Aaaah Lunar. Having first played Lunar on the Sega CD back in the days
(and not liking it that much), I don't know what pushed me to buy Lunar
on the PS1 when it was released. Nostalgia? Or maybe it was the
complete lack of RPG's released in the past couple of months? I don't
know, but I never regretted my choice.
I think that Lunar on the PS1 must have had a great revision to its
text, because I remember the old Lunar as being a pretty dry game as
far as emotions go. But the new one, man, it has one of the best
scripts I've ever seen, and it tells the simple story in a way that
makes it seem much more interesting than it probably is.
The story in Lunar is quite simple. Alex always dreamed of going on
adventures like his hero, Dragonmaster Dyne. And one day, he gets his
wish. Although it starts out innocently enough, eventually his little
adventure takes a turn for the worst and young Alex must save the
world, and the one he loves. Original uh? Not really, but the way the
script is written makes up for any inherent simplicity in the story,
and because of that, I rank Lunar as having one of the best stories in
a game ever based on emotional impact.
Let me tell you that this game will make your eyes watery and your hands sweaty. And you will laugh, oh yes you will laugh.
Gameplay is pretty basic. This is a very old school RPG, ala Final
Fantasy 4, where you don't have any choices in the progress of your
characters. Battles have an innovative function however, it's like a
mix between a typical RPG battle system and a strategy RPG. You can
move your characters on the field, and distance is taken into account.
So if you have a big and slow character, he will not be able to walk
far to hit enemies, and vice versa. Which makes bows kinda cool
although they don't hit hard. And near the end of the game, you really
see why you need to disperse your characters on the battle field
because bosses will start using area of effect spells on you, so watch
out! You also have a bunch of those at your disposal though, so group
those monsters up and watch em burn :) All in all, the battle system is
a breath of fresh air, mostly, but I do feel like the normal monsters
you face are too powerful and take too long to kill. I'm a big fan of
the 15-20 seconds Final Fantasy style random monsters battle system and
taking almost 2 minutes just to kill some no name monsters is just too
long. Although, the trick to that is to start using your magic
abilities in fights, which makes them go much faster but will cost you
a lot of money in mp regenerating items. Aside from the battles, this
is your typical RPG system with levels, mp and hp. Nothing special,
just classic stuff. It does the trick.
The graphics are old, I mean this is a remake of a 1993 game and it
shows. Although it sports nice 2D sprites, and some of the in-battle
spells look good, I cannot call this game anything other than adequate
looking. Although, it does seem to look slightly better than Lunar 2, I'm not sure why. But who cares about graphics? This is a PS one game
not Xbox 360 or PS3. They have a certain charm to them but that's
it.
Sound is generally very good. I have to tell you, I just LOVE the music
in this game, and I love the music soundtrack that comes with it. I've
always been a bastard for game soundtracks and this one isn't any
different.
As far as voice acting goes, it does what it is supposed to do, but
voices on your characters. It works most of the time although it could
have been better...especially in battles. Man you will want to KILL
your characters, especially Nash, after you hear them say "Check this
out!" for the 35th time in a boss battle. They have a special line for
every spell they cast and it gets old, fast. The voice acting seems to
come true when it matters most however and the music is awesome so this
warrant a high score from me.
Overall, Lunar is an amazing game that I think is well worth the price
of admission, even though that price is rather high. But you do get a
very nice collector's box with it, with an awesome hardcover manual, a
'making of' cd AND a soundtrack cd (weeeeeeeeeeeeee for the music!) !
And don't forget, when you buy Lunar, you buy a piece of RPG history.
A must buy.
