is a
role-playing video game
A role-playing video game (commonly referred to as simply a role-playing game or RPG, as well as a computer role-playing game or CRPG) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immers ...
for
Nintendo
is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...
's
Game Boy Advance
The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, 2 ...
developed by Japan Art Media and published internationally by
Ubi Soft
Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include ''Assassin's Creed'', ''Far Cry (serie ...
, who also provided the translation. It is a re-telling of the events of ''
Lunar: The Silver Star'' with story and content changes. All the characters from the original game appear.
Gameplay
''Lunar Legend'' plays very much like a traditional
RPG, with 2D character sprites and environments. Unlike ''Lunar: The Silver Star'', the battles do not consist of characters moving across the battlefield to attack enemies, instead having them retreat back to their original positions after attacking. The battles themselves are random, occurring every few steps within a dungeon or in scripted circumstances. By gaining experience after each fight, characters can level up, gaining new abilities and becoming stronger in the process. A new feature includes the use of special attacks akin to
limit break
''Final Fantasy'' is a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, and developed and owned by Square Enix (formerly Square). The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and science fantasy role-playing video games (RPGs). The eponymous fi ...
s via an "Arts gauge" underneath the character's HP and MP. It fills up as the character attacks enemies (whether or not the hit is successful) and once it's full, the character can unleash a powerful ability that generally does more damage than weapons or spells, or has a special effect such as rendering the party invincible for a short period of time. Ramus, Ghaleon and Laike, however, cannot unleash these special attacks.
Some of these special attacks can be changed by equipping certain items. For example, if Nash or Mia equip the Light Emblem accessory, it changes their special attacks to "Charge", which allows them to store magic power for one round. The next time they cast an attack spell, the damage is increased more than normal.
The player travels through the world of Lunar via the world map, visiting various towns, cities, and dungeons. Unlike ''The Silver Star'', there are no random battles on the world map and each location is accessed by simply selecting it.
Story
Thousands of years ago, the benevolent
Goddess
A goddess is a female deity. In many known cultures, goddesses are often linked with literal or metaphorical pregnancy or imagined feminine roles associated with how women and girls are perceived or expected to behave. This includes themes of s ...
Althena transformed the barren world of the Silver Star into the habitable place known to its inhabitants as "Lunar". In this world, three races were created: the stout Beastmen, the resourceful Humans, and the villainous Vile Tribe. While the Vile Tribe was forced to live in the dark lands known as the Frontier, Humans and Beastmen lived side by side in the surrounding lands, occasionally fighting with each other before eventually declaring peace. In order to preserve the life-force of the planet, as well as guide the elements within it, Althena created four all-powerful
dragons
A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...
and a warrior who wielded their combined power known as the Dragonmaster. She decreed that if anyone was to take up the mantle of Dragonmaster, they would have to pass the four trials of the dragons themselves before gaining the power to protect the world.
One such Dragonmaster was Dyne, a young man who, together with the heroes Ghaleon, Mel, and Lemia, succeeded in pacifying the then-insane black dragon. Althena at this time was losing control of her power, and though Ghaleon protested, Dyne gave up his power to transform the goddess into a mortal girl who immediately reverted into a baby. Never forgiving him for denying the world its leader, Ghaleon severed all ties to Dyne and retired from adventuring. Dyne, now no longer a Dragonmaster, disappeared and was never heard from again.
Years later, a boy named Alex from the small town of Burg is infatuated with stories of Dyne and the Four Heroes, and longs to become an adventurer himself and one day become a Dragonmaster like his idol. With the help of his best friend, Nall, a small, winged,
cat
The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...
-like creature, and Luna, his love interest who has lived with him since she was a child, Alex leaves on his adventure to pass the trials of the Dragons, and ultimately gets caught up in a struggle for the existence of his world.
Development and release
''Lunar Legend'' is a re-made version of ''
Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete'' for the
Game Boy Advance
The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, 2 ...
and was developed by
Media Rings Corporation after acquiring the rights to produce a handheld adaptation of
Game Arts
is a Japanese developer and publisher of video games located in Chiyoda, Tokyo. Originally established in 1985 as a computer software company, it expanded into producing for a number of game console and handheld systems. Its President and CEO i ...
