The Worst RPG Ever Made.

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flyann's plays and talks about the worst RPG ever made, Lunar Dragon Song.
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[@pseudohippie55]

The protagonist is a delivery boy. His job is to travel and delivery things. And sprinting hurts him.

[@theimperfectgod7140]

Top 10 Bruh Moments Of Gaming

[@LibertyMonk]

Having a cost or penalty for skipping encounters is an ok idea. I can see how they thought making it deal damage is reasonable. They just completely failed to account for how annoying it would be to only walk everywhere.

[@TheMightyBattleSquid]

A true underdog story

[@codyhill2311]

He runs about as well as a 350 pd fat kid with asthma and a broken leg.

[@Cr3zant]

Kojima could never make a delivery simulator as good as this game.

[@COREcasual]

They made 2 lists. The "good idea" and "terrible idea" list. After the meeting where they created the lists, the lead game dev told his assistant "take the list to the team" and the assistant grabbed the wrong list.

[@1leon000]

What a wonderful response lmao

[@asra-5180]

You're forgetting that ds games were FORCED to use ds gimmicks. Remember Phantom hourglass or Spirit tracks?

[@Pokemen396]

@asra-5180 yes but many got away with just having touch screen menu controls or a moveable map. This is just a little bit obtuse in the already massive obtuse pile.

[@asra-5180]

@@Pokemen396 the zelda games weren't as lucky

[@realperson69]

There’s a theory that they INTENTIONALLY grabbed the “terrible idea” list. Game Arts was furious at the original LUNAR devs (Studio Alex), and wanted to tarnish their legacy even after suing them out of existence in 2003.

[@mukiex4413]

Funny thing is that flyann didn't even cover the gammut. 1. Battles are DOG slow. They're so slow the game comes with 2x and 3x options and neither makes up the difference. 2. Your main character literally does like 60% of the party's damage every round, because he attacks 3 times. If he dies, you might as well give up 'til you get him back. 3. When you finally get a healing spell, it uses up 10 MP. Your healer has 30. Basically makes the spell worthless 2-3 minutes into every dungeon. 4. They KNOW the battle and healing balance is terrible because finishing the enemies on every dungeon floor restores your HP and MP. 5. It's not even "EXP or Money", it's "EXP or items that are worth basically nothing if you don't partake in the game's courier system, which basically requires you to have an open fucking wiki page to use", and the cost of new weapons and armor increases EXPONENTIALLY throughout the game. Seriously, it's insane how quickly equipment prices ramp up. 6. You don't even get to fight the last fucking boss. Instead his second in command fights you... THREE TIMES, getting bigger and more tedious to fight each time. And then the boss just kinda kills himself. Yes, I'm spoiling this. Please don't blow 20 hours on this goddamn game.

[@coreywhitaker883]

I also wasted my time playing through this as a teen. The fact that the MC doesn’t in anyway become a real dragon warrior also blows.

[@Zorothegallade-gg7zg]

Played this years ago and I definitely remember the stupid fetch quests, the even stupider "you can only get exp or item drops from battle" mechanic, and finishing the game saying "wait, is that it? The final boss just blows up his own castle and dies?" And also that part of the game where Jian loses his ability to attack 3 times until you complete a certain quest. That one was infuriating cause you couldn't even grind properly.

[@Introbulus]

And here I thought that if they just removed the ass-backwards mechanics you'd at least still have a tolerable RPG. Instead it turns out all along it was just always a bad game.

[@sunnyd6519]

raise EXPONENTIALLY are you actually telling me that RAMPANT INFLATION is an actual mechanic you have to deal with. 😢

[@jessragan6714]

Wow, and people hated what Working Designs did to the Lunar games. I'll take Beavis and Butthead references over this crap any day of the week.

[@Seishae]

I bought this game on the recommendation of a friend who thought it would be good because they liked the other Lunar games. For years I’ve wondered why this isn’t considered one of the worst games ever made. Some things you didn’t mention: - Equipment DOESN’T actually have durability, instead it has a chance to break randomly when certain enemies attack you. Equipment is so expensive and money is so hard to get that you just have to save after every single battle lest your armor break in the next encounter. - Selling items yields chump change. The real way you’re supposed to earn money is by filling “orders” for customers by collecting and turning in specific bundles of enemy drops. Every high-paying job requires rare drops to complete, and the drop rates are so low that it can take hours just to fill one order. - The battle animations are agonizingly slow. The developers seemed to realize this and made it so you could speed up battles by holding the right shoulder button, but you just end up holding it down for every single battle. My right shoulder button actually BROKE because of this game. - Enemy levels scale with your level. If you stay in the starting area and just fight monsters until you hit max level, they’ll still take the exact same number of hits to defeat as when you started. Once your healer learns all her spells, there’s no reason to ever level up again. - Enemies allegedly have elemental weaknesses, but every attack spell in the game is exactly the same: a target-all attack that kills every enemy unless they’re a boss. It would be a godsend actually, except you never have enough MP to cast more than four spells before running out. - The AI that determines which enemies you’ll target in battle doesn’t prioritize enemies that inflict status ailments, so you get poisoned constantly and there’s nothing you can do about it. - Spoiler: You never even get to defeat the primary antagonist. You fight him once in an unwinnable battle halfway through the game, and then never fight him again. The final boss is just his second-in-command. It was the perfect final insult after such an agonizing experience, to not even get the satisfaction of a rematch and a satisfying ending. They couldn’t even give you that. There should be a chapter about this game in every book on game design. It’s the most perfect representation of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. If they hadn’t tried to “innovate” so many RPG mechanics then it would have been a generic but passable game.

[@CyberchaoX]

Save after every battle? You're joking, right? See, I did beat this game. Towards the end, I outright marathoned it, sort of--I did take breaks, but only ever putting my DS into sleep mode and whenever possible putting it on the charger. Why? _BECAUSE I'D SOMEHOW LOST THE ABILITY TO SAVE THE FUCKING GAME!_ I shit you not, the final...I don't know, maybe quarter of the game, I was unable to save. Just had to keep going.

[@asdbanz316]

would be funny if there's some requirement to fight the final boss properly, but no one ever found out

[@SBaby]

This game stands right alongside Dragon Quarter as one of the most infamous examples of a game being so bad that it single-handedly sank a franchise.

[@genericname2747]

Oh my God, I misread this and thought you said that the game controls were so bad they broke your right shoulder

[@I_want_a_discount_in_life]

@@genericname2747 😂

[@matthewcoyle4131]

This game feels like someone really wanted to make a game as "realistic as possible" which is almost always a mistake. Wanna go into battle? your armor needs maintenance. Wanna fix your armor? better find something good cuz the towns folk don't really need to buy your mushrooms and twigs, wanna go fast? well running makes you tired so say good-bye to your health. I'm surprised the game doesn't have taxes or something too.

[@LeoMidori]

First of all, it's a lighthearted fantasy game, it's never really going to be "realistic" as much as "there are elements of realism here". I think the problem here is that it's a terrible combination of things that artificially lengthen the experience and take away a lot of player agency. I don't have an issue with the elements they introduced (except no wealth *and* experience from battles at once, effectively doubling your grinding) in theory, it's that they also aren't especially well implemented.

