Lunar Legend

"An okay RPG for,beginners."

This game is for the Nintendo GameBoy Advance. It does not work on any other system.

Graphics: 8/10
The graphics are good, but not astounding. The worlds are detailed and colorful, but the battle animations are a little lacking. However, the game uses dialogue boxes, and in the dialogue box is a picture of the character’s face, which changes based on the emotion they are feeling at the moment. This makes dialogs much more interesting.

Sound: 6/10
A decent score (no pun intended) but not amazing or groundbreaking. I find it annoying and repetitive, but it is fairly well done. Really not much to comment on. Very run-of-the-mill

Gameplay: 7/10
Because this game is an RPG, this will deal primarily with the battle system. The battle system is not particularly complex, your characters have the option to either: Attack physically, cast a spell, use an item (some of the items work like spells), defend, or run away. An interesting thing about the run away option is that you can choose for either the whole part to attempt to run away, or have an individual character run away. The battle system also allows you to pre-program tactics and then set a command to execute those tactics. The tactics consist of ordering each character to perform on of the afore-mentioned options. This is useful in random battles. There is also an option called ''Auto'' in which your characters will simply attack physically. On e thing in this game that annoys me is the lack of a class system. The characters you get must stay in their assigned roles, so for the most part of the game you will have 1 fighter, 1 cleric, 2 mages and your hero. This is not necessarily a bad set up, but there are certainly times when you wish for more of a given class. Also due to the story line (see Story line section for more details) characters leave and/or rejoin your party, making it hard to have any kind of consistency in your battles. The boss battles and dungeons are very, almost comically easy, due to several spells that send your characters attack rating sky high, and the Art Gauge attacks which you can unleash when you have preformed enough physical attacks. The only real danger in the dungeons is running out of MP (mana), because it does not regenerate over time like in most RPGs.

Story line 10/10
This is where the game really shines. The story is very engaging and interesting, and it seems to be happening to your party instead of around your party, because at various times party members will leave and/or rejoin your party, which makes (as I said) the story line very interesting. It does however, cause annoyances in the Gameplay department. (Please see Gameplay section for more info) Also, the dialogue boxes help the story by giving it more depth and emotion. The story revolves around a boy named Alex, who is the main character. Alex wants to become a Dragon Master, so he sets off on a quest to meet the four dragons that live in the land. He takes with him several friend, among them is a songstress who is also his love interest. Along the way, and through a series of plot twists, she is captured by the evil Magic Emperor, and Alex must rescue her. This is the basic story line for the game.

General Notes
-Most weapons and armor can only be equipped by one character.
-There is what seems to be an elemental system, but it is very hard to find out exactly what weapons have what elements, and which monsters are of which element. Also, it is not clear which elements are strong/weak against which other elements.
-Very early in the game you acquire a huge sum of money, which eliminates the stress of having weapons/armor that are not up to the job.
-You also start out the game with a very powerful spell, making boss (and other) battles very easy.
-There is a device that allows for fast transport from town to town.
-15 to 20 hours long
-Lots of secrets, but they must be accessed at certain times.
-Through out the game you will also collect trading cards (most are droped by monsters when you defeat them). They don’t have any effect on the game, but are fun to collect.
-This game is not very re-playable due to the fact that you cannot custom your party.

Summation:
A good RPG, especially for people new to the genre, but don’t be expecting an intsa-classic. Its fun, interesting, intelligent, but not very ground braking or earth shaking.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/15/03, Updated 04/15/03