Will I ever play Lunar: Dragon Song?

If you've noticed, my blog activity has dwindled quite a bit. I haven't actually started my next RPG, and I have been working on a number of other things in the meantime. Most of it real life stuff, which always gets in the way of more creative ventures. Anyways, today I will talk about Lunar: Dragon Song, and whether or not I will play it.

If it isn't obvious, this is a game I haven't even played yet, yet it stands as one of the absolute worst RPGs according to just about everyone who's played it, not to mention a boil on the face of a once-proud RPG franchise that has practically died after it. So what went wrong.

First off, the one thing I have a pet peeve for, sequels that are actually prequels. Now, Lunar: Walking School was one of these, in which the protagonists are from Burg, well before Alex ever started his adventure. Dragon Song is one thousand years before Silver Star. Good lord.

The main protagonist, from what I read, is just a normal adventurer and some sort of errand boy who ends up being a cliche hero eventually. This would slide if the adventure wasn't released in 2005.

The female lead just so happens to be an Althena incarnate. Shocker, right? She, like Luna, is already friends with the male lead. Oh, the kicker is her name is Lucia. The series already had a strong female named Lucia in Lunar 2, one with striking blue hair and a personality that goes from stern to rather collected, one that of course you grew to enjoy but not think was outright horrible. This Lucia isn't like that, apparently.

From what I read, the character archetypes for Dragon Song's playable characters are a lot like Grandia's playable characters in a way. Jian is obviously like Justin, given his lust for adventure. Lucia a lot like Feena for obvious reasons. Rufus, being a rival, is a lot like Gadwin. Flora and Gabi are a lot like Rapp and Milda, respectively for their archetypes.

So let's see, gameplay-wise...

So it's one of those games that pulls the Nintendo Hard aspect, in which the game gets super hard super quickly. Nice. And then there's the fact that enemies actually level with the player, sort of like Final Fantasy 8 did, but other things will prove to mean this game was a lot worse at handling things. One being that rewards are divided, not in a good way of course. What do I mean? Well, you can beat enemies for experience or items, but not both. I'm usually not a fan of item drops from enemies in the first place, as I get useless stuff in my inventory when I'm not grinding for them and when I am grinding for them, it takes me hours to get what I want. Another kicker? The money you get ingame isn't traditional, so items are really what you need to even gain money in the first place. This basically amounts to grinding for experience OR money. This puts early Nintendo Hard RPG grinding like Dragon Warrior to shame.

You'll notice that these pertain to battles. Apparently so. There's also the mechanic that used to be in games like Lufia 1, where you actually cannot target specific enemies. It was 2005 for crying out loud, the ability to target who you need to should be prevalent in every RPG at that point. This just makes things more tedious. I bet people savescummed when fighting battles, because there was also the probability of enemies stealing or breaking equipment. And given the earlier frustrations, this certainly made this unenjoyable.

One of the kickers here in this game, running apparently saps HP. Who thought that was a fantastic idea? You can run out of original ideas, but making a sacrifice between very slow walking and running that takes HP away is one of those original ideas that shouldn't be an original idea, because it SUCKS. Lunar 2's Playstation remake had slow walking speed too, but it also had a run button that can be used in dungeons for about two seconds, and then you have to wait to run again. Bring that back. It's not original, but it's better than losing HP.

So will I play this game in the future? It depends. I admit I want to see this trainwreck for myself with my very own eyes. But these gameplay aspects make me think otherwise. I guess it's too soon to tell at this point.