[@BJGvideos]

Gosh, "makes you tired" is one thing but this is actively harmful. "Makes you tired" can be an interesting mechanic. The Zelda series has done it before, for instance (though those aren't RPGs you get my drift). But "does damage" is a different story altogether.

[@RRVCrinale]

Imagine a Monster Hunter game that drains your health instead of your stamina when you run and dodge.

[@supernova9361]

of course it was taxes: when you buy the game and sales tax is added

[@AuroraDawnxx97]

Exactly why people who demand realism in games are clowns who should always be ignored

[@emi_is_absent]

Running taking away your health is actually a great idea... for a horror game

[@genericname2747]

I think it'd be a good mechanic for a darker rpg. One where everything is out to get you, and you'd need to choose between hurting yourself or escaping a brutal fight

[@snwoop7921]

@@genericname2747 so like fear and hunger? as in, darker rpg

[@genericname2747]

@@snwoop7921 Yes,exactly like that

[@camharkness]

Funnily enough, if I recall, the first clock tower did that

[@alphagiga4878]

​@@genericname2747I think there has to be an explanation for it to make sense

[@Flaming_Saturn]

I’ll admit that the only ‘unique’ thing about this game, is getting to choose between receiving XP or Items after battle, but even then, I’d just prefer to have both given to me after winning a fight, regardless of item rarities

[@rusticdebris8021]

I mean, maybe if it was like "You get both, buy you can choose between getting MORE XP or Rarer items" that could be cool.

[@nezharose4953]

Persona 5 kindaaaa did something similar to this. Kindaaaa, after an interrogation you get to recruit, money, items or just cancel the interrogation and go for the kill for XP. You still get money, items or xp in different tiers/value depending on the choice

[@spencerhansberry5156]

@@nezharose4953 I was thinking more like the cards from P4

[@ThonyHedgehog]

And that's regular fights. So much worse for bosses, cause you actually have to decide between a lot of XP or one-time items.

[@autumnoraki]

​@@nezharose4953 Shin Megami Tensei did it first, but Persona popularized it definitely

[@ElvenRaptor]

This is one of those cases where you really have to wonder how it finished development without anyone realizing they were making a thoroughly unfun game.

[@RockSoup]

I'm pretty sure they knew. This game reeks of "Get it done cheap and quickly and ship it".

[@KnakuanaRka]

@@RockSoupWell, if they wanted to get it done cheap and quickly, I’d expect a super-generic My First RPG or at least a copy of one of the other games and not this hodgepodge of baffling nonsensical mechanics.

[@Limpurtikles]

I remember finding this game in a bargain bin long ago (albeit not for the low price of $2). But I thought "Hey, I love JRPG, especially for the DS, and this one looks fun!" I was so wrong, for the reasons you showed here. It took sooooooooo long for me to understand why I didn't get any EXP, despite battling a lot. I gave up halfway through the first dungeon. One more thing that really bugged me, that you didn't bring up in this video, was this: WHY do you start with a character who's obviously supposed to be the healer, whose ONLY starting healing spell requires SO MUCH MP that you can't even cast it ONCE before gaining several levels? And like I said, even then you can only cast it ONCE!

[@CrocvsGator]

Funnily enough, the worst game I ever played is World of Zoo on Nintendo DS. I found it in a parking lot outside a Music and Arts. Take Zoo Tycoon. Now take out everything except some animal models. If you give the animal models the right food and toy combination, you get get stars, and then you get another animal model. Don't know why I'm bringing this up, it just goes to show, just because something is free it doesn't make it good.

[@everythingpony]

You don't know how to read?

[@KrimsonKattYT]

@@CrocvsGator I played World of Zoo on the Wii and remember liking it, though it was pretty simple. It wasn't really a sim game, more like a virtual pet sort of thing.

[@CrocvsGator]

@KrimsonKattYT I just looked up the Wii game, that one looks excellent! ....yeah, the DS game isn't that. Kind of like the reverse of the Transformers DS and Wii games, come to think of it.

[@JustJulyo]

Flyann: "Dad I want an RPG!" Father Flyann: "We have an RPG at home."

[@timroehm1728]

I freaking hate that meme!!!

[@jessragan6714]

He probably wants to SHOOT it with an RPG.

[@zachtwilightwindwaker596]

The Assassin's Creed game at home is Zorro Chronicles and that was a much better game than this.

[@Conighttonight]

More like: Father: I bought you this game, you like RPGs. Flyann: *spits in dads face* get me something better next time, I called gamestop this is cheap! 😭

[@LatteDragon]

I just saw this video come up in my feed, and you need to hear this. I bought this game when I was a child, with birthday money, 4 months after MY MOM DIED. I was a young teen still coping and grieving during my first Christmas without my mom, and was at a Best Buy late one night needing something to play because I was sad and stressed from high school and greiving. And I see this cute looking JRPG with dragon in the title, and thought it would at least give me something to decompress on my winter vacation. I played it for 1-2 hours, and the mechanics were so bad, I stopped playing and gave it away at school. I was a child seeking comfort, and I was MUGGED.

[@zoekm]

Really sad and horrible... and also a tiiiiiny bit funny..?

[@william_.575]

imagine making a game so bad that someone considers your game a robbery

[@LatteDragon]

​@@william_.575 They may as well have kicked sand in my face and took my lunch money while they were at it. This game is an exercise in futility and learned helplessness.

[@LatteDragon]

@@zoekm Over 10 years later? Yeah, it's a little funny now.

[@SeisoYabai]

@@LatteDragon Bro that was my experience with Kingdom Hearts 3, I FEEL you. Hit the lowest low of my life, only thing holding me together was the game I'd been waiting over a decade for finally releasing... Then it comes out and just pure disappointment, it genuinely broke any excitement I had for games for several months.

[@Pinefreshe78]

God imagine playing this outside on a windy day and you can’t complete fights because the wind keeps making you run away

[@Narusasu98]

😂😂

[@TheUnspeakeable]

The "Running hurts you" can be used as feature for a kind of super hard mode, but not for normal gameplay

[@MrVariant]

No idea why they didn't bother patching it, with 3:20 safe areas not having the hp penalty. Similarly, getting 5 times the experience may have been interesting, and auto healing with walking/not moving.

[@KnakuanaRka]

Half-Minute Hero also has that mechanic, but it works there because the game is all about doing stuff in a very tight time limit, so it acts as another bit of resource managing.

[@damiencouturee6240]

​@@KnakuanaRkaYeah that's completely fine, sprinting hurting you isn't a bad mechanic in and of itself, there's just zero reason for it in an RPG like this with no time limit lol. Like a lot of other people said, if they just disabled it and let you sprint in non-combat areas I don't think anyone would really bat an eye at it, after all it would make sense as sprinting nonstop would end up hurting you. It would still be kind of annoying, but in a sensical way. But in town or whatever? Nah man I don't wanna slowly walk around, realize I forgoot to repair something and then slowly walk back cause I don't wanna waste healing items, that's just bad design lol. The worst thing I heard mentioned here though is not being able to select what enemy you attack. That's literally a good 95% of what makes turn based combat work, you need some strategy, maybe take down all the weaklings and then focus on the strong one, maybe the enemy that hits like a truck really needs a debuff, you know how it works lol. That right there makes it seem like it's just about unplayable, pure RNG as to whether you win or not. Funny enough though, I wanna play this now. If only to blow on it to run away from a battle because yeah that makes sense lmao.