' role-playing game. The game was announced in a November 2001 issue of Japanese ''
Weekly Famitsu
formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the f ...
'' magazine as a "powered up" version of the original
Sega-CD
The Sega CD, released as the in most regions outside North America and Brazil, is a CD-ROM accessory for the Sega Genesis produced by Sega as part of the fourth generation of video game consoles. It was released on December 12, 1991, in Japan, ...
and the 32-bit versions, with changes that would benefit players on the go and provide new story materials for veteran fans.
Because of the game's limited 8-
megabyte
The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Its recommended unit symbol is MB. The unit prefix ''mega'' is a multiplier of (106) in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one megabyte is one million bytes o ...
cart size, many features standard to the ''Lunar'' series such as voice acting and video sequences were omitted, with Media Rings instead utilizing real-time cutscenes using larger, more detailed character sprites to tell the story. Still images taken directly from ''Silver Star Story Completes animated videos would appear at certain points during the game to give it a more cinematic feel.
Game Arts' primary goal in co-developing the new version was to provide the previous game's music, art, and script for Media Ring's use.
The ''Lunar'' series' producer Yoichi Miyaji joined the development team as a consultant, along with several other members of the Game Arts staff, in assisting project director Hisashi Sugawara in crafting a new vision of the game that would retain the same feel as previous adaptations. The game was originally scheduled for a March 2002 release, but was pushed back to the following April for last-minute changes.
The North American version became the first English ''Lunar'' title to not be produced by
Working Designs
Working Designs was an American video game publisher that specialized in the localization of Japanese role-playing video games, strategy video games and top-down shooters for various platforms. Though the company had published many cult hits, it ...
, with company president Victor Ireland passing on the project for undisclosed reasons.
During the 2002
IEMA Executive Summit, Ubisoft revealed they had acquired the publishing rights to ''Lunar Legend'', with an initial release date of November 2002.
Ubisoft's script remained closer to the original Japanese version than previous English endeavors, but retained Working Designs' character names and overall light-hearted tone. Rather than develop their own official ''Lunar Legend'' website, Ubisoft approached Mickey Shannon, webmaster of ''Lunar'' series fansite LunarNET, to create and host the game's official English page on his server.
Reception
''Lunar Legend'' received an above-average total score of 30 out of 40 from four reviewers in Japanese ''
Weekly Famitsu
formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the f ...
'' magazine.
The game was mostly well received in North America, with some critics such as ''
Electronic Gaming Monthly
''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' (often abbreviated to ''EGM'') is a monthly American video game magazine. It offers video game news, coverage of industry events, interviews with gaming figures, editorial content and product reviews.
History
The m ...
'' commending its re-drawn, animated character sprites, describing the game as "one of the prettiest, most involving RPGs to hit the GBA".
GameSpot
''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...
similarly declared that the game was "fun and engaging", but found the low difficulty lacking in challenge and the audio quality below the standard, commenting that the "generic battle sounds and forgettable music don't leave much of an impression".
It was a runner-up for ''GameSpot''s annual "Best Role-Playing Game on Game Boy Advance" award, which went to ''
Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis''.
Reviewers often compared the game to its
PlayStation predecessor. ''
GamePro
Gamepro.com is an international multiplatform video game magazine media company that covers the video game industry, video game hardware and video game software in countries such as Germany and France. The publication, GamePro, was originally la ...
'' saw the game as inferior to its earlier versions, stating that it was "definitely recommended for anyone who didn't live through the Lunar phenomenon,
utanyone who's played the original is bound to be disappointed", finding fault in the game's lower quality presentation.
''
Game Informer
''Game Informer'' (''GI'', most often stylized ''gameinformer'' from the 2010s onward) is an American monthly video game magazine featuring articles, news, strategy, and reviews of video games and associated consoles. It debuted in August 1991 w ...
'' called the game a "solid port" with good enhancements, yet felt that the exclusion of voice-overs and animated cutscenes from the original hurt the game's narrative.
References
External links
''Lunar Legend''at LunarNET
*
*
{{Lunar series
2002 video games
Game Boy Advance games
Game Boy Advance-only games
Japan Art Media games
Lunar (series)
Role-playing video games
Ubisoft games
Video game remakes
Video games developed in Japan
Single-player video games