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Post by vetus on Jul 15, 2014 16:56:09 GMT -5
Lunar SSS and EB are my favourite rpgs after Grandia 1, another great rpg from Game Arts. Just like most gamers, I have played only the PSX versions. Althought some fans prefer the Sega CD versions, I prefer the PSX version where the enemies are visible at the map and the soundtrack and cut-scenes quality is obviously better. Working Design made a great job at the dubbing and expecially at the songs (it's one of the few japanese games where I prefer the english dub) but I hate them for the changes they made at the gameplay and the advertisements to other games localized from Working Design. One of the dragons (the blue one in EB if I'm not mistaken) need lots of grinding in order to beat him. At they they didn't fucked it as much as they have done with other games like Popful Mail and Silhouette Mirage. I never understand why they never ported Magic School Lunar to Playstation. That way they would probably localize it. I hope we will see a fan-translation someday. I have played Lunar Walking School a little (since it's fully fan-translated) but I didn't liked it so much. And of course Lunar Dragon Song was one of the biggest disappointments I ever experienced in gaming. It's such a huge shame that the Lunar games for Playstation were never localized in Europe, expecially since they were often mentioned in most european magazines. Thank goodness that Ubisoft picked up Grandia instead of Working Design. I'm one of the few who preferred Eternal Blue over Silver Star Story... Really? I thought that EB is more beloved than SSS. At least me and my best friends prefer EB over SSS (althought we also love SSS). The perils of moe illustrations. (moe wasn't a thing in the 90s, right? am I misremembering?) Moe was a thing since early '80s. It's just that the term wasn't so popularized as it is today, expecially outside Japan. Not to mention that most games that gave emphasis to moe were Japan only. |
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Post by Sac (a.k.a Icaras) on Jul 15, 2014 19:46:46 GMT -5
I played the original version ROM a few years ago, and I quite liked it (I recall being disapointed the cut scenes weren't quite the full on animation I'd expected from the little bits and peices I'd seen of the game in magazines and online).
I didn't beat it, and got distracted for some reason. I liked the game, but I also remember I didn't liked how super squished looking the sprites were.
I actually purchased and downloaded the PSP version last week, and have played it a little so far (I'm in tghe ice dragon cave, but I'm mostly focused on Final Fantasy 14 ARR and Project X Zone at the moment).
I do like the storyline, but will agree the battles seem a lot more stilted than they should do, tho I do much prefer the battle sprites.
I would like to revisit the originals one day, but given my back log and tendancy to mostly play MMORPGs, that's probably a fair way off.
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Post by Feynman on Jul 15, 2014 20:09:11 GMT -5
I love the Lunar games. I love the Sega CD games, and I love the PSX games. The characters, the story, the writing, the pop culture jokes (complain all you want, but they are delightful). The PSX versions are generally way better... there are a few unwelcome plot changes in the PSX remake of Silver Star Story, but aside from that everything else is way better on the PSX. Eternal Blue's remake is indisputably better in every way.
The GBA remake really sucks. The PSP remake is decent, but not really that great... it has some major issues, but at least it's playable and not totally insufferable (godawful load times aside).
Dragon Song is one of the biggest disappointments in gaming. I was super excited, I had it pre-ordered, I rushed to the store to pick up the game on day one... and it sucked so much. I never finished it. I never even came close to finishing it. A part of my soul died the day I played that game.
Not Lunar games, but Gradia the first is really cool and has a similar lighthearted feel. Likewise, the Trails in the Sky games capture a lot of the Lunar magic as well.
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Post by muteKi on Jul 15, 2014 22:22:52 GMT -5
I never did play the PS1 versions, but after playing the Sega CD versions I'm not really all that interested in doing so. From what I've seen of them they don't really add enough to catch my interest and in general these days I don't have much interest in playing RPGs in general.
Having said that, I really enjoyed the Sega CD games, Eternal Blue a little more due to feeling a little more expansive and feeling a little more emotionally compelling. Though having beaten Phantasy Star IV a few times by the point the expanse of the game world felt like a huge liablity with no map or teleport skill like in those games. Giant fucking world map.
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Post by Weasel on Jul 15, 2014 22:42:52 GMT -5
Eternal Blue Complete is an all-time favorite of mine, even though I never completed it. Never gave the Sega CD versions much of a chance, honestly, but from the sound of things, I much prefer the way EBC handled random battles, dungeons, and the like, since I am a very impatient RPG player.
