Review
Lunar Knights (DSN)
Lunar Knights is essentially the DS sequel to the Boktai RPGs that graced the GBA with their presence just a few years ago, Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hand, Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django, and the Japan-only title Boktai: Sabata's Counterattack. The DS adventure takes many of the themes and ideas used in the Boktai games and expands on some, fixes others, and abandons the more broken ones. In a way it seems as though Konami is trying to distance Lunar Knights from Boktai, at least in the U.S., probably in hopes that it can stand as a game of its own and not rely on being a sequel. Luckily, it does.
Lunar Knights is an action RPG with the heart of a Saturday morning cartoon version of Castelvania. The game plays like something between Shining Soul and Diablo, with lightheaded vampiric themes. There are two main characters, a fighter-type named Lucian, and a "sharpshooter" type named Aaron. With both of these characters you make your way through the game killing baddies, leveling up Lucian and Aaron – all pretty standard action RPG fare. Fortunately, Konami has gone out of their way to ensure than Lunar Knights sets its self apart from other action RPGs with two gameplay systems: the Terrenial system and paraSOL.
The biggest change made from the Bokatai framework is the abandonment of the "solar" system and the introduction of the paraSOL system. The Bokatai games were unique in that they had light sensors built into the game cartridges, so being in the sunlight would change the way you played the game. For example, your weapon would have to be charged using the sunlight, so if you were playing inside or at night, you would have to be much more careful about what enemies you decided to face off against. While this was an interesting experiment, it was one that wasn't very well received. History has proven, time and again, that nerds would rather stay inside, and trying to play Boktai without sunlight proved to be frustratingly difficult. Many blame this fault as being the reason Boktai titles didn't sell as well as they could have in America, which would explain why Konami was so ready to jettison the solar system. The paraSOL system that replaced it uses similar ideas. Depending on weather conditions, there are aspects of the game that change, but now the weather conditions are more varied and based completely in-game instead of on real world conditions. The system works and makes things more interesting, and for the few (I think there's maybe four) people that really liked the old system, you can insert one of your Boktai cartridges into the GBA slot of the DS and retain some of the solar reading functionality. Depending on which version of the game you have in your DS, the sunlight will help your characters in different ways. For example, rain in the game makes it easier to find hidden items, hail storms cause continued damage to your character, and sunny conditions cause plants to grow, making new paths or secret areas accessible that weren't before.
The Terrenial system is basically a fancy way of saying that you can summon elemental monster things to help you fight. They can also power up your normal weapon attacks, which makes things a little more interesting. Each elemental is subject to strengths and weaknesses. As you make your way through the different areas of the game, ridding the world of bothersome Vampires and their minions, you are forced to have a bit of strategy as to which elemental you choose to employ.
Another aspect brought in to break up any monotony are the space flight/shooter levels. After defeating the boss vampire of a given level, the boss is launched into space (a wonderful tactic to rid yourself of anything that may be bothering you) in a "Casket Rocket". You then take control of the rocket, controlling it completely with the stylus, tapping the screen to fire the Casket Rocket's lasers (it's just as strange in execution it as it is in explanation).
Also noteworthy is the quality of the animation and voice acting. While not the best looking game on the system, Lunar Knights certainly is one of the better looking handheld RPGs, which are rarely "lookers" in terms of graphics. The colors are bright, animation is smooth, and there is a great variety in the style of your surroundings. The game does a great job of balancing dark tones with a light hearted mood, not unlike a Tim Burton film.
My biggest beef with the game are the controls. While most of them work just fine, there are a few things that are annoying to the point of being impossible to ignore. The combat controls feel great, which is the most important thing in an action RPG such as this, but the movement has a fatal flaw: to run, you tap the D-pad in the desired direction twice. Why they chose to do things this way instead of having a button you simply hold down to run eludes me. The control scheme could have easily been worked around to accommodate this. All too often you'll find your character running when you don't want them to be, or not running when you do want them to be. With the DS Lite's hyper-sensitive D-pad, things can get especially frustrating. Controls are also somewhat annoying in the flight space-shooter levels. Controlled with the stylus, these controls aren't terrible, but seem as though they would have been better off if controlled with the D-pad. In both cases, I think the biggest issue is that you don't have the option of customizing the controls. I'm sure there is someone out there who simply loves the way the game feels in every respect, but for the rest of us, a few options would have been great.
Other than some iffy control issues, Lunar Knights is a pretty great game. The action RPG is a genre with very few stellar titles, simply because, I think, it is so hard to make one that feels balanced. Often the combat gets boring and repetitive, the character development is too slow, or too fast, the story takes more of a backseat than it should, etc. Kojima Productions should be complimented profusely for putting together a game that avoids all the biggest problems that the genre usually carries, and for making it fun to play the whole way through.
