We store cookies, you can get more info from our privacy policy.
DS

North America

Lunar: Dragon Song

by Jonathan Metts - September 11, 2005, 3:07 pm EDT

The first new Lunar game in over a decade is also the first traditional RPG for Nintendo DS. Learn all about it in this extensive preview.

The Lunar series of RPGs contains only two games prior to Dragon Song, but both are considered classics and have been remade numerous times on various systems. The story always involves the goddess Althena, who created the world and its mysterious blue moon. The world of Lunar is home to four majestic dragons, who bestow their powers and magical armor on a single warrior for Althena known as the Dragonmaster. The newest game in the series, Dragon Song, definitely uses these elements in its own story, but we're not yet sure how it all ties together and connects back to the previous games.

What we do know is that the world is populated by humans and beastmen. Humans are the lower class, who inhabit rural villages. The big cities are full of beastmen, humanoid creatures with fur and tails who are born with strength far greater than that of the humans. The beastmen are a proud race and look down upon the less advanced humans. Dragon Song is the tale of one young human named Jian who works as a courier, delivering packages for the Gad's Express shipping company. For some reason, Jian is attracted to a nearby city of beastmen, where he drags along his friend Lucia. They meet the king of beastmen, who happens to be in town for a fighting tournament, and the couple's adventure soon spirals into grand proportions. Several other characters join up along the way, human and beastman alike.

Lunar: Dragon Song takes the form of a traditional RPG, with experience points, stat-boosting equipment, and plenty of turn-based combat. However, it also retains a key feature of previous Lunar games by representing enemies with sprites on the screen, so you can often avoid fights or even seek them out, depending on your playing style and immediate needs. There's also an auto-battle command to take much of the labor out of simple turn-based battles, which means you can easily play Dragon Song while watching TV or performing other physical tasks. (In fact, I'm leveling up while writing this preview!)

Dragon Song has an unusual system for character development. For winning any given battle, you may choose to receive experience points or items, but not both. When battling for experience, your characters will periodically level up, and enemies will be temporarily cleared from the area. If you can defeat all the enemies in one area while in experience mode, you'll earn a partial health/magic refill, and any nearby special treasure chests will open. Fighting for items is the only way to earn money in the game, and even this method is quite indirect. Enemies will drop "sundries", assorted items related to the enemies themselves. For instance, a plant enemy may drop dried grass or wood, while a skeleton enemy may drop various types of bones. The sundries can be sold directly at town shops, but you can make far more money by using the sundries to complete delivery lists for courier assignments. High-paying jobs may require you to seek out certain enemies to earn more of a particular item, but the resulting fee payments allow you to buy new equipment and healing items for your characters. With experience and money divided into a mutually exclusive game system, and money being earned in such an indirect manner, it should be no surprise that Dragon Song requires quite a bit of "grinding" – repetitive combat excursions to build up the characters. The game's target audience of hardcore, traditional RPG fans probably won't mind a bit.

As the first traditional RPG for Nintendo DS, Lunar: Dragon Song attempts to utilize the system's features to some extent. Most menus can be activated either by moving a cursor with the D-pad or touching icons on the lower screen. Battles take up both screens, as there is usually an upper row of flying enemies which move down near ground level once the lower bad guys are dispatched. Even the microphone is used; blowing into it causes your party to run from battle.

However, there are no polygons in the game. Instead, Dragon Song uses the DS's two-dimensional prowess, displaying the rich field graphics on the top screen with touch-sensitive menus below. Battles are depicted with large, animated character sprites and extensive rotation and scaling effects. The visual effect will be familiar to fans of Camelot's RPGs, such as Golden Sun and Beyond the Beyond. Fans of traditional RPG music will be pleased to know that the game's soundtrack faithfully captures that style and fully exploits the superior DS audio hardware.

In fact, Lunar: Dragon Song is a thoroughly traditional game from just about every angle. Newer RPG fans may be shocked at the prospect of leveling up for an hour or two before entering a new area, but the game's style will feel oh-so comfortable to those of us who grew up on RPGs in the SNES era or earlier. Get ready to sink thirty, forty, or maybe even fifty hours into this brand new DS quest.

Share + Bookmark





Genre RPG
Developer Game Arts
Players1

Worldwide Releases

na: Lunar: Dragon Song
Release Sep 2005
PublisherUbisoft
RatingEveryone 10+
jpn: Lunar: Genesis
Release Aug 25, 2005
PublisherUbisoft
aus: Lunar Genesis
Release Feb 23, 2006
PublisherRising Star Games Limited
RatingGeneral

Related Content

Got a news tip? Send it in!
Advertisement
Advertisement