Discuss the Lunar series, but discussion of Game Arts's and Working Designs's other games are welcome too. Keep shitposting about the localization changes to a minimum.
I just finished Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete on PS1. Having played the Sega CD version last year, I found the SCD version to be more enjoyable. The combat in SCD ver. had faster animations and loading times, which made the PS1 version feel more of a slog to play through. The overall color palette of the SCD ver. felt colder, which made the game feel more unique as opposed to the warmer colors of the PS1 ver, which made it feel like many other SNES RPGs. The cutscenes on the SCD ver. also felt more part of the game, as opposed anime cutscenes in the PS1, which felt tacked on sometimes. The story changes of the PS1 version were nice additions though, and overall it was a good JRPG. I'm about the start the PS1 version of Eternal Blue now.
Lunar/Game Arts/Working Designs Thread
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I dropped the first game in the first dungeon. I just didn't like enemies being able to one shot you before you could even attack.
Not Ghaleon, dear Quark.
MAGIC EMPEROE GHALEON!
played though both and I remember early game being tough as shit, and then I enjoyed them both. Been meaning to drag them out of my bsement and give them another go through one day, it's been so long I don't even remember the story.
In the PS1 version? I didn't seem to have that problem. Still had to use herbs after every encounter though since monsters do a lot of damage pretty much throughout the game.
I was in the same boat as you, thinking about quitting in the dragon cave, but I decided to power through and keep playing. A little while after I got through the Meribia sewers I was very glad I stuck with it. Try to get to at least Kyle's intro. The game is worth it, I promise. It gets better after the start.
All of his lines were brilliant. Surprised at how well he delivered his lines despite being a low-budget dub.
I've not heard of many people complaining about localization on these games. Most people seem to consider them rather well done. Sure, some people will just shitpost in general because it's not muh anime subtitles, but the Lunar game localizations had a lot of humor and personality from what I saw.
PS1 ports seemed to suffer from lag. At least, the Final Fantasy PS1 ports seemed to be just straight ports from the SNES, and were laggy probably due to how memory worked on the SNES vs PS1. Still, odd to hear that PS1 Lunar suffered from lag as well. I thought it was the same people doing it. Perhaps it was just due to how different the SegaCD vs PS1 were.
Did the PS1 version have the same battle system as the SegaCD version? I watched a friend play Lunar and/or Lunar 2 on SegaCD, and I understand that the combat system changed from just selecting at action (and then the characters would choose who to attack) on SegaCD over to a typical RPG menu of selecting who to attack, on the PSP. I'm not sure which side the PS1 version is on.
I have both PS1 games of Lunar, I just never had the chance to play them yet. It seems that Game Arts is still alive, given the Grandia 2 release on PC, so there's a chance they might port Lunar at some point.
Have a Grandia image, since I don't seem to have any Lunar available.
Whats funny is that Lunar EB is way way harder than SSS. Eternal Blue might honestly be the most difficult and challenging turn based RPG I have ever played. Those bosses did not fuck around, and for once the final boss actually felt like a serious threat by the time you made it to him. Zophar is no joke.
>yfw he returns in Eternal Blue
Some of the dubbing in Grandia 1 is 90s hentai tier
>Most people seem to consider them rather well done.
Localization was hammy as hell with the humor and I loved every second. Almost reminds me of Dejap Tales of Phantasia, without the "fucks like a tiger" bit. Sort of. They do get a little bawdy at times, like all the redneck incest jokes in that one town. But I'm not complaining. I love it when the localization team has fun with a project like Lunar.
Jessica a cute!
Playing it from a modern perspective with no nostalgia, I did find them to be well done. Sure some of the humor was out of place, but it is miles above the writing in FF7.
>Did the PS1 version have the same battle system as the SegaCD version?
Basically. Biggest change was that there are a lot fewer magic spells in the remake.
>I have both PS1 games of Lunar, I just never had the chance to play them yet. It seems that Game Arts is still alive, given the Grandia 2 release on PC, so there's a chance they might port Lunar at some point.
I hope so too, but from what I read, the rights to them are really jumbled right now, so it'll be hard. I'm probably going to play Grandia after I finish EBC.
I played EB on SCD immediately after I finished TSS. I nearly dropped it because of how frustrating the bosses were and the random encounter rate, but Lucia stole my heart so I powered through it for her. Looking forward to experiencing those same frustrations on EBC.
The banter between her and Kyle are some of my favorite parts of the game.
This is your jew for tonight.
MEGA MAGIC FINANCES!
Jean is the best. RPGs need more dancers.
I genuinely loved her so much.
Her magic tester is one of the bosses that made me almost drop EB on SCD. Ended up grinding a bit and still barely beat it. Her voice also screams 90's VA, which I love.
Friendly reminder that Dragon Song exists.
>chance
All game arts can do with lunar is remake and port, endlessly ad nauseum. Sooner or later it's guaranteed.
Bromides.
