Lunar Legend

"Watching the full moon..."

The GBA has had some highs and lows for the past few years. It's gotten an ungodly amount of ports and remakes making up a huge library of obscure games that will likely never reach the surface of mainstream gaming. It's also been riddled with a string of average RPGs that have left both old and new generations of gamers shaking their heads, looking for something more to satisfy their cravings for a quality game. For a long stretch of time, all hope seemed lost for an RPG that was just a little bit better than what the GBA lineup had to offer. Thankfully, Ubisoft has come through for all of us yet again, this time with Lunar Legend.

For those of you that have been looking for a break from the constantly senseless dialogue of Golden Sun or the lacking of some of the other GBA RPGs, you may or may not find relieve in what Lunar Legend has to offer. While this game doesn't try too hard to create a decent plot, it actually doesn't try hard enough. Lunar Legend falls into that little gray area in between the ends of the spectrum of effort. Instead of giving us meandering conversations, this game gives us only a brief skeleton of so many rehashed RPG plots. You play as Alex, an adolescent with delusions of becoming a Dragonmaster, like his childhood hero. He's got a flying cat, a nerdy best friend and a blossoming but humble diva as his best friends. When a young and arrogant wizard named Nash comes into town, these kids team up and visit an ancient shrine. A few generic RPG plot twists later, you're on the adventure of a lifetime to become the Dragonmaster of Alex's dreams. Of course, all of the character and locations have nifty names titles. But when you strip away all of the extra wordage, you'll realize that Lunar Legend still uses that generic male-coming-of-age-plot that's become so commonplace.

But despite all of the standard RPG mumbo jumbo, Lunar Legend still comes off as appealing. Now, I think what makes the story appealing doesn't necessarily involve the plot. Instead, the progression of this game relies more on the growth and perspective of the individual characters. Sure, Alex is just some punk kid with a sword and a few special attacks, but he's still just another lonely boy with big dreams of greatness. Nash the wizard comes off as a brash and arrogant member of your party, but even his stubbornness adds so much to his appeal. Hell, even the flying cat adds more than enough comedic relief to an otherwise stale story. It's all of these little character flaws and quirks that make up for the games ultimately lacking plot.

As you walk along that long bath to becoming a Dragonmaster, you'll be traveling through a world of towns, forests, caves, sewers, and just about any locale that could be possibly found in your average RPG. Once you've completed a certain task or found a certain item, the story progresses to the next chapter, then the next, and so on until you've completed the game. You'll have to explore so many different towns and dungeons to find to complete whatever goal is set for you. But after a while, everything just starts to look the same. And for what it's worth, all of these places really are the same, just presented differently. As you walk through the majority of these places, chances are you'll have to endure quite a few random battles as you try to make your way to your destination. You'll face monsters of all shapes and sizes, from wild mushrooms to terrifying dragons. You'll have to cleverly manage your team of rag tag adventures if you hope to live to see the day.

As with so many of the GBA RPGs, Lunar Legend implements a turn based battle system for its numerous encounters. You're given control of the small band of heroes, giving them the opportunity to battle, defend, or use items or magic spells. You have to be able to make these choices based on the capabilities of the characters. Take Luna for example. She's got almost no physical attack power, but her various magical songs can bolster your party or wreak havoc on your enemies. What about Ramus, the Samwise Gamgee of Lunar Legend? The poor fellow has decent attack, but can't use any magic at all. It's all of these character capabilities and limitations that need to be considered when you're taking on particularly formidable opponents. Of course, if you feel that you can throw caution into the wind, you can always let the AI do all of the attacking for you. But if you want more control over how your battles play out, your best bet is to do all of the battle commands manually, lest something go wrong.

Now, this all sounds well and good. You've got some pretty decent characters, plenty of random battles and a varied turn based battle system. There's just one huge, glaring flaw with Lunar Legend: the difficulty. This is game is easy. And I'm not talking about just some dumbed down strategy or anything like that. No, it's far simpler than that, a problem that could be easily rectified but still overlooked. Whenever you save the game and quit, all of your characters' health and magic points will be replenished. Yeah, that's right. There's no need to you to pick up all of those countless revives and health recoveries, unless you're about to face a boss or something. But you can literally cruise through this game by simply going through countless random battles and leveling until your party is near death, then save and quit. When you turn your game back on, your party will have benefited from all the battles, but without any danger of being killed. Uit's this one fatal flaw that ultimately turns Lunar Legend from the best RPG on the GBA into a pathetically easy leveling-fest.

At least the presentation is decent enough. You'll be going through all sorts of locales during your quest, each place colorful and vibrant. You can see the cobblestone streets in town, or the light shimmering off the water in a port. Unfortunately, the characters and their attacks lack the flash and flair that some of the other GBA RPGs enjoy. The in-battle character designs look as if they were ripped straight from the original PSX game, with little improvement to speak of. Sure, all of the magical attacks have a fair amount of detail, but the colors come bland and uninteresting. The real beauty lies with the details of landscape and the settings. Unfortunately, the audio quality lacks that clarity of so many of the recent GBA titles. Like The Lost Age, Lunar Legend attempts at a gripping and emotional soundtrack, but for some reason it comes out scratchy and garbled. The same goes with most of the sound effects, including Luna's supposedly good singing voice. In the end, you'll be turning down the volume on low to keep the strain off your ears.

Once we leave Lunar Legend, we're still on the never-ending hunt for that ultimate GBA RPG. This game makes for a great attempt at such a title. Even though it has a pretty generic plot, its characters are still memorable. It has yet another turn-based battle system that offers a more leisurely and varied approach to the countless random battles you'll endure. But what brings this game down is its utterly ridiculous difficulty that will leave many seasoned gamers snoring. Other than that, Lunar Legend is still a quality RPG that should be added to any GBA owner's library.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/02/04