Lunar Knights

"A good game overshadowed by established series"

Lunar Knights is a sidestory in the Boktai series, originally on the Gameboy Advance. Luckily, no prior knowledge is needed to enjoy Lunar Knights; I played it on its own (without having played the Boktai series) and I understood everything I needed to. The game plays something like Castlevania and Zelda: it features Zelda's topdown perspective, but you attack in real time like Castlevania. The game is less 'number heavy' than Castlevania; there are only three different items you can equip (weapon, item, and 3 accessories), and the game does not place a large emphasis on needing to be equipped, except on the unlockable hard and Nightmare modes.

The simplicity is welcome; it's nice to have an action RPG that doesn't necessitate micromanagement of equipment. The only thing you ever really need to accommodate is the elemental weakness of an enemy. Annoyingly, it seems that attacking a resistance has less effect than exploiting a weakness, but on Normal mode, the game is easy enough that you don't need to be overly concerned with elements. LK is unique in that it features two very different characters: Lucian, a dark swordsman with whom you start the game and specializes in melee attacks, and a gunslinger (Aaron) who can attack from afar. Each character has their own strength stat-wise: Lucian has more Life and less energy (which is used to combine an element to an attack) and Aaron has less life, but more energy, because his guns' shots need energy to fire. Upon leveling up, you are given a certain amount of points that you can give to three different areas: Life, Energy, or Skill, which increases the amount of damage you deal. This allows you to customize your characters and fill their needs as you see fit.

Attacking enemies works just as it does in Zelda, and is overall a pretty seamless experience. You can lock onto an enemy using the R button and your attacks usually hit pretty flawlessly. Aaron has a few guns that change how you fight: a weaker one, that fires very rapidly, and one that tracks enemies even offscreen. There are a few others, and Lucian has two different weapons as well, but I wouldn't want to spoil the surprises for you. Getting these extra weapons takes revisiting old areas, and is a very rewarding experience when you find it on your own. Luckily there aren't too many areas in the game to re-explore. You are also given a shield, and while there are four others, you will likely not find these until your second playthrough. Shields are not 'always on'--you must actually use it. Each shield has its own counter that is analagous to HP. When the counter hits zero, you are stunned for a short time and must wait a while to use your shield again. Using the shield is essential to combating certain foes. When used properly, it can stun them and make them take massive damage. However, either intentionally or unintentionally, almost every weapon has a long 'drawback' period, making the switch from fighting to defending a little cumbersome. Like most other nitpicks, though, this doesn't have too much of an effect in normal difficulty, but when you reach hard mode, it becomes much more pronounced. As you fight, you build your trance gauge. When this gauge is full, you can transform, executing very powerful, rapid attacks that restore either your HP or Energy, depending on your character. This can save you in tough situations, but also is amazingly adept at destroying bosses. Most bosses will die in 30 seconds if you save your Trance meter until the fight.

The overworld is replaced by a "touch to go there" map, filled with town at which you can buy items and restore your health, as well as buy junk parts (which are also dropped by monsters) to upgrade your weapons and talk to NPCs for quests. There are problems with these however. At first, junk parts are needed in a lesser quantity to upgrade your weapons, but later on (usually in your second playthrough), they become so expensive that even very large amounts of money will not be enough to upgrade a single weapon. If you only plan on one playthrough though, this doesn't make much of a difference. Quests, on the other hand, are a major annoyance. In order to get one, you must talk to a certain NPC not once, or twice, but three times. Worse still, almost no importance is placed on speaking to NPCs, and certain quests have a limited time frame in which they can be acquired. Luckily, the internet exists for this purpose. The quests take place in the normal dungeons, sometimes with limitations on where you can go. You will be asked to escape in a certain amount of time or defeat all the monsters. These do not take long to complete, and also do not reward too well, but the upshot is that they can be redone as many times as you want.