SSSC > Legend > SSH
EBC is the best Lunar of them all.[/spoiler[
Grandia is the second best JRPG ever made, it's a shame the genre had to die out.
I remember when I was younger seeing all the ads for Lunar and their gigantic special editions, I wanted them but never enough to pull the trigger. I had the idea in my head that they were giant 90 hour games and when I finally did play them it was a shock to see just how short they were. I still find it a bit amazing that such short jrpgs can be that damn good.
"Althena, grant me your power!"
I know WD has pulled some shit but did they do anything terrible in Growlanser, Dragon Force, or Thunder Force V?
They haven't ported Grandia 1, Grandia 3, or Grandia X yet. I would've expected Grandia 1 shortly after G2, but for some reason it didn't show up. I'm wondering if it sold poorly enough to not justify seeing the others.
I could see how some decisions were made to make it in line with the other games of the series, but then there is running consuming HP which is just confusing with every possible angle you could look at it.
Oh yeah...aaaand I forgot again.
I'm glad they were short and sweet. With a plot like it had, I could easily see it having too much filler bringing it down. Still, it wasn't that much shorter compared to other JRPGs on PS1. I finished SSSC in about 19 hours, and FFVII in about 25 hours.
>I still find it a bit amazing that such short jrpgs can be that damn good.
Short rpgs are always better than long ones. Once they hit the 30 hour mark the magic and pacing of the story almost inevitably takes a dive into the shitter. I can name many cool 10 - 20 jrpgs and incredibly few cool ones that go beyond 40 hours.
You should play the PSP version. It's the ultimate version.
PSP version sucks fucking shit. What the hell are you on? It reads like a machine translation, the isometric camera makes it hard to get around, and every damn screen in the game is super small and surrounded by loading screens (whereas the PS1 release had whole towns/dungeons free to walk around sans loading). Get outta here.
I was considering it, but someone in another thread posted this comparison, and I decided not to. Plus not being able to explore the overworld and the new version of Wind's Nocturne turned me off to it too.
SSSC
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SSH
youtu.be
Just when the hell are they gonna get around to porting titles other than grandia 2?
Most memorable casts of any games ever
My memories of Lunar and Grandia are more akin to those of a classic story I remember as a child rather than just a game.
I'm surprised how well it holds up (coming from me, someone with no nostalgia for them). On paper its a very generic jrpg, but the execution behind it is unlike anything I've seen before.
>but the Lunar game localizations had a lot of humor and personality
Some of the pop culture references stick out like a sore thumb. I swear to god there's a dude in the game that talks like Austin Powers.
>They haven't ported Grandia 1, Grandia 3, or Grandia X yet. I would've expected Grandia 1 shortly after G2, but for some reason it didn't show up. I'm wondering if it sold poorly enough to not justify seeing the others.
If that's the case I place the blame squarely on grandia 2 itself.
It gets defended a lot by people saying that it makes fun of the usual jrpg tropes, and it does, except it unironically uses every single one of those tropes it makes fun of and as a result the plot is as generic, no surprises standard fare as you can get.
Grandia 1 is one of my most favorite jrpgs ever, and when it's competing with persona 5 and xenoblade 2 that says a lot.
Love Love Love these days. My uncle introduced me to these games as a kid and was one of the first RPGs I was exposed to. Lunar, Suikoden and Skies of Arcadia are among my faves.
Holy shit that was awful. To think the first time I started this some time back in the early to mid 2000s I didn't like the stumpy squashed sprites and their lack of detail. Careful what you wish for.
Not sure if this is an obvious question, but what are they actually doing at Game Arts? I don't think they were shut down, but they haven't put anything out in over five years except for the Grandia II port. Does GungHo just have them working on Ragnarok?
Probably Kyle. Sounds like something he'd do. Kyle was great.
Nah it was some npc in a town. I remember even as a kid thinking it was horribly lame.
Lunar gets to much shit for stuff like that. It was a thing localizations did at the time. Xenogears blatantly called out to "Star Trech" among other things.
>It gets defended a lot by people saying that it makes fun of the usual jrpg tropes, and it does, except it unironically uses every single one of those tropes it makes fun of and as a result the plot is as generic, no surprises standard fare as you can get.
Grandia 2: The original Trails in the Sky
They made Dokuro which was released in 2015. In other news, EBC came out on PS1 classics for PS3/PSP in 2015 too. No new news since.
Dokuro is a great game. My only disappointment is that you can't seem to rebind keys in the Steam version. Sure, WASD and the ,. keys (or whatever it was) work when you need to take your hand off to use the mouse, but I still would've preferred the option to set it up as I'd like.
Positronic Photon Brain
Sounds like something from Star Trek
Hush, we're gonna get sued.
I miss the freewheeling style of the 90s sometimes. You could feel the fun people were having with stuff like this.
Lunar Legend was good.
Nice to see somebody else saying this. One of the GBAs most under-rated jrpgs for sure.
All things are real
Unless you dream they're not
Agreed, it's the most comfy version to go through.