In this day and age of video gaming, some franchises are better off dead - never to see a newly made version or sequel ever again... or at the very least not brought back to life as a hideous zombified mess... Lunar is a shining example of this. This is the only Lunar game I played, and after playing Dragon Song on my DS, I ask myself, "Is this game supposed to make me want to look for the older titles?" This game, while not quite the worst RPG I've ever played (what a shocker), is definitely one that should be ignored. Even if you are a fan of this franchise, just move on with your life - pretend this game doesn't even exist and remember the good times you spent with your beloved Final Fantasy rival of the past. Otherwise, if you're still curious, keep reading if you want to find just what makes this game so bad.
Still here? Brave man... well, whatever - we'll start off with the game's story. It starts off with these two people who have been friends for some time. These two work for a delivery company called Gad's (funny story, when I first saw the name, I accidentally misread it as God's). Anyway, they're sent to deliver something to a town located across a forest, and along the way, they get robbed. Their package is stolen and now these two have to find out who took it and where they're hiding. Upon visiting the next town, they learn of how a Sasquatch of some sort is responsible and is hiding out in a temple of some sort. The two have to go and get it, but as time progresses, the story unfolds into a bunch of stuff about how the group has to save the planet and how the girl in your party is a major key aspect in the story. Now then, from what I've heard from Lunar veterans, this is your typical Lunar storyline - nothing new seems to be really innovated into the story for long time Lunar fans, and it isn't too much better for first time Lunar players or RP Gamers; saving the world has been your typical RPG plot element since Final Fantasy or even Zelda on the NES. It's the same old RPG story will some bells and whistles to make you think it's something different. In terms, it's pretty much average overall as far as a story would go.
Another aspect I found out from Lunar veterans is that the Lunar games are supposedly known for their humor. Either the veterans have a sense of humor equal to that of a rusty golf club, they lied to me, or something went horribly wrong in this game as far as dialogue and content go. Listening to characters talk in this game is absolutely boring - while they may have personalities, they are definitely far from being something that'll even make you chuckle, let alone have South Park quality humor. Lunar veterans may bang their heads against the wall, crying with boredom as if they're being forced to watch a documentary on the invention of the stapler. First time Lunar players will simply just yawn as they struggle to bypass all the boring cutscenes of mindless drivel.
And you wanna know the sad part? The story is possibly the best part about this game. The gameplay is absolutely horrid, if not more ancient than Parachute on your Game & Watch. Let's start with the most famous aspect of RPGs: Battles. You'll actually have two ways to fight - one is to fight regenerating enemies for items, while the other is to destroy the enemies for EXP. (Experience, for you non-RPG types, is needed for making your character stronger). I found this aspect baffling, since almost every other RPG I've played that had battles earned me both items and experience together and never separate. While it is a change from the usual RPG palette, it was far from being a good one. While on the same topic of battling foes, while you get EXP and items, another RPG element gone missing is the lack of earning money. While some RPGs don't require collecting money because they don't have a money system (Quest 64, or Holy Magic Century for you Europeans, is a good example), Lunar has a money system and requires it if you want to get good weaponry and move on. But if I can't collect money from battles, then where do I get it? This is where your minimum wage duties as a delivery boy come in. Remember how I said you work for a delivery company named Gad's (that I mistook for God's)? Well, your job is to deliver simple items to people in other towns. While some missions require you to deliver packages ready to go, you'll sometimes be forced to go into item battles, fighting enemies non-stop until you get the items you need to deliver them. I thought I was a delivery boy, not a fetching lad... You'd think they'd have these in stock the minute you accept, but no... You have to keep doing this if you actually want any money. It gets tiresome quickly.
And I'm not finished with my beefs with the battle system just yet; it gets worse. Do you know how sometimes in a battle, you need to think up a good tactic to defeat one sole enemy? Tactics are good and very helpful... had the game developers cared about this aspect. You just go ahead and toss those well thought-out strategies and tactics; they're about as useless here as a dial-up connection is with X-Box Live. When you choose to attack, you lack the ability to choose who you want to attack. Enemies are chosen randomly, making boss battles more tedious and harder than they should be. The only time you can choose who to hit is during a healing spell, when one of your pals has taken too many lunch money beatings. Lunar DS takes away all the thought in your battles, making gameplay more ancient than Space Invaders or even Pong. Why are you even battling the enemies yourself? This game has an automatic battle system that fights for you. Of course, this still doesn't make things better - the battles themselves are extremely slow and battles against groups take minutes to finish. Set the fighting to automatic, then walk off and grab some Doritos from your cupboard, eat a couple and come back. The battle is STILL going on? Yep. Fortunately, the L and R buttons can be used to speed up the battles by two or three times, but it still isn't better since you have to sit around for the battle anyway. Obviously the battles are horrible and extremely boring.
