To the Moon, Alex! Talking about the Lunar franchise

[gogglebob]

Hey, so they announced a Lunar Remastered Collection for release Spring 2025. I like the Lunar games! I am excited to see the franchise return in some capacity! Let's talk about Lunar games!

Err... Not all the Lunar games, though.

 

[Peklo]

Hoping for a technically better showing than the Grandia collection; wishing futilely for a thorough un-Working Designs-ing of the games, which I know won't happen. Pop culture riffs and messed up game balance are one thing, but the injection of bigotry of all stripes and a general cruel mean streak are the main reason their entire catalogue stinks from top to bottom and does a disservice to all the material it infected.

 

[Tato]

I played through Lunar Silver Star Story on iPhone some years back and while it is probably not the ideal way to experience the game, I had a blast and really enjoyed the combat system. Would love to play more games with a similar system of your characters space/distance in a battle being important, but not TOO important like Tactics-based games. I haven't played through any of the rest yet, but looking forward to this collection.

 

[Vaeran]

The only contact I've had with the Lunar series is the PSP remake of the first game, back whenever that came out. I really enjoyed it and was always sad the second game didn't get the same treatment, so this is definitely on my radar.

 

[Beowulf]

Lunar is an odd case for a jrpg franchise for me because I tried it a bunch of times and bounced off of it a bunch of times. I remember getting maybe a quarter of the way through Silver Star Story Completed on PS1 and maybe halfway through Lunar Legend on the GBA. And I played Dragon Song with cheat codes because I wanted to see how bad it got, and boy, it got bad.

 

[Paul le Fou]

I had the PS1 special editions (albeit no puppet) of Lunar SSSC and EBC and I liked them both quite a bit back in the day. I'm glad to see them getting remastered, though I too am interested in whether the script is still WD'd up or if it's been retranslated. I can't imagine them leaving in mid-90s Jay Leno-level pop culture references if they had a choice.

IIRC, it seems like they might have re-recorded the dialog and/or singing but kept the same wordings for the parts we've seen so far... which only makes sense if they're using the same basic script but had to change some of the lines. So maybe they did clean it up after all.

 

[gogglebob]

And I played Dragon Song with cheat codes because I wanted to see how bad it got, and boy, it got bad.

I need you to understand that if you previously enjoyed Lunar "lore" or cared about their world at all, it is so much worse.

 

[Pajaro Pete]

Hashtag Where Is Dragon Song

 

[Becksworth]

Just now realizing that my, the person with a Lunar Avatar, reaction to this news has so far been a "meh".

Like if I was going to play Lunar again I'd get back to the PSP one to how it played differently overall.

...I should probably change my Avatar at some point, shouldn't I?

 

[Torzelbaum]

...I should probably change my Avatar at some point...

Wait... You can change your avatar?!

 

[Aurelia]

I change my avatar every Christmas, which is why excited for the padoru avatar to return…

 

[Issun]

A+++ thread title BTW

 

[JBear]

I love the Lunar games, and I haven't played them since the PSX remakes first came out, so I'm really excited for this, even if it won't come with a lovingly hard-bound manual and a bunch of stupid tat. I can still sing the intro song and the boat song from memory. Lunar is the reason I bought a Playstation-- up until that point, I'd been an N64 stan, but a friend brought over Lunar and showed it to me and I owned a Playstation and Lunar both less than 24 hours later. (And from that point forward I ravenously consumed the PSX's wide JRPG library.)

 

[gogglebob]

Hey, this collection comes out Friday!

I will admit I am vaguely excited about playing Lunar: Eternal Blue for the first time since I got a Ghaleon Punching Doll 25 years back (IN THE YEAR 2000).

 

[StriderDL]

I am excited and somewhat full of dread since news has been so sparse. Still, The Silver Star was baby's first RPG (on the Sega CD!!!!) so I will 1000% be picking this up.

 

[Falselogic]

The news I'm seeing is that it uses the original scripts from Working Designs... Yikes.