[@jessragan6714]

When I started Skyrim for Switch, it asked if I wanted to play in "survival mode," which sounded more like "pain in the butt mode" to me. Do you honestly think all this busy work is going to make the game more fun? I can starve in real life, I don't need to do that in a video game!

[@damiencouturee6240]

@@jessragan6714 People are different, I think survival mode is fun. It's cool having to manage resources in a different way instead of everything in your inventory just amounting to different shaped healing pots. Of course, sometimes I also like to bump the difficulty down and just steamroll everything. But then again I love souls games where you either learn the game or don't progress, it's that simple lol. So yeah, that stuff does make the game more fun. I don't like games without a good challenge 99% of the time, cause then it's just watching a movie with extra steps, like a skinner box that dispenses cutscenes. If I'm just mashing attack and winning I'm not playing a game, I'm a mouse in a skinner box lol.

[@elderliddle2733]

“I have no idea how nobody during the testing phase didn’t see this and immediately think this was a bad idea” Unfortunately in Japan, the testing departments are all a bunch of underpaid yes men.

[@raphaelpulmano2212]

Running hurts you? Bruh that's lowkey just real life.

[@Introbulus]

That's probably exactly what the devs thought - that it would be a really clever way to reflect how running around in real life makes you feel pain. And what they failed to realize is that it fucking sucks just as much in real life.

[@ThePainkiller9995]

running hurts you? how fat are you?

[@thechugg4372]

They wanted to reflect the energy of the fat nerds playing RPGs, because really guys if running actually hurts you you need to go touch grass

[@theimperfectgod7140]

If you weight 200 kilograms and have mini heart attacks every now and then... then it makes sense.

[@kris0375]

It's really not that bad

[@DoctorDisasterDracula]

Kind of a shame the Lunar Games went out like a whimper like this. The first too games are overly cheesy, but fun games.

[@Videomonstrik2]

Мне очень нравится Lunar 2/ Одна из любимейших игр, которую я рад заново пройти в любое время. Это больше, чем просто хорошая игра.

[@Galanthos]

I mean, the same team that made Lunar went on to make Grandia, so the same design stuck around for a little bit longer.

[@jessragan6714]

I think the PSP Lunar game is underrated, although yeah, the load times kind of suck. Whaddayagonnado.

[@YandereDoll]

I agree completely, I grew up watching my mom play Lunar 1 and 2 and then played them on my own. This game out for DS and I was so excited! I didn't think it was terrible at the time, but I was pretty young when I played this. Going back to it put it in perspective.

[@BranBal]

Lunar 1 and 2 are excellent! They made me so happy and so emotional Some of my fondest memories

[@Nionivek]

Not going to mention the ODDLY very specific curse that makes the protagonist unable to stand on his head? The world famous curse may I remind you.

[@catpoke9557]

Unable to stand on his head?? Am I missing something because this already sounds like something a person can't do lol

[@hrvstmn31]

@@catpoke9557 Iirc one of his attacks is a break dancing spin kick which requires him to spin on his head.

[@catpoke9557]

@@hrvstmn31 Amazing

[@DMindGaming]

The crazy thing is this looks like it could've been a decent or even good rpg but they sabotaged themselves with some really bad ideas. The story setting sounds alright (not amazing but not bad), the character sprites seems to be animated decently in and out of combat (whereas alot of NDS rpgs use still image sprites), the dialog box with the anime cg/sprite also looks pretty decent but then they just shot themselves in the foot with weird and bad mechanics like blowing into the mic to run or having to choose between exp or items as a reward after battle.

[@Jotari]

The music was also great.

[@realperson69]

0:46 Fun fact: Game Arts sued the original LUNAR devs (Studio Alex) out of existence in 2003. So Dragon Song is the only LUNAR game that did not involve the original creators. Some people suspect that Game Arts handing over a valuable IP to a small dev team like Japan Art Media signaled that they didn’t care about the quality of the product. If it was terrible, then they’d get the satisfaction of destroying Studio Alex’s legacy.

[@realperson69]

​@coldsnap5742 Studio Alex ran behind schedule on a LUNAR spinoff, and the delays cost Game Arts a lot of money (adjusted for inflation, allegedly about $1 million USD). Meanwhile, Game Arts was withholding LUNAR royalties from Studio Alex. (I don't remember the exact timeline; this may have been in retaliation, or it may have just been Game Arts exploiting their favorable contract with the much smaller Studio Alex.) This was around the time when the LUNAR Complete remakes were released, so the royalties probably would have been relatively substantial. Studio Alex sued Game Arts for royalties (and thus for proper acknowledgment of their co-ownership of the LUNAR IP), and Game Arts countersued for the original delays. After roughly six years of fighting in court, Studio Alex went bankrupt.

[@logicaloverdrive8197]

2 dollars?! I've never seen a game at gamestop be $2, even when they were still selling old gba games. Also, man I feel bad for your dad, you just wanted to get your son one of those vidya games he likes, but didn't realize why some games being cheap is a red flag

[@krimsonkatt]

I got FFXV for $5 at GameStop lol it happens.

[@logicaloverdrive8197]

@@krimsonkatt meant to say 2, my mistake

[@bretginn1419]

I've only seen a game go that cheap like 2, maybe 3 times. Once for a copy of Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt, once for Lux-Pain, and I think a third for a copy of the new Dark Alliance game shortly after it came out. I could be misremembering that last one.

[@jonw8764]

SNES Super Scope 6 $2.00 game Wasn't worth it

[@PartnershipsForYou]

There’s a GBA version of the Jungle Book game at my Goodwill for like 4 bucks. I’m not sure if I want it

[@TheStarryDawn]

Man that's so unfortunate, Lunar Legend was my all-time favorite game as a kid and I always wished that they'd continue its story

[@Vixaltain]

FOR REAL

[@Zero_Tester]

I love Lunar Legend,but the Lunar DS game is straight up a mediocrity

[@CrocvsGator]

His dad story reminds me of what my Dad once did. Except the game he got was Golden Sun, and that became my favorite game ever.

[@hoangson2007]

Except that series has a similar problem as Lunar: GS1 and The Lost Age was great, but then Dark Dawn basically hit a rock wall in the innovation side of things, because while the core gameplay is still just as rock solid as ever, and the 3D graphics and music keeps the greatness that the GBA era’s excellent sprite art has, the story dips itself on way too many cliches to be taken seriously, some collectibles can be permanently locked behind points of no return, a lot of the story threads are recycled from the GBA duology, and the difficulty is too easy until the very end, making the game just feels like GS1 and 2 without any of the charm.