A big disappointment are the dungeons and enemies. Most of the enemies are palette swaps, which gets to be very boring. I haven't actually counted, but I'd estimate there are actually only 20 or so enemies that simply have their colors redone according to the proper element. By the final two dungeons, this becomes a big nuisance, as the developers have to resort to beefing up existing enemies, not making new ones. This stagnates strategy as the enemies you face at the end of the game were the same you fought about 3 hours ago. The dungeons are also not too impressive, and could use something more than just walking around and killing enemies, such as puzzles. While the graphics are impressive and clear, the scenery and backgrounds are very bland and boring, and I never got a sense of atmosphere from a dungeon. The music, however, is jazzy and usually fits the mood, but further obfuscates the atmosphere of the game. Granted it has suspension of disbelief working in its favor, but let's be realistic: there's a swordsman, a gunslinger, vampires, and spaceships. While I normally don't really care what kind of mishmash of elements a game has, these are far too anachronistic to not take notice. The game also sports a few anime cutscenes, which are done very, very well, and are hardly blurry at all.

LK has a few tricks up its sleeve to make things more interesting: it incorporates weather into overcoming a few obstacles (the weather is game-generated, not based on your location), and arcade-style shooting battles after the defeat of a boss. These battles are fun enough in normal mode, and a nice variance from hacking away at enemies, but there is a major design flaw. While the majority of the game uses only the buttons, the space battles use the touchscreen for input. Using your stylus, you can shoot. Or move. Not both at the same time. Once again, on normal mode this isn't really too big of a nuisance, but on hard mode it becomes a major frustration. Why they couldn't use the D Pad for movement is beyond me. The weather doesn't have too much of an effect, except for when you need, say, rain to make vines grow over a ditch in order to reach a chest. Weather-based obstacles are few, I believe there are less than 10, but this is welcome because in order to change the weather in a dungeon, you must leave to talk to a certain NPC to change it. This doesn't happen often, so it's not much of an issue.

There are some minor nitpicks: Inventory management is a huge pain in the ass. Most enemies drop items, and fairly frequently too, so this automatically fills up your small inventory. Junk parts, luckily, can be kept infinitely, but the majority of enemy drops, fruits, have expiration dates. Fruit will rot under most conditions (in certain weather, fruit and other perishables will 'transform' into better items) and therefore must be consumed quickly. This causes a problem when the fruit of choice is to be saved for a boss battle, or similar threatening scenario. As with most other problems, there are few scenarios that will force such actions in normal mode, but keep in mind that if you're like me and save items until you absolutely must use them, it's better to use them rather than hoard them. Perishables can be stored in a storehouse outside of dungeons, where the rotting process does not take place.

Getting a game over is nothing to fear in LK: it simply means you must pay a very small fee to start from that same room. This is irritating because it kind of boils the game down to patience rather than skill. In fairness, since you can save anywhere in the dungeon, this system works well enough, and certainly is a welcome step away from the archaic system of lives.

LK's story is fairly normal at first: Vampires have developed a machine that plunges the planet into a perpetual twilight, depriving humans of exploiting their legendary weakness to sunlight. The vampires, unrestrained, enslave humans and feed on them. This is all well and fine and cliche, but then another cliche gets involved--aliens. There is a twist at the end, but nothing so profound. Overall, the story is fine but doesn't compel you to play on until the end, which is where the games pacing problem becomes most pronounced. In a typical RPG, you'd expect the last dungeon or area to compose the remaining five, maybe even ten or fifteen percent of the game. LK's last two dungeons comprise probably 25 percent of the game, which, when compounded with the boring, repetitive enemies, becomes more tedious than it should. This all leads up to probably the most anticlimactic battle I've ever fought.

Overall, LK is still a good game, but it's been overshadowed by others in the DS's library. It's a very full experience, and you can tell that the developers put a lot into the subtleties. Unfortunately enemy and dungeon design are lacking, and the pacing is awful. Upon your first completion, you can choose to play on hard or nightmare mode, (they only boost enemy stats, unfortunately), and the extra dungeon is unlocked which consists of at least 50 levels of the same enemies, only 10 levels higher each time. This is disappointing, but you can also refight bosses and the space battles.

I'd recommend LK if you like Castlevania or Zelda, but don't expect to find the former's ornate art or the the latter's dungeon design.

Score breakdown:

Story: 6/10
Music: 7/10
Graphics: 6/10
Gameplay: 7/10.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/23/09

Game Release: Lunar Knights (US, 02/06/07)