 

[Vaeran]

Looking forward to jokes about Monica Lewinsky in 2025

 

[gogglebob]

At least the Beavis & Butt-Head joke about "hard wood" and laughing has somehow looped around to being perennial.

EDIT TO ADD: The example image is distinctly from Eternal Blue, which hasn't seen a new version since the OG Working Designs version. Did the PSP version of Silver Star have a de-Working Designs'd script? I genuinely do not remember at this point.

 

[Kazin]

Looking forward to jokes about Monica Lewinsky in 2025

Wait, did the PS1 versions of these games have jokes about that? That'd be wild because the originals came out in English long before that happened, which means Working Designs would have to have made changes to the script to add them in the late 90s...

 

[StriderDL]

Working Designs inserted many "funny" jokes.

 

[gogglebob]

I will never, ever forget how, in the middle of Alundra (also a Working Designs localization), a Zelda-like game that takes place in some vaguely medieval fantasy world, an elven dream-seer takes time out of her traumatic flashback dungeon to insult Roger Ebert.

 

[Vaeran]

Wait, did the PS1 versions of these games have jokes about that? That'd be wild because the originals came out in English long before that happened, which means Working Designs would have to have made changes to the script to add them in the late 90s...

I tried to find receipts to back this up, but while the internet at large seems to agree that Monica Lewinsky jokes can be found in Working Designs' translations, I couldn't locate a quote, screenshot or even which game(s) they appear in. Turns out I may have been inadvertently repeating a "Beam me up, Scotty" type meme.

Sorry, Vic Ireland.

 

[WildcatJF]

Per the Nintendo Life review:

Fortunately, the localisation helps keep that coming-of-age teenage snark and cheek present. Working Design’s original localisations are infamous for myriad reasons – presidential jokes, commercial references, and some unfortunate, outdated language are just some examples. By and large, the scripts are the same, with those less-timely jokes removed, but Silver Star Story gets a few more tweaks compared to Eternal Blue to help with the flow of dialogue. You'll still have to put up with lots of ahem jokes that appeal to horny teenagers, though. We’re just glad Ronfar still shouts “Happy hour!” whenever he uses a healing spell in battle.

Review: Lunar Remastered Collection (Switch) - Two Of The Most Charming RPGs Ever Get A Fair, If Flawed, Port

A Lunar landing

www.nintendolife.com

 

[Falselogic]

It's not just less timely jokes:

 

[Paul le Fou]

There wasn't a Monica Lewinsky joke, but there was a Bill Clinton joke, iirc. Also, Yikes at False's screenshots.

Also, they reeeeally should've redone the loc, but also I can see keeping it as a business decision if the idea is to grab people with nostalgia for the original wanting to replay the games from their youth. I don't agree with it, but I can see it.

 

[Kazin]

It's not just less timely jokes:

hooooooooooly shit

Yeah, these should have been retranslated. Good lord.

 

[Vaeran]

Maybe... Maybe I don't need to play these.

 

[WildcatJF]

False, are those from the original WD PS1 versions or Remastered?

Gung Ho should absolutely have retranslated the games with that shit in the original, but if some unsavory parts were cut out, would these be axed as well? Some of the horny pervert stuff is still there I've read, but I've not seem anything offensive (like the Thai line) mentioned surviving into the new release.

 

[4-So]

Apparently, Amazon is not allowing pre-orders so I'll have to wait until Friday to order it and find out.

At this point, playing old games is like watching 80s movies. I expect some bullshit and prepare myself accordingly.

 

[WildcatJF]

More on the script from RPGFan here: https://www.rpgfan.com/review/lunar-remastered-collection/

Much of the dialogue is either identical or virtually identical, and many of the jokes, even the immature ones, are still here. But it’s still tidier; they changed a lot of the offensive material, and the ’90s references are also gone. It’s exactly what I wanted—maintaining the spirit and tone while getting rid of some of the specific weirdness of PS1 scripts

Am I defending the choice to essentially reuse the scripts? No. Should they have been redone with some more cultural sensitivity and less perv? Yes. But I'd like to see if what False posted remains in the new script.