[@CrocvsGator]

@hoangson2007 First off, why should the quality of a different entry in a franchise be a reason to invalidate something as my favorite game? If I said my favorite game was Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage, for instance, Enter The Dragonfly's poor quality would be irrelevant. Second, I have previously gone on record defending Dark Dawn, whilst still acknowledging it has many flaws. Yes, the points of no return are completely unnecessary, particularly as most occur in the early game. Yes, the story is stupidly bleak at timed, like Crystallux not saving his worshippers despite being in the same room makes me not even want to bother getting him. But as for the other points you brought up, this is the first time I've heard anyone say Dark Dawn was 'too easy', as myself and many others I've spoken with thought the game had too many spikes ij difficulty, especially immediately after the eclipse. And as for innovation, I'll also start out by saying that Rief is dumb and I hate him, and his pirate sister was way more interesting and should have been playable instead. That being said, I'll say that Sveta ended up becoming my favorite character in the entire franchise, not only storywise with her character are, but also through gameplay. Her werewolf combat gimmicks, in addition to her field psyenergy, did a whole lot in making the game feel fresh. If the series were ever to continue, I'd love it if they could somehow make more characters as unique as Sveta. In addition, stuff like 2 handed weapons were nearadditions, and the idea of more elements, such as light and dark, could be used for more gameplay opportunities if we ever get another game. Speaking of, I need another game just so I can finally have a proper boss fight against Alex. Let me bash his smug face in already, Nintendo!

[@hoangson2007]

Just a tip for anyone who wants to play Dark Dawn yourself: get the European version. Some of the shoddy writing are due to the North American version being rushed as the DS is nearing the end of its lifespan and the game being a sort of “swan song” for both the DS and the whole series. The European version got more time to work on the localization, due to being in the phase when NoA and NoE have separate localization departments. For example, the iconic “(character)’s (weapon) lets out a howl!” text was simplified to “(character)’s (weapon) unleashed its (unleash name)!” in the NA version, but Europe get the iconic line intact. Maybe playing the version with superior storytelling can keep your “play the game, skip the story” mentality at bay a while longer.

[@hoangson2007]

And the reason I just called the game a “swan song” for the series is because the commercial failure results in the series being mostly neglected, except for the original being included in NSO.

[@hoangson2007]

Another tip: keep a guide nearby and use multiple save slots. It’s already pretty much necessary for 100%ing the original duology, but the inclusion of points of no return means that missing one thing early on can permanently make your save file unable to be 100% completed.

[@renan-elias13]

I think I played this game on an emulator during my "crazy DS RPG" phase, thankfully I got bored after 30 minutes so I didn't suffer much.

[@MerlinCross13]

I heard this was supposedly made by people that.... didn't know how to make RPGs.

[@WombatDave]

It was, clearly, made by people who didn't know how to make RPGs

[@ArjunTheRageGuy]

Kinda like how Shaq-Fu's existence is made by people who don't know how to make fighting games cuz of street fighter 2's popularity at that time.

[@ryanmaeder9898]

Oh man this game was a DISASTER. I even beat it multiple times. You barely even covered the bits about the obtuse puzzles, how Jian losing his ability to stand on his head MASSIVELY gimps his offense for some reason, the fact that Virtue Mode doesn't even offer that great of rewards for full clearing areas and popping the chest, the pretty much lackluster villainy and one guy just marching to his death for no good reason besides shanking a boss... The kickass music... And the fact that we don't even get to beat up the main villain in the end! Also two other notes, it's not exactly 'durability' as much as it is 'enemies will break your stuff' from what I recall. And the fight with the four dragons kicked ass despite how lukewarm the game was. Still looking forward to a randomizer/improvement hack, no matter how low on the bar it is!

[@ShinyWooper58]

I just finished the four dragon fights (I am still on my first playthrough) I didn't like the "anti-handstand curse" aside from the fact that I got to listen to the boss theme of Gronk (and other bosses later) longer, since my attacks weren't so strong. Then you had to fight back to back Gronk and Zethos without saving or healing

[@Moonsplosion]

I was a huge Lunar fan, and was so excited for a new entry to the series. This came out during my freshman year of university. First time living away from home, with very limited spending money, but this was a no-brainer purchase! And it sucked. So bad. The series was struggling so hard at that point. I don't know why they didn't think to just play it safe, gain some more fan traction, and THEN do the weird experimental stuff. No, they had one chance to revive interest in the franchise. And they blew it. So hard.

[@NoleenRankin]

"This is the worst RPG ever made" -says the man who hasn't played the entirety of Spectral Tower yet.

[@chilljelloton2089]

the running thing wouldve been good if you had like. a stamia stat that lets you run safely until it runs out, then it starts hurting you. that stamia takes a bit to refill or something, with food items speeding it up.

[@flyann]

lowkey game of the year

[@Wildduckle]

Early contender for sure

[@timestopMachinist]

very lowkey

[@EnergyBurst2]

so low it sank to the other side of the planet.

[@whosaidthat84]

Century**

[@alisethera9349]

My dad never “bought” me a game I didn’t ask for, but he did do something weirder and problems not okay. He worked in the repair and maintenance section of Nintendo of America. Whenever someone sent in a console but forget to take out the game inside, he would just take it home with him. That’s how I got my copy of Smash Brawl.

[@deltadreamer1647]

Some people: wait, but doesn't that mean that he stole their ga... Me: hey! It's not stealing if the person in question was just careless with their belongings 😏

[@CoralCopperHead]

@@deltadreamer1647 You'd be surprised how many things people *DROP* and the and the frequency with which they are *DROPPED* given their high monetary value. Subsequently, I happen to find quite a lot of *DROPPED* things.

[@deltadreamer1647]

@@CoralCopperHead ah yes, I too endorse the collection and holding of *DROPPED* goods as well. It's better to keep the news of said *DROPPED* merchandise to yourself too, because the neither the police nor some higher authority would be interested in returning said *DROPPED* item to its proper owner after receiving it 😉

[@drmedicechsrick8702]

@@CoralCopperHead yes, i still remember where i found some some weird ds card whit multiple games on it, like a ds rom kinda thing, there where some bad games on it, but there was one i realy liked, wich was avatar the earth burns, the ds version is a nice rpg kinda game, and the one i spent most times whit

[@PartnershipsForYou]

Cool

[@shadestrider1033]

This made it to the west and not Mother 3. Let that sink in for a moment.

[@micmac274]

This was made by a 3rd party, not Nintendo themselves.

[@johnnyknadler1157]

@@micmac274but Nintendo published it

[@genericname2747]

There is no justice

[@leargamma4912]

Mother 3 is bad

[@genericname2747]

@@leargamma4912 Heresy

[@lordravenblade]

I’m pretty sure there was a period at the DS’s launch where every game made for it was contractually obligated to use both screens and the microphone the same way Wii games were obligated to use the motion controls even if it wasn’t the best way.

[@Introbulus]

I got this game as a gift from my oldest brother one year for Christmas, along with a different game that I don't remember. I am the kind of kid who would read the entire instruction manual for a game before playing even a second of it. So I already knew that running would cause the player to lose health. I only played this game long enough to find out if it was true, then turned it off, put it away, and never touched it again.

