Beat at level 47. I completed Lunar 2 back in 1999 by loan exchanging my Final Fantasy Tactics to a friend of a friend, and I greatly enjoyed that game. Lunar 1 has been on my wishlist since and I am glad I finally got around to it. The story was a little spoiled for me because I remembered some from Lunar 2, so I knew that Luna was the goddess reincarnated as a human and that she decided to forsake divinity so that when she died as a human there would be no goddess. But it was not difficult to figure that out. The intro movie gave away what Nall was and this was one of the few anime settings (maybe the only one) where the cute annoying mascot character was a positive. I was immediately impressed with the game; the excellent characterizations and dialogue, the little touches of personality for even the most minor of npcs made the world feel more alive and made me want to go back and visit them to see what new things they had to say. The developers really went out of their way to add new dialogue to the npcs to encourage revisiting each town at multiple points in the game. Though it could be a bit tedious to make another run through every single town and find every npc to talk to again, this was wonderful optional content.
I really liked the picture based inventory where you saw what the item looked like rather than just a string of text. It reminded me of Secret of Mana only without the clunky interface. I did not like the limited inventory for each character. It made it annoying to get new equipment and be forced to trade things around to make room, and it made recovery items less useful. By the end game Nall was getting full and I had to start throwing stuff away. I never used any status recovery items. Herbs were important for the few times there was no healer. Healing nuts and mana restore items were very useful and I bought a few starlights mid game. I don't think i needed them. How well I conserved mana through the dungeons seemed to be the most important factor for beating bosses, so buying extra starlights would give more leeway for going all out in normal battles. Not sure how I felt about the bosses scaling with level, which I only knew about after by reading a walkthrough. On the one hand it maintained a fair challenge, but on the other it took away the option to grind and win via numerical stat advantage. I prefer to win via tactics, skill and planning, so I usually do not grind in rpgs anyway. The only boss I had trouble with was the 2 fire dogs because I kept losing track of which one I was damaging. The game really needed a way distinguish enemies; alphabet or numerical names, cursor memory, a way to show enemy hp, or something. I did not actually lose that fight but when I lost track I decided to restart. Most bosses were challenging, though I felt they had too much hp and that they were balanced with respect to Alex being far overpowered compared to the other characters.
I used different accessories for regular enemies vs bosses. Alex used a healing ring and white wings for regular battles, swapping out the wings for the dragon ring for bosses. The range boost from the wings allowed him to pretty much cross the entire battlefield without losing attacks, so I could target further away enemies. He was by far the most powerful character. I mostly used regular attacks for normal enemies and sword dance for bosses. His area specials were useful in some battles but the dragon magic cost too much mana to use much. Dragon fire was great for wrecking enemies when a shrine was nearby, and I used the heal once or twice in the final battle. Kyle used a healing ring and gale ring for an extra attack to take advantage of his high strength. For bosses I swapped the gale for wrath, but he took a lot of magic damage in the final battle and I should have given him magic resist. He used his specials like Alex. Jessica used the ice mace for ranged attacks; I avoided meleeing until the enemies moved closer. I gave her Ghaleon's tear, which allowed her to hit every enemy without moving while sacrificing her 2nd attack. Worthy trade off, especially with her weapons that inflicted status effects; like sleep from the judgement mace, though it did not work on end game enemies. I swapped the tear for the hell ring for sweet half mp healing on bosses. Her other accessory was defensive; at the end I gave her the spirit amulet which said it halved damage from attacks. I am not sure how effective that was but it seemed like she was having some attacks hit her for yellow numbers (reduced damage). She healed in boss fights and in between battles. It was rare to need healing to win a regular battle. Nash used barrier or protection rings because I found he took a lot of damage. Part of this was cheaping out on armor upgrades as I did not always buy the newest stuff for the 3 cloth wearers. He was probably the least effective character but he was versatile with his very high speed, decent bow attack and magic. Lightning bolt for bosses, thunder bomb for most regular battles, and the hit all for the biggest battles. I occasionally used his paralyze and sleep for crowd control during the mid game. Stone never ever worked and I never bothered with silence. I preferred him to wear a weaker head armor that boosted wisdom, but went for max defense for bosses. Mia used the wisdom boosting amulet (probably should have bought 1 or 2 for Nash) and the speed boosting accessory. With the lowest speed in the group, I wanted her to go before the enemies broke their formation to hit them all with that sweet nuke damage. Her weapon was a mid game wisdom boosting staff, though I kept the speed boosting wind staff on hand just in case. For bosses I switched that for magic resist and used her buffs; ice armor seemed to not protect vs magic so I did not always cast it on everyone. Good on the game for making buffs last the entire battle, though there was nothing that clearly indicated this. The area effect ice wall was the most used nuke in regular battles, while I used flameria more often at end game, and flame bomb for single targets. The other 3 nukes were weaker and only useful before learning the better ones or to exploit elemental weaknesses. Everyone had their best equipment by the end game, though from reading a walkthrough it seems I missed a 3rd healing ring. I had fun with Luna while she was in the party early game, using her sleep magic and a staff that could cast sleep which I lost when she was kidnapped and was not happy when she rejoined without it. Mia and Nash used flame staves from the inventory as a free ranged attack but I never purchased other staves with spells to see if they were better.
I loved the core gameplay mechanics. Being able to save anywhere outside of combat or dialogue was amazing, almost as good as save states. I hate when games restrict saving. No battles on the overworld was great for exploring, safety and just setting up the world building that monsters were only in their lairs. And having the enemies on screen to chase the party was better than random battles. I was immensely impressed with the 1st dungeon; the way different enemies moved around the level. The flies that moved too fast to avoid so might as well charge them, the elementals that slowly flew over obstacles and could surprisingly get you, and the gorillas that charged ahead and could be tricked into breaking ice blocks. There was a whole level of tactical depth around which enemies to fight and which to avoid. With the goal being to reach a boss in the best condition possible, there was strong incentive to try and avoid fights. But go too far with that and you could end up in back to back battles without a chance to heal in between. Battles were fairly challenging too and I got game over a few times. I made a big mistake at the volcano by not buying ice weapons beforehand, but at least the flame sword gave fire resist. It would have been useful to be able to move the characters to specific spots on the battlefield to spread out and avoid area attacks. I was disappointed that there were no puzzles around manipulating enemy movement after the 1st dungeon (not counting the trivial bit at the end dungeon), and sometimes the tight areas of the dungeons made the enemy movement type irrelevant. I did not like the point of no return near the end; you really should be able to explore the entire world right up until beating the final boss. Or even better after beating the boss. There were no vehicles to get around the map or optional secrets beyond just talking to people. Though I don’t believe all rpgs need extensive side quests, mini games and ultra hard dungeons.
Comparing this game to other playstation rpgs (like FF7 and 8, Chrono Cross, Xenogears), it seemed more like a SNES game with its more basic graphics and mechanics. It also seemed to be less exciting for some reason, maybe because the story was more grounded and focused on drama rather than mind boggling sci fi, though there were definitely some sci fi elements. Like is the goddess actually a goddess, or some kind of advanced technology? Despite lacking some of the bells and whistles of other jrpgs, it has so many excellent features and is such a pleasant experience that it is one of the best jrpgs of all time. And the music is awesome.
9.4/10
No spoilers confirming or denying any of this, please. 🤗
