Lunar Legend

"One of the greatest RPGs ever, now on your GBA"

Surely, the developers at Game Arts have established themselves as one of the few RPG companies that can actually compete with with the genre kings Squaresoft and Enix (or Square-Enix in modern times...), and some would even say that their games are on the same high level as Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, and in view of classics such as "Lunar: The Silverstar Story", "Lunar II: Eternal Blue" and of course "Grandia" and "Grandia II", I can wholeheartedly agree that Game Arts certainly knows what to do right in an RPG in order to make it an unforgettable experience - just the way RPGs are supposed to be. With "Lunar Legend", we got a port of the very first Lunar game for Nintendo´s no. 1 handheld Game Boy Advance, allowing a whole new generation of gamers to experience the adventures of Alex on his journey to become a dragonmaster.

As mentioned above, you play as Alex, living in the peaceful village of Burg together with his friend Ramus, his "pet" baby dragon Nall and his foster sister Luna and dreaming of becoming a dragonmaster like Dyne, his idol and one of the legendary four heroes who once saved the world from peril. Of course, Alex eventually begins to pursue his dream and leaves Burg in order to make it come true, and hence the real adventure begins. The story might sound naive and cliched at first, but the twists and events you will be witnessing later in the game are intriguing to say the least, and the storytelling itself is grand, just like the full scope of this adventure. The characters also help to keep you hooked and fascinated by the plot. Some of them might seem like mere stereotypes when you first encounter them, like Luna being the mysterious and beautiful girl you eventually have to save from the clutches of a mean evildoer, but the deeper you´ll get into the game, the more you will find out about them as their background stories are being explored further, making them unique and simply likable in the process based on their dialogues, their personalities and the way they´re being presented as well. Even the villains are no stereotypes at all, having their reasons for what they´re doing and believing in their ideals, and they´re not threatening the world for the sake of merely being evil, as it is the case in some other RPGs. And let´s just say that there is a good reason for the main antagonist (I won´t mention his name for the sake of those who never played Lunar before and in order not to destroy the surprise) to be such a popular icon among RPG fans today. As for the main cast, no matter whether it´s the boastful and slightly arrogant Nash, the beautiful and kind Luna, the cute Mia, the cool and wisecracking Kyle or the lively and energetic Jessica, you´ll simply have to like them for who they are, and as a matter of fact, Alex might be one of the few main protagonists in an RPG you can actually relate to, practically being a nice guy dreaming of adventures and excitement in his life, unlike the angsty, disillusioned and bitter teenager haunted by his past of some of the more recent Japanese Role Playing Games. Even though Lunar was one of the first RPGs to feature a more complex storyline and a bigger focus on single characters and their personalities and has become a role model for modern RPGs, "Lunar Legend" still fares way better than some of its modern imitators, delivering a wonderful retelling of one of the most famous and beloved RPG stories ever.

"Lunar Legend" plays much like your typical traditional RPG, which is not a surprise considering the year "Lunar - The Silverstar Story" originally has been released in. It´s more or less the usual RPG fare, with you having to visit towns in order to gather informations and to battle your way through lots of dungeons, but like so often, it works wonderfully here, as the pacing between the calm town and village visits and the battle filled dungeon explorations is excellent and never leaves you being too bored or too busy. However, the game is now more linear than its original installments due to the lack of a real world map. You only have a rough map of the continent you´re currently on, and all that remains for you to be done is moving the cursor onto the location you wish to visit, and the game automatically takes you there. It´s not really a flaw, but you´ll sometimes miss the freedom of exploring the world map and finding secret locations, for example. The battle system in "Lunar Legend" has also been simplified in comparison to the original, as we now have a rather typical turn based combat system with no new or interesting aspects or twists to be found there, except for maybe the super attacks each character can use by charging up to a certain degree (by using normal attacks). Due to the battle system being much simpler now, the game´s difficulty level has been toned down as well, making the game seem too easy sometimes, even though there are still some bosses that are tough to beat. Still, experienced role playing gamers won´t have any problems at all to play through this game, while beginners will surely enjoy the lack of frustrating passages. A big plus is the rather low random encounter rate, making your visits to the dungeons far less annoying than in other GBA RPGs like "Breath of Fire".

