5 Princes of the Black Star

[Angelalex242]

Did anyone ever figure out if these guys were related to Zophar somehow?

What they change Xiphos into certainly looks like something Zophar would dream up...

[Alunissage]

Crud, thanks for reminding me. I had a bunch of thoughts about that as I was playing that section that I never wrote up and have now probably forgotten. I'll have to replay it and see if they come back to mind. I don't think we had much discussion on it here, strangely enough, though I might have missed it.

[ShugoHanasaki]

I'm sorry if this topic is too outdated, but I decided to start Harmony again today and was like (Oh yeah...Black star...I forgot all about that) I also first thought Zophar as well ^^;;; Any ideas? Background?

[Omegazero108]

Okay... bumping this for my own question

What all do we know about the Princes of the Black Star and the Black Star itself? I get that the Princes are some raw elemental power concentrated into the forms we see in the Dyne segment at the start of Silver Star Harmony. But is that about it?

And recalling Ghaleon's comment about the course of the Black Star after you beat Eiphel, creates the implication that the Black Star itself is a celestial object of some kind that passes Lunar every so often. This seem about right?

[Sonic#]

^ Can't speak to the rest, but the last part sounds right. Ghaleon mentions that the Black Star will collide with Lunar. That makes it something from space - anything from an asteroid to a planet. Somehow that gets averted; AFAIK, it's never clarified how in the game. (Big caveat: I never finished SSH, as my copy was glitched at the Blue Dragon.)

Side note: Is there any chance that the Black Star stuff intersects with the original TSS idea that Dyne had to fight an insane Black Dragon? I hadn't thought of the coincidence before, but there may be a through-line between Black Dragon and Black Star.

Second side note: I could also see those first minutes of SSH being a little loose story-wise, since it turns out to be a story Alex's dad is telling the kids. It doesn't seem like Lunar would make Alex's dad an intentionally unreliable storyteller, but it's always possible he didn't have all the details, or quite the right details.

[Alunissage]

Ugh, I still need to finish that in English. I didn't really feel that the the Black Star stuff intersected with the idea of Dyne fighting the insane Black Dragon, but there's a book in Damon's spire that says the Four Heroes arose to save Althena from a demigod, after her human form had grown weak. Or something like that.

I didn't think of the Black Star as being a literal celestial body, but reading my transcription of the dialogue, Ghaleon does refer to it that way. It would be interesting to find out what it says in Japanese.

[Omegazero108]

Ugh, I still need to finish that in English. I didn't really feel that the the Black Star stuff intersected with the idea of Dyne fighting the insane Black Dragon, but there's a book in Damon's spire that says the Four Heroes arose to save Althena from a demigod, after her human form had grown weak. Or something like that.

So the new Dyne segment might've been inspired by that particular book... Interesting thought

I didn't think of the Black Star as being a literal celestial body, but reading my transcription of the dialogue, Ghaleon does refer to it that way. It would be interesting to find out what it says in Japanese.

I'm curious myself now thanks to you.

[Kizyr]

Sometime in the next year I'd love to do a replay through all of Lunar from start-to-finish, I think it's been at least 8 years since I last played a Lunar game. Also even now my Japanese is far better than it was the last time I played any of the Japanese games. (Still remembering how in the time between my first and second plays of Walking School Lunar, 25 years ago, I'd misread "Blue Dragon" as "Star Dragon" and that worked its way into v1 of the walkthrough...)

Anyway, as I best recall, the entire "Black Star" angle was... really underdeveloped. As in it felt so tacked on that I'm not even sure what was meant by it -- an asteroid, the Sun, the Sagittarius A supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, etc. -- and outside of the new prologue section, I don't remember it being fleshed out anywhere else.

[Alan_Geitz]

Even if the fights are near-impossible to lose, I'm a bit surprised that there's next to nothing about it broken down.

Did you know the Five Princes have individual names? Yeah, the Neo-Eiphel fight ends almost as soon as it started, but their names ARE there. However, due to the game only displaying names before every turn and nowhere else, it can be bothersome to figure out who's who. Hell, it's not even in the official guide.

Well, there's no need to guess anymore. From the player's left to right of their cutscene appearance(since they never break formation there):

Fubah:
Left side of the screen. Looks like a circular shield.
Uses the ice magic "Solidify".

Lathone:
Top-left of the screen. Looks taller than the others; the brain-like thing on top is its most distinguishing feature.
Uses the earth magic "Grand Spike".

Igalune:
Center of the screen. Kinda looks like a tunic (think Wander from "Shadow of the Colossus").
Uses the wind magic "Atmos Gale".

Thelomasaieu:
Top-right of the screen. The orb-like protrusions make this one appear more grotesque than the others. Are they eyes? I don't know, but it ends up looking bubbly for it.
Uses the lightning magic "Thunderstreak".

Cicero:
Right side of the screen. The easiest of the bunch to notice: it looks like fire armor.
Uses the magic "Nuke"; probably "Flare" for the Final Fantasy fans out there.

I ended up watching several playthroughs and giving them nicknames (Shield, Brain, Tunic, Bubble, and Fire Armor, respectively) to keep track of things until I was able to narrow it down.

Aside from their sole magic attack, each one can also perform physical attacks.

As for their place on the LUNAR deity pecking order, I've no clue.

They remind me of the Judge Quintessons from Transformers: five floating entities that seemingly need to reach some consensus before they can act. This "action by committee" makes it difficult to believe they're in the same league as the other antagonists in the series, power-wise. Then again, we're working on very limited information.

[Alunissage]

Thanks for typing that up. I noticed they have names and distinct attacks but don't know when I'd get around to reviewing them carefully.

[ShugoHanasaki]

I appreciate the names. Thanks! Maybe one day we'll have more information on this from a new game or something else.