[@stevenvegh7964]

The original Lunar games meant a lot to me, especially Silver Star. I played them at the perfect age so they were pretty special. GameArts did a masterful job importing Silver Star and Eternal Blue giving the games so much charm and character and Lunar became something I was desperate to see more of…and then I played this. I probably only played a few hours, and never touched it again. It didn’t feel like Lunar in the slightest and the games mechanics were frustrating at every turn. Still one of my favorite nostalgic game series, those intros when you start the games bring up all the feels. It’s just sad to see the series died with this outing.

[@threethousandbees7260]

The one time I tried to run it nearly killed me, so I can't blame them for realism.

[@calemr]

Not the only RPG I've seen where running around the map is punished. Dragon Quarter, the game that killed Breath of Fire, has a constant timer. Running causes that timer to Rapidly count down.

[@gaminggoddess85]

At least DQ had a gross-cool animation of a dragon popping out of your skin when your timer was out.

[@Slaanash]

"The worst RPG ever made" ah, must be a lunar dragon song video.

[@Triggernyar]

Oh, you've only scratched the surface of the problems this game has. Warning for spoilers, but I'll get to them later and it should be masked. 1) Two save files, and the cursor defaults to slot one, even if you're playing slot two. If two people were playing the same copy, you ran the risk of deleting whichever file was in slot one. 2) On top of the experience/loot split, there's a treasure chest on each map that will only unlock if you clear the entire map while in EXP mode. Because enemies will not respawn during a timer that if you clear the entire map during this timer, the chest opens. It's not a terrible mechanic, but it just compounds the absurdity of the exp/loot split. 3) Only certain enemies can/will break your equipment. Hope you farmed the cards that prevent breaking. Also, they don't tell you which ones can or can't. That's up to you to discover! Hope you didn't care about that unique equipment piece you collected from one of the above chests! Spoiler territory: 4) They give the protag a triple attack at the start of the game, only to take it away for a large portion of the game to "relearn" it. I have no idea why they didn't just have him start out as an aspiring acrobat, rather than have him as an acrobat that loses his ability to acrobat to "curse." It mechanically just frustrates. 5) The party members are always fixed, and it makes two of the five box art characters become a question of "Why even bother with them?". They shift out as they become irrelevant. The girl who starts in your party is basically removed from it not long into the game, and the sword guy is literally in your party for a map before he runs off to just die forever. Make sure they weren't wearing anything you'd miss! This also makes any act of purchasing equipment for them kind of pointless. 6) The biggest, most egregious flaw of the game: Now picture it. End of the game, no doubts about it. So much toil and suffering through BS mechanics and long ass dungeons that you cleared out each time for experience. Maybe you got loot or you just made due with whatever loot you could scavenge. This is it! Big Bad is at the pinnacle. "Go monster!" He shouts, and you fight the penultimate boss fight, the obvious "weaken them so if they get to me I can finish them off with my multiphase epic battle" routine. This guy is a hulking monstrosity you've fought twice before each time you came close to Big Bad. You deal with him as you did the previous fights, with no other extra mechanics or phase shifts. It's time to face off the Big Bad! Oh... Wait.... Nevermind! There is no final boss. Instead he slips off a cliff and the hero tries to save him only to be told off to let him die and he dies. As if that wasn't enough, while you saved the world, you didn't accomplish the other thing you set out to do for reasons that I have long since forgotten. There is no payoff for playing this game. All that struggle for a forced morality scene that didn't have to exclude a final fight, but did anyway. The F'ing End.

[@danimals2853]

Real talk though if Flyann ever got to playing silver star and eternal blue that would be rad. Specifically the ps1 versions though, I can't speak for the sega CD originals since I never played them but I really loved playing through the games on ps1 even with the nutty localization and adjusted difficulty (which honestly makes the dungeons and bosses more interesting for me.)

[@Aupsic-hh5sy]

I remember back in the day, a friend of mine asked me to help him play this game on his DS. I was happy to help, since i was no stranger to RPGs and i used to love them (still do, but im not as patient as i used to be). Later, i realized the horrible mechanics of the game, the worst offender being having to decide if you wanted money or XP. Remembering this is really funny since my friend was almost lending me burden of beating that terrible game for him. Every time i was done with the game he used to tell me "no, no, you keep playing, its ok".

[@Gaminboi2864]

My take as a up and coming game designer. I would be fine with running costing a resource. Like it would be cool if they had a separate parameter for running, like SP (Stamina Points) along with HP and MP. Use SP to run away from slow monsters, or you could also save it for special skills some characters could have, and if you used it for running you still would have MP for magic skills. I do think that the running resource mechanic should be disabled in safe zones though, like you said. There, this way it's an interesting twist to run from monster in the overworld, rather than having the monsters be faster than you and starting a battle, the monsters can be slow. Choosing between EXP and Items actually sounds interesting, however the problem lays forth when they add durability to the gear. If they want the player to choose between GP or EXP, remove the durability mechanic. It makes it impossible to actually upgrade your party members if their gear keeps breaking. Along with that, if you feel overleveled you can get more money instead, or if you feel wealthy you can get more experience. Allow the player to chose who they are attacking, that auto-play is dumb. What is this, a mobile gacha game where you just grind the same dungeon for 1000+ times straight? Taking away choice takes away player agency, not good.

[@user-qx3jg2dk8q]

Ok, so. They made MC a courier, which means he runs a whole lot, AND they made him lose health upon sprint It's not just a bad mechanic, it's basically incorrect to the most surface lore💀

[@yokoelf1293]

When you search for a game on KZbin and the first result is a video named "The worst RPG ever made", that's not a good sign a guess.

[@Zach984racer]

Yikes. The only thing my father ever got me was Super Smash Bros melee. It sounds great, but I was an only child and never had friends close by to play with me. I literally only got to play it once a year on rare occasions when I would be at his house over the summer ,and he would have to be home to make sure I wasn't doing anything (idk, in hindsight, it makes no sense why i wasn't allowed to play games or watch movies without him being there after he got from work at 5pm.) So even with my half-siblings, we didn't get very far. I never unlocked all the characters because I also wasn't allowed to use a computer without his supervision and didn't know anyone else who played games. But hey, he tried.

[@EvyDevy]

Sorry about that. Hope u can play with others now.

[@Zach984racer]

@@EvyDevy Thanks. Things are much different 20 years later. At the very least, it got me into a bunch of other game series that I love.

[@EvyDevy]

@@Zach984racer That's good!

[@Masked_Mastermind]

When I used to play Melee, I would mostly just play through the single player modes to prevent myself from becoming bored.

[@kingcheerio8558]

What makes it worse is that every other game in the series ranges from damn good to masterpiece, and before this game came out there hadn't been a new entry in the series that wasn't just a remake in a decade. Add on that since this was the most easily obtainable title in the series and likely most people's introduction to the Lunar series just makes it so much worse.

[@pattymelt5825]

I remember getting this game at a garage sale as a kid 😂 worst $5 I ever spent

[@Zeikier]

I followed a Let's Play of this on Something Awful, and as the thread endured this pile of vomit we had some backstory from people who worked on the game and lamenting what became of something they were huge fans of. It was pretty wild, and the only character who turned out any good was the beast girl who at one point called someone "bub."

