part because of my personal bias in not caring to watch anything of the sort in general.

That's fine. But I'm able to draw the distinction between my personal preference and the quality of something else. Personally not liking it is one thing, but labelling it as 'inappropriate' implies that from a neutral standpoint it was uncalled for. That's hardly the case. KF

[GhaleonOne]

It's an opinion I formed from playing the original EB, complete with carnival peeping scene, and I realize that his character was strengthened a bit in the remake.

Really? I found that minor compared to loosing Hiro's willingness to sacrifice himself later in the game with Ghaleon crystalizing him. Of course, the original made Lucia look heartless at first, but then, it was a hell of an addition to Ronfar's character. Plus, it was really interesting seeing a little more of the inner workings of the Blue Spire.

Side note regarding the kiss, didn't Alex and Luna kiss at the end of TSS? I can't remember, but there's that artwork of Alex and Luna kissing on the back of the TSS manual (and I think the box?) and shows up in a few other places too I believe. Including SSSC's packaging somewhere.

[Alunissage]

I'm pretty sure it's just artwork and not found in the game. I don't care for it much as a picture, but that isn't really what I'm getting at. I just think it's more poignant and indicative of the relationship to clasp hands. *shrug* I don't really remember anything about Ronfar regarding the crystallized Hiro part, to be honest, so I can't say. I'm just saying that my initial impression of Hiro was negative and reinforced by the peeping scene. which is much earlier in the game than the crystal part.

Regardless, she's only young and naive only as it applies to dealing with other people. Otherwise, regarding her focus on her mission, her knowledge of the cosmos (Althena, Zophar, Lunar, the Blue Star, etc.), ancient history, and general attitude, she's very mature. Only focusing on one aspect by which to judge her "mental" age is limited.

That's the aspect we've been talking about, though. I won't argue the rest, and of course we don't see Luna under such circumstances (although we do hear from that girl in Ruid who escaped that she was coming into her own and helping/strengthened the other prisoners). But because these two facets of Lucia's personality are so distinct -- her sense of her mission and purpose, and her relation to humans -- I think they need to be evaluated separately, and with regard to the latter she felt far, far younger than Luna. As was intended, I'm sure. And because that's the focus of her story -- her growth in this regard -- that's what I see as being the dominating aspect. And hence why I feel that the kiss was inappropriate.

[GhaleonOne]

Yeah, Ronfar argued with Lucia to the extreme that Hiro had risked his life, and Lucia had no right to continue on her mission leaving Hiro to death. In fact, Ronfar was about to take the Destiny to the Blue Spire to try and figure out how to save Hiro on his own before Lucia came to her senses.

[Alunissage]

Wow, I'd completely forgotten about that. Probably explains why I don't dislike Ronfar despite his womanizing.

[Angelalex242]

I think that trick you're talking about to view Lucia's magic only works in EB. Not in EBC. I, at least, can't get it to work with Gwyn, and I've got a game in the Blue Spire right now.

[Alunissage]

No, it's definitely EBC, not EB. I've done it in EBC, and it's not possible in EB. But it may well only work with Ronfar's spell. I recall a few short descriptions; Lucia's three attack spells (single, zone, all) had short descriptions like "Lucia's strong magic" and "Lucia's deadly magic". No icons, of course, and the non-attack spells didn't have descriptions.

[Angelalex242]

Never mind, I got it to work.

Though it seems some of my original names were listed wrong.

Anyways, here's her level 99 Blue Spire list...

Atomic Burn (Single, Lucia's Painful magic) Thunder Blow (Zone, Lucia's Loud Magic), Plasma Rain (All, No description), Atomic Burn (Special, personal radius, this is what I used to call Atomic Blow.)

Heal Litany, Power Charge, Magic Barrier, Blue Star Prayer, Solar Bomb (otherwise known as Black Dragon Grief)

Unfortunately, though Lucia's Heal Litany is free, you can't get her to use it in the status screen. D'oh. Pity. It'd have been sneaky free healing.

[GhaleonOne]

D'oh. Pity. It'd have been sneaky free healing.

At level 99, would you really need it?