Truth be told, "Lunar Legend" looks easily as good on the GBA as on PlayStation or Sega CD, at times even better, even if the visuals still remain a double edged sword, but more on that later. The locations and characters in this game are just as colorful and wonderfully detailed as they always have been, ranking among the most beautiful 2D RPGs in that regard, and "Lunar Legend" even features an improvement over its earlier installments. Now, there are some new cut-scenes, being shown from a 2D perspective rather than an isometric view or in form of anime cut-scenes as in the original. In these newly designed and visualized sequences, the emotions of the characters as well as the current event taking place astound with an amazing amount of detail in terms of animation, design and presentation. The characters, for example, now have some gestures and cute facial expressions in these scenes that manage to enhance the heavy and more than positive anime influence on this game even more and provide it with a kind of charm rarely seen in some recent modern day RPGs, adding even more eye candy to the already lush and vibrant colors and environments. The normal, isometric in-game graphics do not disappoint, either, and while they might not be as awesome as in "Golden Sun", "Lunar Legend" still looks better than most of its GBA RPG competition in this regard. During the battles, however, Lunar sometimes even manages to go from excellent to overdrive as some of the special attack effects really are superb, pleasing the eyes with detailed animations and cool lightning effects. For each character´s super-attack, you even get a small manga illustration of him or her executing the attack, allowing the characters to display their charm even in the battles. The monster design is well done most of the times, too, and even though they do not move during your turns, they at least show some great animations while they´re attacking, and the amount of detail that went into the animations of some of the enemies is great, which can especially be seen with some of the more important villains, especially the last boss. However, even if the visuals per se are outstanding, there is one minor flaw that could that could annoy fans of the original Lunar game or the PlayStation remake: the total lack of anime cut-scenes. They simply added an unsurmountable level of charm and atmosphere to the game on Sega CD and PlayStation, but due to the technical limitations of the GBA hardware, they´re missing here, having been removed and replaced with some well drawn anime stills to introduce new characters or to display some important story moments. It´s not really something I can blame the developers for, considering that it´s nearly impossible to do appropriate anime cut-scenes on the GBA, and after all, the stills look pretty good. Speaking of anime, there are also some beautiful anime portraits and illustrations for the most important characters during the dialogue sequences, and depending on their mood, they change their facial expression, breathing even more life into them and making them characters you truly care about. So, all in all, the visuals in "Lunar Legend" are excellent and in some ways even an improvement over the original and the PlayStation remake.

Nevertheless, the same cannot be said about the music and audio in this game. First of all, the limited space of a GBA cartridge forced the developers into removing all the voice acting from the game, an aspect that has been done so marvelously in the original, having given the characters even more distinct and unique personalities. Luna´s songs are also notably absent this time around, reduced to a "la-la" sample every now and then that sounds at least decent. Still, the voice acting has always been an incredibly strong aspect of the Lunar series, and it is kinda sad to see that is is missing in this port, although it´s understandable in view of the GBA hardware. The soundtrack itself, on the other hand, has been composed brilliantly by Noriyuki Iwadare, and the awesome musical score certainly was one of the main reasons for the original Lunar to rise into the realm of a true RPG legend and to gain so much popularity among RPG fans. Unfortunately, though, the audio quality of some of the musical pieces is not as good as it should have been, being far inferior to the Sega CD and PlayStation versions. The music is not bad, but it just does not live up to what Noriyuki Iwadare has established back then. But all in all, the audio in "Lunar Legend" still remains a big plus.

"Lunar Legend" might lack some of the technical marvels of its big console brothers, but that does not prevent the game from being a satisfying experience fans of the genre will surely enjoy. The story, the characters as well as their presentation are still magnificent, surrounded by more than solid gameplay mechanics. After all these years, Lunar still holds up extremely well and easily outclasses most of its GBA competitors and lives up to the legacy of the legendary Lunar franchise.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/01/06