[@RockSoup]

Oh my god, this fucking game. I played this game with the mentality that the game itself was my enemy and I WAS going to beat it. Then it dumped two level 1 characters on me mid-game and I couldn't go on.

[@ignorethis214]

I absolutely loved Lunar Silver Star, and Lunar 2 Eternal Blue... this game was so dissapointing. I beat it. I spent a lot of time on it. I had fun with it, but I knew it was garbage. From the mechanics to the story, to the balance... it was a mess.

[@caoyujian6065]

"Find every copy and destroy it!" I agree it needs the Shaq Fu treatment!

[@kyuven]

The game is so recursively evil. You need both items and exp to progress in the game. Being forced to choose means you just end up grinding for twice as long. But equipment has durability and sprinting costs HP, so you end up needing more items in order to grind. Its like a fail spiral.

[@aerth6946]

Flyann Lore. Ngl though, I'd love more videos like this one. (Less trauma, ofc)

[@raina1848]

The only thing that drove me nuts was the equipment breaking all the time. It got to the point where I was saving the game before EVERY battle and having to reload over and over again with how much things broke since things got ridiculously expensive and it took forever to earn the materials to complete the jobs that gave you even a halfway decent amount of money, even with using the trade market. Most frustrating feature ever.

[@SuPeRNinJaRed]

That’s why I’ve never run a 5k because by Lunar Dragon Song standards I’d be dead.

[@SonicTheCutehog]

This game is a shining example of just because it's different doesn't make it good

[@shikabaneconga]

i feel like a simple mod taking away the damage, the farming, and the targetting..oh man

[@kanrakucheese]

Targeting would be harder, since the targeting system would have to be made from scratch. No damage from sprinting and getting both items and XP from encounters should be easy though.

[@PoPo-qp8zq]

The Hikyou Tankentai: Choutoko Special and SEGA AGES 2500 Vol.23: SEGA Memorial Selection are considered Game of the Year back then, many faithful fans still waiting for their sequels

[@orangepotato2112]

What a nice dad, shame what he did to his son 😢

[@kanrakucheese]

The concept that sprinting hurts you *wasn't even a new idea for the genre* . 1994's エデアの日 had it. The difference being 1: In that era, having a run button by default was unusual (remember the FF trilogy needed an item or ability to enable b dash in the original SFC releases, the ports and remakes are when it became a default ability and the things that enabled dashing now just increased the dash's speed further) 2: It was a very early example of showing enemies on the field instead of random encounters (predating Earthbound and Chrono Trigger) and the dash is clearly intended to be a tool that allows evading theses at a cost. 3: The cost doesn't scale (it's a fixed amount of HP, not a percent of it), and the chance of HP lose is based on a stat check. This means past early game the cost is essentially nothing 4: Since you had a DQ4-esque solo intro for most party members, this actually distinguishes them a bit (the pro athlete doesn't have issues running, but the frail psychic does). 5: It's a spiritual successor to a game that *literally* had the publisher publish an untested beta release without the developer's knowledge because development was taking too long and only became famous for how broken and strange it was, while the aesthetic deliberately weird. Weird ideas are to be expected in such a development.

[@ulforcemegamon3094]

The cost doesn't scaling and that the HP substracted is based (aside from a status check) in how "physically fit" the character of the party are does sound like good concepts

[@wiiwii2964]

The SaGa games had overworld enemies as early as RS SaGa 1.... why am i commenting 6 months later?

[@MidBoss666]

This game hurts me, cause I really liked the previous Lunar games, especially Lunar 2.

[@7th_Heaven]

why the triple six in the username? why do FLOCKS of immature people on youtube in the last four years think they are cool putting triple six in their username? my gosh! It's like they are fake accounts or immature kids breaking age restrictions. Intentionally trolling the waters for endangered species to molest; yangzhi river dolphins. Baby blue whales. to fill the holds of their false ships' comment sections. people treat that number like it is 888 or #23, 32, 33, or 34 in the 1990s basketball. They act like there is power in it that by displaying it will channel to them success. It is unoriginality and false emulation. An attempt to represent evil not good. It stands for accusation and bondage. Incompletion. Rending of root and branch, and loss of progression, not power. You can do better. I know. We are both Gen1

[@THEFRISKIESTDINGO]

When Ubisoft jumps on a game to publish it you _know_ that’s some primo dogshit that’s gonna make some tax shelter money in Germany.

[@PowerPandaMods]

I was living overseas, and taking the bus for about an hour and a half each day. When my roommate went back to the US for a family event, I sent him with money to buy a DS. I could only afford one game, so I chose an RPG, and you know where this is going. This was literally my only game. It was this or staring out the window. I chose to stare out the window. Fun fact: the sound of a bus engine is loud enough to activate the microphone trigger, so I had to cover it up with my hand in order to battle.

[@theozziepotato]

I don't actually understand how it's possible to make a game this bad. It doesn't even seem that lazy, it's like they tried, but were so full of themselves that they didn't test it to see if anything was good.

[@jmarx3943]

I know this is an old video, but thank you for covering this monstrosity the way it deserves. I'll never forgive this game for killing the chance for any new lunar games.

[@EnergyBurst2]

