Lunar Knights

"Are Konami's Only Claims to Fame Card Games and Vampire Hunters?"

Lunar Knights is a game that only comes around once in a while. Although it's the third game in a series, it has a story all its own. The characters develop and mature over the course of the story, and though it may be short, it is involving. Yes, Lunar Knights is certainly a game worth its price. But if that doesn't convince you, perhaps this will.

Being the third game in a series, one will find it necessary to play the first two games to really understand the storyline behind Lunar Knights. However, as I've said, Lunar Knights is capable of standing on its own as a story. What you need to know is that a group of vampires known as the Dark Tribe have used alien technology to both control the climate, thereby pushing the world into eternal night, and overcome their traditional vampiric weaknesses. But lucky us, two young heroes, the Dark Swordsman Lucian and the Solar Gunner Aaron have come forth to battle the tyranny of the Dark Tribe. You, the player, will take the battle to them both on land and in space to liberate your world! May the Sun shine forever in your hearts!

As you progress into the game, it will be your job to clear dungeons and defeat the vampires who rule them to progress further into the story. But Lunar Knights is much more than a simple beat-'em-up. It's the story of two people with histories of glory, tragedy, and despair. Lucian and Aaron will find startling connections to each other in their pasts. However, the game doesn't go into the past so much. The story is intuitive enough the I was able to get the gist of what was going on and draw my own conclusions, but I suppose I would've had to play the first two games to know for sure.

This game will played primarily on the bottom screen, with limited use of the stylus. This does not mean, however, that your top screen will be empty. Displayed on it is the position of the sun or moon, depending on the time of day, also what field effects are in place, or the menu screen. The day and night cycles in Lunar Knights are based on the game's internal clock. This is fortunate, as it means that if it's daytime in our world, it could be night in the game, and vice versa.

The sun and the moon are the forces that govern the world you live in. The give your characters energy with which to fight. Aaron, for instance, needs energy from the sun in order to use his solar gun. Lucian, on the other hand, draws power from the moon. If Aaron has no energy, he can't fight. Similarly, if Lucian has no energy, he can't enhance his sword with elemental powers.

To progress in the game you must beat dungeon bosses, and by beating a dungeon you can progress to what is all too often a harder dungeon. Dungeons are one of two parts of the game where you play in real time. In them you can find enemies, items, logic problems to be solved, even new weapons if you look hard enough. Many dungeons have rooms inaccessible the first time through, and I found a lot of good items and training opportunities the second time through. I found it to be a breath of fresh air to find actual worth in going through the first dungeons again. But if you need to fight through dungeons, how do you go about doing that?

The combat in this game is fought in real time, meaning that there's no sissy turn taking or agility calculating. While this means that you can start kicking undead butt as soon as you see your opponent, it also means that your opponent can start kicking human butt as soon as it sees you. There are two main characters in Lunar Knights, meaning two forms of fighting: close-up and long distance. Lucian, the sword-wielding member of your party, needs to get close enough to an enemy to actually deal damage. Consequently, it's much easier for Lucian to be killed, but his attacks do a high amount of damage. Aaron, the gun-slinging member of your party, can damage an enemy from far away by shooting them. Aaron is great if you're low on health or fighting a slow, far-away opponent, but his attacks do much less damage that Lucian's and he can't do much in close combat.

Combat controls are easy enough to understand (the Y button). As you go through the game, you will pick up new weapons and be given the chance to enhance old ones. Each weapon has its own combo technique (with Lucian's sword it's a multiple strike technique and with Aaron's gun it's a charge attack). By enhancing a weapon through an alchemist you meet in your journey, it will gain more power and at certain points gain a new combo (i.e. Lucian can perform four sword strikes as opposed to three).

As is common in RPGs, defeated enemies will give both cash and experience when defeated. Money can be spent in shops or placed in savings accounts, and experience goes towards leveling up. But what I found to be a twist in the game is that when you level up, you are given status points instead of all-around point increases. Status points can be used to increase stats in any of three different categories: vitality (life points), energy (total energy), or skill (attack points). This must be done manually from the menu screen.

So what happens when you're not running around through dungeons? Well, not much. Towns are a bust. All two of them. When you click on a town, you will be given the option of going to the pub, the shop, or the bank. The pub is a great place to rest and regain health, talk to locals, check any mission you may have received, and get information on bad guys. The shop is pretty self-explanatory. You can buy and sell items there, as well as buy spare parts with which to enhance your weapons. It's also the place to get missions (I can't tell you much about them as I didn't spend any time at all performing them). But I found myself spending most of my time in banks. You have limited storage capacities for items (which is really lame), so you need to store items in banks (which also have really lame storage capacities. I had to throw away countless items for lack of space). And that's it. That's all towns are good for.

When you defeat a dungeon boss, if that boss happens to be a vampire, you'll have to purify his soul by taking him up into the atmosphere. So how do you do this? You use a spaceship, of course! In one of the most interesting minigames I've ever played, you'll use the stylus to blast through three levels of alien spaceships to reach the satellite Sunflower. By pointing at an enemy craft, you'll fire a laser at it, and by keeping the stylus trained on your own ship, you can drag it around to avoid asteroids, enemy fire, and the like. Blast off!

I'm not to crazy about the sound and graphics in this game. The music, though it often fits the mood of your situation, is usually the same as the last time you did what you're doing now (i.e. battles, missions, etc.). Everything in the game is displayed as a sprite, though when talking to someone you and the other person will be displayed as animated talking heads. The anime cut scenes in this game are fantastic. Though they don't happen very often, they're very rewarding, and I personally looked forward to them every time.

Meh, not much can be said for Lunar Knights' play time. I beat the game and picked up a lot of extra goodies in about 11 hours. I do want to make clear, however, that the game is involving and seemed to take a much longer time to beat. I was impressed. By beating the game, you will be able to restart with whatever weapons and items you had when you beat it the first time, and you can play on a harder difficulty and with fixed levels if you want.

Final Recommendations:

A good game for the casual player. Buy it if you have the time and money, and expect to be enthralled.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/19/07