I think the most important aspect of EB is the way the characters actually feel like they're growing over time, even the jerks that get in the way time and again. In particular, the moment when the carnival dancers give Lucia a new outfit, since afterwards, it actually feels like Lucia has a lot more confidence in herself. Where before, she had just one hit point and couldn't do anything but cower int he corner of the battle screen, at that point she starts stepping in front of the battle line and throwing napalm everywhere. Even her dialogue starts feeling more human afterwards. I'm not sure if I should call that a victory in the original script or in the localization, but I love how that was executed overall. It's something I rarely see other JRPGs bother to do...or games in general, come to think of it.
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Post by Discoalucard on Jul 16, 2014 9:06:12 GMT -5
but I hate them for the changes they made at the gameplay and the advertisements to other games localized from Working Design. One of the dragons (the blue one in EB if I'm not mistaken) need lots of grinding in order to beat him. At they they didn't fucked it as much as they have done with other games like Popful Mail and Silhouette Mirage. I'm curious about any balance tweaks Working Designs made. Unlike most of their other games, I don't think they ever discussed them in the manuals. I remember being Borgan being a HUGE pain in the Sega CD version and was one of the main reasons I didn't feel like replaying the game after my save was wiped. Did Silver Star Story have bosses that scaled in level with you? I seem to recall that they did, but I'm not sure. Not Lunar games, but Gradia the first is really cool and has a similar lighthearted feel. Likewise, the Trails in the Sky games capture a lot of the Lunar magic as well. Grandia is a good spiritual successor, in a way. It has the same composter and the first game has that same sort of "let's go on an adventure!" coming-of-age thing, even though I can't remember any of the cast outside of Justin, Feena and Sue. The battle system is a clear evolution of Lunar's, too. It's a shame that the battle system got better with each game but the story got progressively worse. Grandia II was tolerable until the end but Grandia III was embarassing. |
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Post by nightdreamer on Jul 16, 2014 9:33:10 GMT -5
I found Grandia, excepting the inferior voicework, a better game than Lunar Silver Star Story, in terms of combat and the plot. I'd even say that Grandia has better combat than the sequel even if most people don't agree -- Grandia 2 had the same 'learn everything too soon' problem as SSS, but worse! Yeah, it's true that Justin, Feena and Sue were more memorable than all the party members (the villains were memorable, even if I don't remember their names), but I really liked their chemistry and the romance than blossomed between Justin and Feena, possibly my favorite videogame romance of all time. It's funny, I was complaining earlier that I preferred Lunar's sequel because of a darker storyline, and yet that didn't work in Grandia's 2 favor; I really didn't like how smarmy Grandia 2's characters were (screw Ryudio, really hate him), and preferred the naive but eternally optimistic Justin.
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Post by The Great Klaid on Jul 16, 2014 10:51:47 GMT -5
I found Grandia, excepting the inferior voicework, a better game than Lunar Silver Star Story, in terms of combat and the plot. I'd even say that Grandia has better combat than the sequel even if most people don't agree -- Grandia 2 had the same 'learn everything too soon' problem as SSS, but worse! Yeah, it's true that Justin, Feena and Sue were more memorable than all the party members (the villains were memorable, even if I don't remember their names), but I really liked their chemistry and the romance than blossomed between Justin and Feena, possibly my favorite videogame romance of all time. It's funny, I was complaining earlier that I preferred Lunar's sequel because of a darker storyline, and yet that didn't work in Grandia's 2 favor; I really didn't like how smarmy Grandia 2's characters were (screw Ryudio, really hate him), and preferred the naive but eternally optimistic Justin. I'd take the first two Grandia games over either Lunar any day of the week. Of course this name amnesia is contagious, because I forgot the name of everyone too. The big reason I'd do it is because of the battle system, although I think I liked Grandia 2 more. Give or take it being piss easy. Then again, I'm yet to actually finish Grandia... |
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Post by Jungyin on Jul 16, 2014 11:14:24 GMT -5
I'm curious about any balance tweaks Working Designs made. Unlike most of their other games, I don't think they ever discussed them in the manuals. I remember being Borgan being a HUGE pain in the Sega CD version and was one of the main reasons I didn't feel like replaying the game after my save was wiped. Did Silver Star Story have bosses that scaled in level with you? I seem to recall that they did, but I'm not sure. Yeah, the bosses in Silver Star Story (Complete anyway) scaled with Alex. With Sega CD Borgan, Working Designs called attention to it after beating one of Zophar's froms, saying something like, "that's it? Borgan was harder than that!" Not sure if that means the difficulty wasn't their doing, or that it was and they decided to just joke about it rather than tweak it further. I remember another party member in Grandia was named Rapp, though only because I remembered Justin made jokes at his expense after finding out some pack animals were called rapps. |