This game is hands down the worst game I have ever beaten and it's not even close, the story really isn't very good in my opinion and all the terrible design decision they made just compound to make it a terrible experience. The part about equipment breaking is true, but what he didn't say was that, at least from my experience, it's not every enemy that breaks your stuff, its only select ones and the chance isn't actually that low that they do, so it basically comes down to you gambling with fighting those enemies to whether or not your hard to replace gear gets rendered useless. On the topic of the selecting EXP or items he made it sound like you choose this at the end of the battle, but no this is a mode you have to toggle on the field before you end up in battle and that's not even the only difference between the modes, the EXP one (I think it was anyway) actually kills the enemy on the map permanently so long as you're on that map whereas the item one allows the enemies to respawn elsewhere on the map, and they don't tell you this anywhere you gotta figure it out and the perma killing of enemies is incentivized by the fact that hidden on each map ( or most at least it's been awhile so i could be wrong about the every part) screen with enemies is a chest that is hidden and only opens once every enemy on the map is dead and these chest usually have items you can't get until a good while later in the game or anywhere else in a few cases and that's pretty cool on the surface, but then you remember the enemies that can break your stuff and you don't know which ones can or can't until it happens and you lose that cool weapon or armor and suddenly you can't replace it and have to downgrade. Also the running depleting health thing being a problem is compounded by the fact that none save point healing is pretty rare in the game and MP healing nearly non-existent for much of the game save form those special chest i mentioned so even the brief time in the game where you have access to healing magic your restrained by how much you can use it and when to which wouldn't be bad in a game with more normal systems in place, but this is Dragon Song where running costs HP and suddenly that restriction on healing becomes all the more of a pain. Now this all is a struggle and as said in the vid you get money through the enemy item drops, but he didn't touch on exactly how that is, you'd think that selling the drops themselves as being the best route but no, if you recall Campbell is a delivery boy and as a delivery boy you get money by doing your job and that job requires grinding out certain enemy drops then running to somewhere else in the world to deliver it and the amount of money you get isn't even that good per job when you compare it to how much equipment and healing items cost, but is still better then selling the drops alone by a good bit, making it a grind fest to actually buy your own gear, however those special chests I mentioned with good gear are your ticket to skipping the grind and is the only real reason I managed to brute force my way through the game alongside some of the stronger enemy cards. Now that the general stuff is outta the way I'm gonna talk about the 2 worst things that happen in this game and this part is * *SPOILERS* * for any who have read all this and still want to play the game or just don't want to be spoiled on the story for some other reason then stop now, with that said lets get on with it. So as has been said you start with your healer which is pretty nice and generous for an RPG to do normally right? well that's because they plan to rip her from you permanently for the rest of the game not even a third of the way through and this sucks, but they make of for it some by soon giving you a really string party member that has an all hitting AOE spell which is definitely a nice consolation for what they did, but still doesn't fully make up for it, HOWEVER not even long after you lose you healer you have to do a small boss gauntlet and what is your reward story wise for doing so? The king of the Beast men seals your character's acrobatic abilities so now instead of Campbell attacking an enemy 3 times in a row per turn, he only attacks once, so not only did they neuter your sustain they also just killed your offensive power and this remains the case for about the next 3rd of so of the game which is just terrible design choice, like sure you get the beast girl to finally give you another part member that can do damage since healer girl sucked in that regard, but like come on your really gonna make her come off as strong gameplay and story wise to players by stripping your MC whose method of operation we've spent about a third of the story getting used to and who's strength was balanced by the fact he can only attack ground units and then you start making him fight as though he's an unskilled village kid NOW of all times while still leaving him with that weakness? Eventually through means I no longer remember you get back your triple attack, but by that point the damage is done. Now you may wonder how I was even able to stomach going forward more in this game when gearing up and making money and healing is so hard and the game itself is trying to keep you down and the simple answer was boredom, the enemy cards in0battle effects, and the fact I'd come that far and the special chests being the only things that made me able to continue forward however there's also the fact that if you recall the 4 dragons mentioned in the vid, yeah you gotta meet them all eventually and after the 1st one the game starts opening up to you and you can finally make use of the MC's MP bar that's been mostly useless until now cause you get a ring from each dragon for an elemental spell version of the Beast Girls ability, it does have the downside of eating your accessory slot, but the ability to hit aerial enemies with more of your party members makes it worth it, trust me, since prior to the dragon rings only 1 party member you have will be able to target fliers without spending MP and even then due to the inability to choose who your party members attack ( which really really sucks when you see one of the breaker enemies in an encounter as you cant focus them down to save your equipment, you just gotta hope and pray your equipment doesn't break before the AI gets around to killing em or get lucky and have the party all target it immediately like you'd have done which is very rare) they often times wont even target the exceptionally dangerous flying enemy you would have liked them to and the other one has to use their skill which does cost MP giving it limited uses. I will also say the story was forgettable and once you get to the dragons part it feels like the game just runs outta steam especially after you get the 2nd ring, like the end battle was so .... sudden like it felt like I beat the last dragon dungeon and was going straight there to the bosses tower and killing him. So yeah, that was a lot, but on the whole it's a terrible game and this video only touched on the surface level. DO NOT PLAY IT unless you really want to say you beat every Lunar game or something in which case God Speed when you get to this one you unfortunate soul you.

[@EnergyBurst2]

Oh and on the topic of the fleeing mechanic, which I'd forgot to mention, is that BECAUSE it is linked to the mic and if your mic is starting to go bad or your on something like a bus you can run into the issue of running from battles you intended to fight, like at one point my DS lite made me auto try to run from every battle if I wasn't in a quiet room which was awful.

[@user-wk3on9mt7f]

"Hoshi Wo Miru Hito" (aka "Stargazer") "Last Rebellion" Here are actual contenders for "worst RPG ever made". The first has been dubbed the "Legendary Shitty Game". The second caused the president of NIS America to apologize for releasing it in the US and comment that he felt sorry for their customers.

[@DanielTomilson]

Worst part was how it punishs you for grinding, if u don't kill everything the first round (which most if the time u can't), on my playthrough there was like a 20% chance a very expensive item on your character woupd be destroyed when the enemy monster attacked you. I had to save like every 10 fights to keep a state where I didn't need 5-10 hours to get back the item that broke.

[@Unguided]

You forgot to mention how Jian gets cursed partway through the story and loses his triple kick.

[@justforlawlsandtrolls]

FINALLY, Yiik has some good competition! It was starting to get old!

[@KertaDrake]

This game repeatedly broke me, and I gave it some REALLY good tries. I kept running up against an inability to acquire healing and cash to maintain weapons to actually proceed along the plot. I could grind and end up with a net loss, or try to plow through and end up with a game loss because the balance was all f'd.

[@MogDog9]

I bought this game at launch being a fan of the Lunar series and god was it awful. It's like they learned no lessons from any RPG before it or thought about the player experience at all. I mean imagine fighting a boss with minions that you just have to hope your characters will attack. Its like they set out to make a game for a younger audience and simplified things to the point of obscurity.

[@DrGandW]

I wasn’t sure what to expect when going to the comments, but I didn’t expect the video to only be scratching the surface of what is wrong with this game

[@brianstrater4833]

I remember buying this game and being quite annoyed for all the reasons mentioned in the video and put the game down, but years later i came back and finished it but I remember very little because I turned my brain off. The game goes from annoying/difficult to annoying/easy if you abused cards... and by abusing cards I mean there was 1 enemy in the entire game that shows up early (in the second area i think) and gives you a full party heal restore card (or something to that effect), so you just farm a bunch of this one card from the enemy and you'll practically be invincible, none of the hundred or so other cards in the game matter. Heck your two other party members are just useless, you don't need a healer girl if you have infinite full heal cards, so she just wastes your time on her turn because her attack is garbage, the other party member I think was a cat girl with high speed and always went first but garbage stats so she'll never kill anything, but with her speed she just becomes your item mule healer. That's all I remember, don't even remember the final boss.

[@ccheart8574]

I owned this game! It was one of the very first games I got for the DS. My mom got it for me because I already had and loved Lunar Legends. The thing I hated the most was being unable to pick what enemies to hit.

[@Bibi-lt6qh]

the blowing to run away was probably part of the devs contract ik many early ds games were contractually obligated to use each feature of the ds

[@ninjacat230]

is it really a lunar game without FMV cutscenes? even the GBA game had them, sorta, and I know the DS can do FMV

[@Manas-co8wl]

It.. hurts my soul that "Lunar" and "The Worst RPG" has no choice but to coexist in the same sentence... But that's what this atrocity of a game has led to apparently.. and harm an otherwise what is possibly the best RPG series..

[@givecamichips]

Speaking of running hurting you, in Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song running from battles costs LP (Life points). Not HP, the thing you lose by being hit and can heal with items and magic, but LP, the thing where if you lose all of them you literally die. It costs 3 LP from one person to run, and most characters have around 10. It costs around a third of your life force to escape from one battle. EDIT: You can spend the LP cost on any of your 5 party members, and there are a handful of characters with 16 or so LP, so you can mitigate the burden with careful team construction. On the other hand, powerful magic and unarmed attacks cost LP too, as well as some special weapons in place of durability, so it's more of a high stakes resource management game than the punishment shown in this video.

