Lunar Legend

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about the video game Lunar Legend. For the manga and anime series of a similar name, see
Tsukihime, Lunar Legend
.
Lunar Legend
Single-player

Lunar Legend (ルナレジェンド, Runa Rejendo) is a

Ubi Soft, who also provided the translation. It is a re-telling of the events of Lunar: The Silver Star
with story and content changes. All the characters from the original game appear.

Gameplay

Lunar Legend plays very much like a traditional

limit breaks
via an "Arts gauge" underneath the character's HP and MP. It fills up as the character attacks enemies (whether or not the hit is successful) and once it's full, the character can unleash a powerful ability that generally does more damage than weapons or spells, or has a special effect such as rendering the party invincible for a short period of time. Ramus, Ghaleon and Laike, however, cannot unleash these special attacks.

Some of these special attacks can be changed by equipping certain items. For example, if Nash or Mia equip the Light Emblem accessory, it changes their special attacks to "Charge", which allows them to store magic power for one round. The next time they cast an attack spell, the damage is increased more than normal.

The player travels through the world of Lunar via the world map, visiting various towns, cities, and dungeons. Unlike The Silver Star, there are no random battles on the world map and each location is accessed by simply selecting it.

Story

Thousands of years ago, the benevolent

dragons
and a warrior who wielded their combined power known as the Dragonmaster. She decreed that if anyone was to take up the mantle of Dragonmaster, they would have to pass the four trials of the dragons themselves before gaining the power to protect the world.

One such Dragonmaster was Dyne, a young man who, together with the heroes Ghaleon, Mel, and Lemia, succeeded in pacifying the then-insane black dragon. Althena at this time was losing control of her power, and though Ghaleon protested, Dyne gave up his power to transform the goddess into a mortal girl who immediately reverted into a baby. Never forgiving him for denying the world its leader, Ghaleon severed all ties to Dyne and retired from adventuring. Dyne, now no longer a Dragonmaster, disappeared and was never heard from again.

Years later, a boy named Alex from the small town of Burg is infatuated with stories of Dyne and the Four Heroes, and longs to become an adventurer himself and one day become a Dragonmaster like his idol. With the help of his best friend, Nall, a small, winged, cat-like creature, and Luna, his love interest who has lived with him since she was a child, Alex leaves on his adventure to pass the trials of the Dragons, and ultimately gets caught up in a struggle for the existence of his world.

Development and release

Lunar Legend is a re-made version of

Sega-CD and the 32-bit versions, with changes that would benefit players on the go and provide new story materials for veteran fans.[1] Because of the game's limited 8-megabyte cart size, many features standard to the Lunar series such as voice acting and video sequences were omitted, with Media Rings instead utilizing real-time cutscenes using larger, more detailed character sprites to tell the story. Still images taken directly from Silver Star Story Complete's animated videos would appear at certain points during the game to give it a more cinematic feel.[2] Game Arts' primary goal in co-developing the new version was to provide the previous game's music, art, and script for Media Ring's use.[3] The Lunar series' producer Yoichi Miyaji joined the development team as a consultant, along with several other members of the Game Arts staff, in assisting project director Hisashi Sugawara in crafting a new vision of the game that would retain the same feel as previous adaptations. The game was originally scheduled for a March 2002 release, but was pushed back to the following April for last-minute changes.[4]

The North American version became the first English Lunar title to not be produced by Working Designs, with company president Victor Ireland passing on the project for undisclosed reasons.[3] During the 2002 IEMA Executive Summit, Ubisoft revealed they had acquired the publishing rights to Lunar Legend, with an initial release date of November 2002.[3] Ubisoft's script remained closer to the original Japanese version than previous English endeavors, but retained Working Designs' character names and overall light-hearted tone. Rather than develop their own official Lunar Legend website, Ubisoft approached Mickey Shannon, webmaster of Lunar series fansite LunarNET, to create and host the game's official English page on his server.[5]

Reception

Lunar Legend received an above-average total score of 30 out of 40 from four reviewers in Japanese Weekly Famitsu magazine.[9] The game was mostly well received in North America, with some critics such as Electronic Gaming Monthly commending its re-drawn, animated character sprites, describing the game as "one of the prettiest, most involving RPGs to hit the GBA".[14] GameSpot similarly declared that the game was "fun and engaging", but found the low difficulty lacking in challenge and the audio quality below the standard, commenting that the "generic battle sounds and forgettable music don't leave much of an impression".[15] It was a runner-up for GameSpot's annual "Best Role-Playing Game on Game Boy Advance" award, which went to Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis.[16]

Reviewers often compared the game to its PlayStation predecessor. GamePro saw the game as inferior to its earlier versions, stating that it was "definitely recommended for anyone who didn't live through the Lunar phenomenon, [but] anyone who's played the original is bound to be disappointed", finding fault in the game's lower quality presentation.[17] Game Informer called the game a "solid port" with good enhancements, yet felt that the exclusion of voice-overs and animated cutscenes from the original hurt the game's narrative.[18]

References

  1. ^ Gantayat, Anoop (2001-11-09). "First Look: Lunar Legend". IGN. Archived from the original on 2011-06-13. Retrieved 2008-07-01.
  2. ^ Editors of Nintendo Power (March 2003). Nintendo Power (issue 165). Future US. p. 138.
  3. ^ a b c Kirk, Nicole Monet (2002-07-30). "Lunar: Legend Gets US Publisher". RPGFan. Archived from the original on 2013-02-02. Retrieved 2008-07-01.
  4. ^ C., Eve (2002-02-15). "Lunar: Legend Delayed". RPGFan. Archived from the original on 2013-02-02. Retrieved 2008-07-01.
  5. ^ Farand, Eric (2008-01-10). "LunarNET/RPGFan Turns 10 Years Old". RPGFan. Archived from the original on 2013-02-01. Retrieved 2008-07-01.
  6. CBS Interactive. Archived
    from the original on 2018-11-28. Retrieved 2018-11-27.
  7. CBS Interactive. Archived
    from the original on 2018-12-01. Retrieved 2018-11-27.
  8. Ziff Davis Media
    . December 2002.
  9. ^ a b Editors of Famitsu Magazine (April 14, 2002). Weekly Famitsu. Enterbrain, Inc.
  10. ^ Barber, Chet (February 2003). "Lunar Legend Review". Game Informer. No. 138. GameStop Corporation. Archived from the original on 2008-02-12.
  11. ^ Star Dingo (November 2002). "Review: Lunar Legend [Game Boy Advance]". GamePro. No. 170. IDG Entertainment.[permanent dead link]
  12. ^ Kasavin, Greg (2003-01-02). "Lunar Legend for Game Boy Advance Review". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 2009-01-11. Retrieved 2008-07-01.
  13. ^ Harris, Craig (2003-02-03). "IGN: Lunar Legend Review". IGN. Archived from the original on 2008-10-04. Retrieved 2008-07-01.
  14. ^ Editors of Electronic Gaming Monthly (December 2002). Electronic Gaming Monthly (issue 161). Ziff Davis Media. p. 272.
  15. ^ Kasavin, Greg (2003-01-02). "Lunar Legend for Game Boy Advance Review". GameSpot. Retrieved 2008-07-01.
  16. ^ GameSpot Staff (December 30, 2002). "GameSpot's Best and Worst of 2002". GameSpot. Archived from the original on February 7, 2003.
  17. ^ Star Dingo (November 2002). GamePro Magazine (issue 170. IDG Entertainment.
  18. ^ Barber, Chet (February 2003). Game Informer (issue 138). GameStop Corporation. p. 108.

External links

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