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»Lunar: Sanposuru Gakuen
"Best Lunar portable ever? ...could be."
While most RPG fans define games of more popular series such as Final
Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger as their favorite series, I
personally stand out. I’m a fan of the Lunar
games. While I was only introduced to the PlayStation versions of the
first two games of the series, they made their debut on Sega’s
ill-fated Sega CD peripheral, holding a strong placement as two of the
system’s greatest titles. In recent years, a new game (a prequel, Lunar: Dragon Song) was released and received lukewarm impressions from the small fanbase. Of course, these three weren’t the only games in the Lunar series. The Game Gear got a crack at the series too, in the form of Lunar: Sanposuru Gakuen [or Lunar: Walking School].
Sanposuru Gakuen takes place hundreds of years before The Silver Star,
despite the fact that it was released a few years after it. It puts
players in control of Ellie, a reserved shy girl who works as a
harvester in the town of Burg. One day, during the big yearly harvest,
she and her childhood friend, the far more talkative and confident
Lena, are sold to the village elder of the moving island Ien by Lena’s
father. As it would turn out, they have been enrolled into Ien’s
renowned school of magic free of charge. However, when they arrive,
they find the island devoid of any instructors. During their stay, they
encounter several magical creatures and monsters who also call the
island home, all while they continue to search for their instructors.
At heart, Walking School is a typical RPG, not unlike the other games in the Lunar
series. Granted, it’s on a bit of a smaller scale (pun intended), but
it’s leaps-and-bounds above the other RPGs on the Game Gear (aside from
Ax Battler, which is really more of a beat-‘em-up/RPG hybrid). However, compared to the other Lunar games, there’s a difference in the feel between this game and its console counterparts. While the storylines of The Silver Star and Eternal Blue flowed with no major checkpoints, SG
is split into 12 different chapters, although the first chapter is
unplayable and merely around to set the stage for the game’s storyline.
Another difference between the two would be the style of objectives. While TSS and EB were more focused on defeating gigantic bosses, SG
chooses more of an item-collecting focus. In other words, as opposed to
crawling through large dungeons in order to defeat the large monster at
the end, instead it’s more of a dungeon crawler, where the major goal
is to collect certain items which are needed for the storyline to
advance. Of course, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any boss
battles, but don’t expect one at the end of each chapter.
The battle system is fairly similar, although the visuals are
downplayed a bit, but we’ll touch on that a little later. The game has
the typical “random encounter” system in certain monster-infested
areas, just like in the Sega CD games. At the start of each encounter,
players are given two choices: fight the monsters or run. If the player
chooses to fight, there are four options: (physical) attack [generally
weak], magic [powerful spells that cost MP], using an item, or defend
from an oncoming attack. After each party member’s actions have been
selected, the turn begins. If you’ve played any other turn-based RPGs,
you can tell how things go.
All things considered, the graphics in this game are pretty nice. The
colors are bright, the profile shots of the various characters are
well-drawn, and even the character sprites are nicely rendered with
some nice, yet minor animations, like in most RPGs of this era. There
is one thing that I think falls short in comparison to other games: the
designs for the battles. As opposed to the style generally found in the
Lunar games, Sanposuru Gakuen
instead takes its visual cues from earlier RPGs, like Phantasy Star.
The field is split into two portions: on the left, there are the
portraits of the playable party; on the right, the enemies on a
battleground depicting the current area. The attacks are shown in a
similar fashion as in the card battles in Card Fighters’ Clash,
visual attacks from invisible sources. Despite this disappointment, the
graphics are still great, even considering how late in the system’s
lifespan this game was released.
The same can be said for the sound. The music’s actually pretty good,
on par with those found in the Sega CD entries in the Lunar series. Not
really surprising, considering that Noriyuki Iwadare and Isao Mizoguchi
composed the music for this game (as they did with the Sega CD and Sony
PlayStation games). The sound effects are okay. Not bad considering the
system’s limitations.
As obvious as it would seem, Sanporosu Gakuen has about as
much replayability as most RPGs. That is to say that it’s got a long
playing time, as well as some incentive for a second (hell, even third,
considering the number of save slots) playthrough. Unfortunately, while
this would generally merit at least an eight in terms of a score, I’ve
got to take a point off due to the game’s reliance on the Japanese
language. Unless you have a vast understanding of Japanese, this game
will be near impossible without a decent walkthrough. Otherwise, it’s
well worth your time, unless you can pick up a copy of the game’s
Saturn remake: Mahou Gakuen Lunar [Magical School Lunar].
Article by: Wolfdogg
Posted on: Jul. 25th, 2007 |
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Review Recap |
| Gameplay |
| It lives up to the Lunar legacy, albeit on a smaller scale. |
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Graphics |
| The graphics are pretty good, although the battle screens are a bit underwhelming, considering the game’s age. |
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Sound |
| The music’s pretty good, about on par with the Sega CD games, at least in terms of melody. Sound effects are great too. |
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Replay Value |
| It’s a fun game, but without knowledge of the Japanese language (or at least a decent walkthrough), there’s really no point to playing this. |
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Comments |
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Comment Posted on: July 29, 2007 |
Symphony1125 |
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Nice review. I've always been a huge fan of the Lunar series... I wish they would make another one. Dragon Song wasn't very good... lets just hope that whoever took over the Lunar series ISN'T doing the same thing that Sega did to the Shining Force franchise.
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