X-Play Hates Lunar: SSSC

[ubersaurus]

All I know is that I got to I think, the tower of althena (it's been years so I can't even remember) and I was getting killed left and right. My levels were just too low, and I didn't feel like spending the next 2 hours building them up.

Something about Lunar: SSSC that I forgot to mention in my earlier post: the bosses' stats are determined by Alex's experience level. For example, the Saline Slimer's stats are:

Hit Points = 80 x Alex's level
Attack = 2 x AL
Defense = 1 x AL
etc.

In other words, "leveling up" won't do you much good. Perhaps you weren't using the proper strategy against whatever boss was giving you trouble.

If it was non-boss monsters giving you grief, again, it's possible you weren't using proper strategy, as opposed to being underpowered.

I did, however, like the Austin Powers cameo in the one cave

Nice! That's an NPC appearance most players don't catch.

-- Z.

Could be it...maybe I'll come back to it someday, but it's not much of a priority. I'm not sure I can go back to alot of RPGs after going through KOTOR.

I'm amazed few people caught Austin Powers...my friend had a game save as close as he could to Austin just so we could go back and read the funny ass dialogue there. I still remember one of the girl characters (Luna I think) getting all indignant at him you said you worked on the translation...was that anyone notable in the Japanese version?

Funny how that cameo was more memorable then the "almost porn" of the hot tub animated sequences.

[-hellvin-]

The game just sucked. There is really not much more to elaborate on. The characters did not interest me in the slightest. The combat is drool inducing. The missions are so linear and boring it drove me crazy.

The bridge is out. Go get the axe. I have the axe. This will take time to repair. You should go to the sea port and take a boat to the mainland. We need a map to drive there, go get it. Now that we have the map we need the lighthouse activated. There are monsters in the lighthouse.......

bleh....and I fought two battles in one hour of gameplay. Just ran away from every one cause it took less time. Except for the time when I had the magician guy. Then he could use one lightning wave attack so it took less time.

Perhaps the game gets better...I don't really know. Don't really care. Will just sit on the shelf with all my other sega cd games and the sequel I will never play.

[zmweasel]

I'm amazed few people caught Austin Powers...my friend had a game save as close as he could to Austin just so we could go back and read the funny ass dialogue there. I still remember one of the girl characters (Luna I think) getting all indignant at him LOL you said you worked on the translation...was that anyone notable in the Japanese version?

As I vaguely recall, that NPC was fairly droll in the Japanese text. I took plenty of liberties with NPC dialogue, because I wanted every NPC to provide a rewarding conversation, and because Japanese humor was usually lost in translation. There was a long period after I left WD when I regretted not being more "faithful" to the Japanese text, but I'm better now.

-- Z.

[Daria]

I know people like to trash the GBA version of Lunar, but from what I've seen, the sprites are infinitely better than the PSX sprites. Maybe everything else about it sucks, but that's one area where I personally was impressed how much better it is.

I don't think anyone who's ever trashed Lunar Legend has said anything regarding the grpahics. They are pretty. But as with all genres, it takes more then some pretty graphics to make a good RPG... except I suppose if you play them all in Japanese.

As weasel already pointed out the biggest flaw with Lunar Legends is the translation. It's boring, and poorly exacuted. There's one scene for example where Nash is talking, Nall asks a a question and Luna blows up at them for arguing. O.o Because Ubisoft failed to inject any attitude into the dialouge it ceased to make any sense.

As for Hellvin's complaint about the point A to point B to unlock C quests... what did you except from a Sega CD RPG? Pretty much every tradional RPG from that era is the same. That doesn't sound like a problem with Lunar as much as the genre it's self. What causes Lunar to standout from the rest of them isn't the gameplay, or even the plot. But the way the plot is told. The storytelling. The character interaction, humour, voice overs, and music. It's a very cinematic experience from days when games just weren't made that way.

[Aussie2B]

I don't think anyone who's ever trashed Lunar Legend has said anything regarding the grpahics. They are pretty. But as with all genres, it takes more then some pretty graphics to make a good RPG... except I suppose if you play them all in Japanese.

People who play RPGs in Japanese have more sense than that. :/ Even if someone doesn't know Japanese at all, I don't know of ANYONE who plays them for graphics. The graphics can help convey the story to some extent, but Japanese RPG players are playing because they either know Japanese or want to experience a fun battle system.

[Aussie2B]

Most areas of both SSSC and EBC have four unique enemies (including palette variants), so I'm not sure what you mean by "MORE repetitive as you go."

Well, yeah, the number of enemies in each area stays pretty consistent (although I'm pretty sure that towards the end there are fairly large areas that only have 2 or 3 different enemies), but what I mean is that you get to places where you encounter only a few different enemy formations over and over and over... The early areas seemed to have a greater variety of enemy groupings.

[Daria]

I don't think anyone who's ever trashed Lunar Legend has said anything regarding the grpahics. They are pretty. But as with all genres, it takes more then some pretty graphics to make a good RPG... except I suppose if you play them all in Japanese.

People who play RPGs in Japanese have more sense than that. :/ Even if someone doesn't know Japanese at all, I don't know of ANYONE who plays them for graphics. The graphics can help convey the story to some extent, but Japanese RPG players are playing because they either know Japanese or want to experience a fun battle system.

Not to step off topic here, but aside from tactical RPGs I've never played an RPG battle system that was THAT much fun.

If they know Japanese that's a different matter. Then it's no different then me playing games in english.

[Cmosfm]

Well it looks like the gamers have spoken, X-Play sucks, and I do agree. I have to say that while watching it, and watching Morgan Webb speak to me like I'm a fucking 13 year old skater boy...I felt like I lost a lot of intelligence. Brian_Provinciano & lendelin summed my feelings up pretty well.

I know if I want news from now on, I'm sticking to magazines, at least they don't treat me like a child.

[ubersaurus]

I love X-Play. It's one of my prime sources for seeing a game in action. Considering there's numerous people on their review staff for the television reviews, I can generally expect to see a review thats at least halfway decent, more then I can say for certain, other review shows.

They were sweet when they were Extended Play, and they're still sweet, because even though the set and one of the hosts may have changed, they still do everything backstage the same way.

[Azazel]

The battle system for Emerald Dragon is pretty good. One of the few RPGs I can play more than once and not be bored of it.