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Post by voltagecontrol on Jul 16, 2014 14:08:59 GMT -5
I love the Lunar games. I love the Sega CD games, and I love the PSX games. The characters, the story, the writing, the pop culture jokes (complain all you want, but they are delightful). The PSX versions are generally way better... there are a few unwelcome plot changes in the PSX remake of Silver Star Story, but aside from that everything else is way better on the PSX. Eternal Blue's remake is indisputably better in every way. The GBA remake really sucks. The PSP remake is decent, but not really that great... it has some major issues, but at least it's playable and not totally insufferable (godawful load times aside). Dragon Song is one of the biggest disappointments in gaming. I was super excited, I had it pre-ordered, I rushed to the store to pick up the game on day one... and it sucked so much. I never finished it. I never even came close to finishing it. A part of my soul died the day I played that game. Not Lunar games, but Gradia the first is really cool and has a similar lighthearted feel. Likewise, the Trails in the Sky games capture a lot of the Lunar magic as well. Lucia's nightmare where Lunar gets squished between demonic hands as far as I know isn't in Eternal Blue Complete. It's quite a shocking scene the first time you see it. |
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Post by Discoalucard on Jul 16, 2014 14:50:02 GMT -5
You mean in Eternal Blue Complete? Yeah, they kinda censored the intro a but by cutting away from the nudity (which was Barbie doll-esque anyway) and removing that specific scene. Which was unfortunate because it was exquistely well animated in the Sega CD version.
How that game got a K-A rating is beyond me.
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Post by vetus on Jul 16, 2014 14:57:21 GMT -5
Like I have already mentioned in older threads, seems like I am from the few ones who didn't have any problem with the story and the characters of Grandia III. Sure, they're not as memorable and beloved as in Grandia I but still I prefer it over the story and characters of Grandia II (there, I said it!) which kinda tries too hard to be more mature and darker. At least the "let's go on a big adventure" feeling is back at Grandia III, Alfina was such a cutie and some of the characters resemble characters from Grandia I and Lunar games. With saying that, I have never finished Grandia II (althought I was near the end). Ironically when I first saw Grandia II at my friend's Dreamcast it was the reason that made me play Grandia I since I didn't have a Dreamcast to play the second one.
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Post by Discoalucard on Jul 16, 2014 15:12:21 GMT -5
Grandia III was acceptable up until the point where Miranda left the party, it was all downhill from there. Grandia II was okay up until the later stages where it became another "destroy the church which is secretly evil" cliche. They both downspiraled but at least Grandia II maintained not-awfulness for a longer period of time. I think the only reason I'm okay with Ryudo is the fact that he was voiced by Cam Clarke.
I don't think I played more than 30 minutes of Grandia Xtreme. I never hear anyone talk about it either.
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Post by Feynman on Jul 16, 2014 15:57:23 GMT -5
Grandia III was acceptable up until the point where Miranda left the party, it was all downhill from there. I know I've said this many times before, but Grandia 3's writing and characters are so incredibly awful that I just stopped playing the game out of sheer disgust. The writing in a game has to be pretty terrible to actually make me quit playing a game... usually I'll ignore sub-par writing if the game mechanics are fun enough (Tales of Graces f). But Grandia 3 is just way too much to put up with. |
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Post by The Great Klaid on Jul 16, 2014 16:07:20 GMT -5
Grandia III was acceptable up until the point where Miranda left the party, it was all downhill from there. I know I've said this many times before, but Grandia 3's writing and characters are so incredibly awful that I just stopped playing the game out of sheer disgust. The writing in a game has to be pretty terrible to actually make me quit playing a game... usually I'll ignore sub-par writing if the game mechanics are fun enough (Tales of Graces f). But Grandia 3 is just way too much to put up with. Hell yes. I think it kind of soured me on JRPGs for awhile. Justin was endearing. Ryudo was the reason I became a sarcastic dick (he made it look fun). Grandia 3 was just silly. |
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I'm one of the few who preferred Eternal Blue over Silver Star Story...
