2010-04-13, 12:57 PM
I bought Lunar: Silver Star Harmony, and I am disappoint.
Anyone have recommendations for good RPGs on this system? Preferably something standalone that has closure.
My Lunar Review...(no spoilers)
It's like Baby's First RPG. None of the decisions characters make really make any sense. The plot is bland and they give you no freedom within it. I often find myself wandering around a town, looking for the magical plot-continuation button. And I find it really odd that the main character can attempt to become a great hero legend and succeed even though there's nothing really special about him. Does that just mean that no one else even tried? Is he the only person with any ambition to explore the cave that's a f'ucking stone's throw away from their hometown? Oh, and the evil guy is evil for the sake of being evil. lol. NPCs that actually have the power to help you save the world don't only because you're the main character. While I'm at it, the plot loves to grab you by the balls and take you the direction it wants you to go. Several times throughout the game you're given a choice of opinion, and sometimes I pick the "wrong" one just to see what the game will do, and they've done everything from asking again until I pick what they want me to pick to outright ignoring my choice and saying the other choice. And lastly, the game has this *really* annoying habit of having everyone you beat up repent right after you do so. On three separate occasions so far, there were guys who were doing something dishonest (cheating, stealing, and pillaging in that order), and not 10 seconds after you beat them or their pet monster up, they have a change of heart. "I'll be good from now on!" they say. It's f'ucking excruciating.
The combat is really just turn based, except easy and without strategy. There's no speed stat, so your characters and enemies seem to attack in a random order, which destroys any potential strategy you may have had. No fight so far has been even slightly hard, and I have healing herbs spilling out of my ass. Lots of enemies drop 'em (and they heal for a decent amount, too), but I've never had to use 'em. Animations are drawn out a bit long, and you could probably beat the whole game by pressing the "Auto AI" button every turn.
Another annoyance is the "random" encounters. I honestly think a random encounter system (akin to FFIV, FFV, FFVI) would have been better for this game instead of what they did. They tried to copy the Tales games by having enemy sprites walk along the map and a battle start when you walk into them. It's a good concept as proven by Tales, but their implementation couldn't have been worse. Almost all the pathways in the game are incredibly narrow, all enemies speed up when you get near them and have perfect 360 degree vision, and there's no way to disable or otherwise lessen the rate of encounters. And all enemies respawn every time you re-enter the map. S'hit might as well have been random.
Oh, and my favorite part is when we go through the "puzzle" tower. It had been built up as something that required "wisdom" to go through, and there were a bunch of NPCs on the first floor that were lost and scared. You know what the f'ucking puzzle was? Pushing a series of buttons. A *series* of buttons. There was never a moment in that tower where I was wondering what to do next, because there was always only one button available and one path available after the pushing of said button. The game clearly has no intent of challenging the player at all, and with the inclusion of the "Party AI" button during battles, I'm convinced they were more interested in making a long, bad visual novel.
The writing (not the plot, the writing) was pretty good though.
The combat is really just turn based, except easy and without strategy. There's no speed stat, so your characters and enemies seem to attack in a random order, which destroys any potential strategy you may have had. No fight so far has been even slightly hard, and I have healing herbs spilling out of my ass. Lots of enemies drop 'em (and they heal for a decent amount, too), but I've never had to use 'em. Animations are drawn out a bit long, and you could probably beat the whole game by pressing the "Auto AI" button every turn.
Another annoyance is the "random" encounters. I honestly think a random encounter system (akin to FFIV, FFV, FFVI) would have been better for this game instead of what they did. They tried to copy the Tales games by having enemy sprites walk along the map and a battle start when you walk into them. It's a good concept as proven by Tales, but their implementation couldn't have been worse. Almost all the pathways in the game are incredibly narrow, all enemies speed up when you get near them and have perfect 360 degree vision, and there's no way to disable or otherwise lessen the rate of encounters. And all enemies respawn every time you re-enter the map. S'hit might as well have been random.
Oh, and my favorite part is when we go through the "puzzle" tower. It had been built up as something that required "wisdom" to go through, and there were a bunch of NPCs on the first floor that were lost and scared. You know what the f'ucking puzzle was? Pushing a series of buttons. A *series* of buttons. There was never a moment in that tower where I was wondering what to do next, because there was always only one button available and one path available after the pushing of said button. The game clearly has no intent of challenging the player at all, and with the inclusion of the "Party AI" button during battles, I'm convinced they were more interested in making a long, bad visual novel.
The writing (not the plot, the writing) was pretty good though.
Anyone have recommendations for good RPGs on this system? Preferably something standalone that has closure.