[@gaminggoddess85]

I'm not sure if this is a remaster-specific feature or not, but when I did my first ever playthrough in RS:MS Remastered as Gray I started with a smoke ball pouch item in my inventory that, as long as it was equipped to a character, let me run from battles without spending anyone's LP and could be replenished at inns or apothecaries.

[@givecamichips]

Yeah, they added the smoke bombs in the remaster@@gaminggoddess85

[@givecamichips]

@@gaminggoddess85 Yeah, the smoke bombs are new for the remaster. They even disappear if you choose the "Additional content off" setting. Pretty neat and fairly inoffensive to the game design, but it does allow you to cheese the dinosaur egg quest easier in the early game. (Not that it was too hard; Galahad's beefy 18 LP pretty much guarantees its possibility.)

[@gaminggoddess85]

@@givecamichips I might have done the dinosaur eggs before I realized how the smoke bombs worked lol. I just tried to get their models caught up on each other in big rooms and hugged the walls on tight corners which sometimes got them stuck. Easy 5000 gold for me 😎 Doesn't matter now though since I fought too many enemies (in my defense, how else was I supposed to level up the Falcata?) and got the event rank maxed out long before I was ready to end the game and now I'm stuck on Saruin's minions in Quietus 😞

[@givecamichips]

@@gaminggoddess85 Yeah, the 3 Minions are always BS. It's the hardest non-optional fight in the game. I only beat it by getting lucky with them targeting my equipped elemental immunity Fatestones. And I've beaten them on 4 different files.

[@Bulbasaurdude]

Damn, and I remember beating this game as a kid, at one point Jian even loses the ability to do the triple kick and only does 1 kick instead. 💀

[@aheadsounds2522]

running as a recorce you must spend for a downside actually seems like an intresting mechanic in a game. It could work well in certain games i think if implimented well. I don't see a lot of games that really would limit your movement and it actually sounds like it could be good.

[@kanrakucheese]

1994's イデアの日 did just that. It was an early example of a jRPG even having a dash button (that you didn't have to unlock, unlike the SFC release of the FF4-6 trilogy), and an even earlier example of a game showing monsters on the dungeon map instead of random encounters. The obvious implication is that dashing is a resource to be spent wisely bypassing these encounters. The cost also doesn't scale and is minimal past early game.

[@TheMistermastermario]

the Half Minute Hero series does this, although in that game it makes perfect sense because you're always under a strict time limit, so the act of running around is given a cost to make it sort of a risk/reward dynamic of doing so.

[@behavey]

it was a tall claim but you were not kidding omg. cannot believe they let this past the drawing board

[@schadenfreude6274]

This is what happens when your Boss tells you to do something and you are too scared to tell him he's wrong. Most Japanese companies are like this. When your Boss tells you to do something, you're not expected to grow a brain and actually think if it is correct. You just follow and do whatever he wants, work until 1am, go drink alcohol until 5am and go back to work again at 6am to continue to work. 🙂

[@beardalaxy]

This game has every bad game design mechanic and then adds some I've never heard of before.

[@LuccaRPG]

The plot is worse than you think. Lucia is the name of the female protagonist of Lunar 2. Right down to the spelling. There's sooo much they could have done with the whole human/beastmen plot , but they don't. And Lucia's whole plotline is a hash for rehash of Luna's plot from Lunar 1. I hate this game. Hate. Lunar shouldn't have ended this way.

[@attackofthecopyrightbots]

ive actually seen stuff like that where you lose health but never in a rpg closest thing is dragon quarter

[@gojibbq]

even as a ten year old child i knew this game sucked. i still powered through, because i was a kid and kids are stupid and assumed it was Just Supposed To Be Like That.... god, though, the ending was such a nothingburger that even after all that effort i took to complete the game i just sat there wondering if i'd missed something

[@robinthrush9672]

Zelda: Spirit Tracks also uses the microphone blow "feature" for its musical instrument. So frustrating to try to blow notes when my face is too close tot he screen to see the cues and I look like an idiot blowing into my 3DS.

[@FlintDragoon]

"maybe the devs didn't intend for you to lose hp while running in cities" no they fully intended it, i'll give you two reasons first reason if you hit the start button in a city built in guide states is drains 1/3 of your hp second reason, there are free heal statues plastered all over the place, that's also in the built in guide. the blue chest are just extra healing. if that wasn't enough you also get cards which give you anything from running away to healing hp or mp i learned quickly this game loves to inflict statues effects on you, but it's a non issue once the battles over.

[@evaboeglin5690]

Bro I’ve been talking for ages about how LDS is absolute dogshit. It’s like the devs had a contest to see who could come up with the most awful game mechanics. Also why do new party members join at level 1 with dogwater equipment??? They’re useless when you get them. I love DS and GBA JRPGs but oh my god this game is an atrocity.

[@Edward-bm7vw]

I was so beyond disappointed with this game. I loved the Lunar series and this entry just completely ruined it. WHY did they think this was a good idea? Why couldn't they have gone the traditional route that was already established?

[@sasha1mama]

I have a copy of this - I was with my grandmother in WalMart one day a couple towns over, and I saw it and had to have it (blame Gabryelle on the cover there; I was big into catgirls thanks to FFXI). Bought a DS on the spot; granny was understandably frustrated at my impulsivity. I feel bad about that, in hindsight. And yeah, the mechanics in it were jank AF, I know this now, but back then I didn't care much. Now I understand that most of it was down to the devs experimenting with unorthodox ideas, and there's nothing wrong with that - it's how we learn. Music is still pretty good.

[@renakunisaki]

A good artist (ie a good game designer) knows how to follow the rules. A great artist knows how to break them. These folks did not know how to break them. They evidently just broke rules at random to be unique without understanding why those rules existed. I love that not only does running drain HP, it apparently has no obvious damage animation. How many kids didn't even realize it was happening?

[@bakabunny788]

Before Dark Souls was even a thing, this game tried to be the Dark Souls of JRPGs, only to be the E.T. the video game of JRPGs instead.

[@ZoobiethePopplio]

"Running hurts you" So, like real life?

[@carloscatarino7890]

In most RPGs you aim to level up so you can become stronger and beat stronger opponents. In this RPG, you aim to level up so you can have more HP in order to sprint longer.

[@drengnikrafe]

This game was the first game from my entire childhood that made me realize. Sometimes it's better to not continue a video game because it's not fun. Fun fact. In the back half of the game you get an airship! You can use it to instantly travel between towns and do infinite courier quests and print money. And in spite of doing it through menus and instant travel, it still takes a painfully long time. But at least it obsoletes fighting to gain money.

[@Rutawind]

Anti-Player Mechanics: The RPG

[@ShiroMatrix]

Nice! I saw the title of your video and thumbnail text, and immediately was guessing and thinking, "Lunar Dragon Song?" I was pleased to see I was right.

[@ericthered1154]

I was devastated with where they took Lunar. So much potential wasted

[@ElvencloudYT]

On the polar opposite, I once bought the Mario + Duck Hunt combo cartridge for 15 cents. I feel like I hit the lottery after watching this.