Lunar Knights

"Post-Apocalyptic Vampire Slaying In Space? What Could Go Wrong?"

A little explanation about what Lunar Knights actually is might be beneficial before even beginning to delve into this review. As the prefix “lunar” is quite common in gaming, it can be hard to keep all the different franchises and titles separated. While the title immediately evokes a connection to the role playing series that originated on the Sega CD system and has since seen numerous iterations, Lunar Knights is actually unrelated. In fact, Knights is actually a Kojima games production (they're also responsible for an equally obscure franchise known as Metal Gear Solid. You've probably never heard of it). And this game isn't the first title of its kind, as it serves as a spiritual successor to another Kojima series known as Boktai here in the states.

As is expected from anything created by Hideo Kojima, Lunar Knights contains quite an unusual narrative though it doesn't even come close to measuring up to the sheer outrageousness of the MGS series. Earth has been taken over by vampiric overlords from outer space who have engineered a device known as paraSOL which blocks out the damaging rays of the sun. Players will initially take control of Lucian, a vampire hunter who is out to kill the Duke, the vampire leader, but saving the planet seems to be low on his list of priorities. Lunar Knights also features a second character known as Aaron, who is an apprentice gunslinger before vampires attack their home base. During the raid, he takes up a Solar gun and decides the time has come to fight the vampires for himself. Lucian and Aaron's paths eventually cross and they team up in order to achieve their respective objectives (though Lucian is less than enthusiastic about it).

While Lunar Knights eventually reveals itself to be comprised of several unique gameplay styles, the majority of the game plays out like a Diablo inspired isometric dungeon crawler. Though the first few missions exclusively revolve around either Lucian or Aaron, once they team up you'll be able to switch between the two at any time during the game. Both of these characters have their own distinctive style of play, with Lucian serving as a close quarters melee fighter and Aaron being the ranged gun fighter. Though the weapon of each character effectively determines how players will approach fights, it all really comes down to the same thing; mashing the Y button to dish out attacks as fast as possible. Both characters also have a very handy shield that can be used manually to deflect almost any kind of attack. This ability is tempered by the fact that there is a sort of meter that ticks down every time an attack is blocked. If it drains completely, you'll no longer be able to block. If players don't block for a while, the meter will regenerate. All of this encourages players to think offensively rather than turtling up behind a shield.

Like Boktai, Lunar Knights has several game mechanics that revolve around the power of light and darkness (but thankfully, Kojima has done away with the gimmicky light sensor that required actual sunlight to work). Lucian's sword is of the dark element and uses moonlight, while Aaron's Solar gun is of the light element and uses sunlight. Both characters have an energy bar, but the way that it is used seems a little lopsided. Lucian can attack as much as he wants with no effect on his energy, but Aaron's gun uses light energy for bullets, so every time he attacks he loses energy. This makes Lucian the more reliable character as he'll never be in the middle of a fight and suddenly find himself unable to even attack. And for some weird reason, Kojima decided to make running deplete the energy bar as well.

Regenerating energy can often be a pain in the ass. To do this, a character needs to be standing in their type of energy source (Lucian must stand in moonlight, Aaron must stand in sunlight) to absorb energy. Unfortunately most levels take place in a dungeon type environment, so there's no light source until you find a skylight, which are few and far between. Plus, the game has a constantly shifting day/night cycle so if you run out of energy and the time switches, you may have to switch characters.

Energy is also important for Terrennials. Both characters have a default Terrennial (an elemental familiar) that corresponds to their element. Other Terrennials are uncovered throughout the course of the game, and they too have unique elements. Unfortunately, Terrennials just aren't that important as all they do is add an element to a characters attack while using energy, but don't grant any spells or special skills. Each character's default Terrennial does have one cool mechanic; the Trance. After attacking enough times, a character can go into Trance mode, in which they merge with the Terrennial and shapeshift. In this form, characters can attack much faster and even do a small area attack. However, Trance mode isn't available often enough and is too valuable to waste on small encounters.

After trudging through a dungeon, you'll finally encounter a boss. These vampires are quite a let-down and don't require much skill to wipe out. And if you go into Trance mode, they're over almost before they begin. Even so, defeating a boss brings up two of Lunar Knights more interesting mechanics.

Due to the fact that the vampires have the paraSOL to protect them from most of the sun's energy, they have to be taken beyond it to truly kill them. This means jumping into a spaceship for some old fashioned shooter action. This is also the only area Lunar really takes advantage of the DS's touch controls. By dragging the stylus across the screen, the ship will move. Tap an enemy and the ship will shoot at it. While this is an interesting twist, it doesn't work as well as it should because the touch controls are clumsy and often take too long to respond. Plus, using the stylus to both move and shoot means you'll often take many cheap hits by the enemy swarms because you were trying to shoot back instead of moving or vice versa.

After finally slaying a vampire, the player will gain access to their paraSOL controls. This means you can go to a special area and change the climate of the world, which has different effects depending on the chosen climate. For instance, choosing the arid climate will dry up any standing pools of water. This means new paths may open up depending on what climate has been chosen. It's an interesting mechanic that is, unfortunately, not utilized as well as it could be. Most of the time the whole thing is used in the same basic manner as I've just described, instead of anything more interesting.

Though the actual gameplay of Lunar Knights is bland, tedious and faulted the same cannot be said of how it looks. Environments, characters and enemies are all clean and nicely rendered, though the color palette tends to be a little monochromatic in any given area. During the space combat sequences, the game transitions to 3D, and though the ships are a little blocky, it's still a surprising indication of the DS's power. More impressive are the full motion anime cutscenes that are short but oh so awesome. Due to the high compression required to stuff them onto the tiny DS cartridge there is plenty of artifacting, but the fact that they're so action-packed makes it easy to overlook this. It's also worth noting that the top screen nearly always shows a fully animated 3D representation of the sun and sky. This is a nice touch, as you can watch the sun go down and the sky get dark. It's not a big deal, but if you're playing Aaron it's a little spooky to know his energy source is about to go bye-bye and he's going to be defenseless before long (which is when you switch back over to Lucian). While the graphics are a highpoint, the audio is unimpressive. Music is unexceptional but the cutscenes are fully voiced. But, as is typical for most anime out of Japan the voice acting is atrocious (is there some rule that says it must be like this?)

THE VERDICT
While the game contains several good ideas, the implementation leaves much to be desired. Combat is simplistic and nauseatingly repetitive, the Terrennials are boring and mostly useless, and the characters feel unbalanced. While most of the mechanics work, they just aren't very exciting. Lunar Knights is ultimately a very boring affair that could almost be marketed as a sleep aid.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/10/09

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