Perhaps field time will make up for that? Wrong. Dead wrong, amigo.
When you aren't battling, you're either walking around in a part of town, delivering stuff for Gad's, or running to the other side of a room. Now, running has been a typical aspect of roleplaying games for some time now, especially when the genre went 3D with titles like Super Mario RPG and Final Fantasy VII. Lunar figured they could stop running by adding one of the meanest penalties I've ever encountered in an RPG: losing HP. When you run, you slowly begin to lose life as you try to outrun those (enemy name here) or just go through an area quickly so you don't fall asleep from the boredom of walking through it for the upteenth time, only to stop short when you're at 1/3 of your life. Whose idea was this? Why would anyone be so cruel? This makes the game even more boring, since walking across most areas takes well over 2-5 minutes without battles while running would've taken only 30 seconds to one minute at the cost of half your life. Your choice. The towns aren't too much fun, either. Upon entering a town, you don't just start with your walking about into houses and whatnot. You're given an overview map with tiles, and what you need to do is select a tile to go to and you'll enter that house. Where's the fun in that, I ask you? I want to explore my towns, I want to see everything they have to offer all around. I don't like being confined to little squares - no sane person likes that. I've never seen RPG town exploration so linear in my life - Final Fantasy X overall wasn't even this linear, if I recall.
In terms of visuals, they aren't bad. Above average, anyway - but far from 3D. In battles, the two screens act as one really tall screen, making the battles a little more pleasant... visually. However, I felt that many of the enemies and chibi-styled characters in battles were a little too blurry and no doubt could've been rendered a little more for smoother lines and whatnot. Another issue are characters you talk to - there are only a few character models and they are used far too many times. When you talk to characters, you'll see a close-up picture of them on the top screen. The pictures are used too often, as you'll be recognizing people over and over again. My biggest issue with the top pictures were the female beastmen (beastmen are really regular humans with cat ears as far as appearance goes), who looked awful overall. Normally, I like catgirls a lot, as I would willingfully buy or watch an anime just to see one (come on, you gotta admit, they ARE cute)... however, this was just too far. I didn't get the same feeling with them as I did from regular catgirls. Maybe it's the tail? Bah, anyway, the graphics are okay, but could've been a little better or at least even a little 3D.
Of course, the music is slightly better. They tried to orchestrate it to sound really good on the DS. While they did a good job, some tunes are overly annoying and sometimes occur a little too frequently - namely the battle theme. If you're a music afficionado like me, you'll most likely want there to be a sound test. Lucky us, there is one! However, you can only listen to the themes you've already heard. You'll pretty much only want to play the game just for the music, but alas - not everyone is as big on music as I am. While music is pretty good, sound effects aren't. You get really annoyed at the magical bliss that you hear when you're healing in front of an Althena Statue (think of it your inn as far as RPGs go, or Toad House for you Paper Mario fanatics - only free and less time consuming) after losing a ton of life from all the running you may or may not be doing. The only real sound effects in this game are the magic bliss from Althena Statues and the sound of you hitting a foe in battle. Not much else to note, but sound is pretty abysmal.
In the long run, I have no idea what the retailers were thinking, pricing this at $40 at launch. It is very far from that kind of cash, and considering there are better role-playing titles for your DS, like Lost in Blue or Mario & Luigi 2: Partners in Time, this title is one that you should really overlook. If you must have it, I strongly recommend waiting for a price drop to at least $15 or even less. Any more, and the developers are trying to scam you - I kid you not.
Scores
===================
Story - 5 (Average)
Game Play - 1 (Abysmal)
Visuals - 6 (Fair)
Audio - 7 (Good)
Replay Value - None
Estimated Worth - Less than $20
Overall - 3 (Bad)
On another topic, the title? It lies. This game has almost nothing to do with dragons at all, much less a dragon song. Obviously, Dragon Song is really an enlarged term for DS, an aspect also used for Advance Wars: Dual Strike (which actually has a Dual Strike in it, giving it meaning). Don't you hate it when the title implies a name that has nothing to do with the game? That's like sticking Mario Knife Fight DS onto a copy of Yoshi's Story - and if you were expecting a knife fight in Yoshi's Story, you're gonna be disappointed.
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