Lunar Knights is an action RPG with the heart of a Saturday morning cartoon version of Castelvania. The game plays like something between Shining Soul and Diablo, with lightheaded vampiric themes. There are two main characters, a fighter-type named Lucian, and a "sharpshooter" type named Aaron. With both of these characters you make your way through the game killing baddies, leveling up Lucian and Aaron – all pretty standard action RPG fare. Fortunately, Konami has gone out of their way to ensure than Lunar Knights sets its self apart from other action RPGs with two gameplay systems: the Terrenial system and paraSOL.
The biggest change made from the Bokatai framework is the abandonment of the "solar" system and the introduction of the paraSOL system. The Bokatai games were unique in that they had light sensors built into the game cartridges, so being in the sunlight would change the way you played the game. For example, your weapon would have to be charged using the sunlight, so if you were playing inside or at night, you would have to be much more careful about what enemies you decided to face off against. While this was an interesting experiment, it was one that wasn't very well received. History has proven, time and again, that nerds would rather stay inside, and trying to play Boktai without sunlight proved to be frustratingly difficult. Many blame this fault as being the reason Boktai titles didn't sell as well as they could have in America, which would explain why Konami was so ready to jettison the solar system. The paraSOL system that replaced it uses similar ideas. Depending on weather conditions, there are aspects of the game that change, but now the weather conditions are more varied and based completely in-game instead of on real world conditions. The system works and makes things more interesting, and for the few (I think there's maybe four) people that really liked the old system, you can insert one of your Boktai cartridges into the GBA slot of the DS and retain some of the solar reading functionality. Depending on which version of the game you have in your DS, the sunlight will help your characters in different ways. For example, rain in the game makes it easier to find hidden items, hail storms cause continued damage to your character, and sunny conditions cause plants to grow, making new paths or secret areas accessible that weren't before.
The Terrenial system is basically a fancy way of saying that you can summon elemental monster things to help you fight. They can also power up your normal weapon attacks, which makes things a little more interesting. Each elemental is subject to strengths and weaknesses. As you make your way through the different areas of the game, ridding the world of bothersome Vampires and their minions, you are forced to have a bit of strategy as to which elemental you choose to employ.
Another aspect brought in to break up any monotony are the space flight/shooter levels. After defeating the boss vampire of a given level, the boss is launched into space (a wonderful tactic to rid yourself of anything that may be bothering you) in a "Casket Rocket". You then take control of the rocket, controlling it completely with the stylus, tapping the screen to fire the Casket Rocket's lasers (it's just as strange in execution it as it is in explanation).
Also noteworthy is the quality of the animation and voice acting. While not the best looking game on the system, Lunar Knights certainly is one of the better looking handheld RPGs, which are rarely "lookers" in terms of graphics. The colors are bright, animation is smooth, and there is a great variety in the style of your surroundings. The game does a great job of balancing dark tones with a light hearted mood, not unlike a Tim Burton film.
My biggest beef with the game are the controls. While most of them work just fine, there are a few things that are annoying to the point of being impossible to ignore. The combat controls feel great, which is the most important thing in an action RPG such as this, but the movement has a fatal flaw: to run, you tap the D-pad in the desired direction twice. Why they chose to do things this way instead of having a button you simply hold down to run eludes me. The control scheme could have easily been worked around to accommodate this. All too often you'll find your character running when you don't want them to be, or not running when you do want them to be. With the DS Lite's hyper-sensitive D-pad, things can get especially frustrating. Controls are also somewhat annoying in the flight space-shooter levels. Controlled with the stylus, these controls aren't terrible, but seem as though they would have been better off if controlled with the D-pad. In both cases, I think the biggest issue is that you don't have the option of customizing the controls. I'm sure there is someone out there who simply loves the way the game feels in every respect, but for the rest of us, a few options would have been great.
Other than some iffy control issues, Lunar Knights is a pretty great game. The action RPG is a genre with very few stellar titles, simply because, I think, it is so hard to make one that feels balanced. Often the combat gets boring and repetitive, the character development is too slow, or too fast, the story takes more of a backseat than it should, etc. Kojima Productions should be complimented profusely for putting together a game that avoids all the biggest problems that the genre usually carries, and for making it fun to play the whole way through.
Closing Comments
Go ahead, why let Japan have all the fun?
Knights is a very solid action RPG with some newly introduced elements that keep things interesting and separate it from the crowd. Fans of the the best games of the genre (I'm talking about Secret of Mana here, guys) will love it, fans of the Boktai games will love it, and Castelvania fans should definitely give it a try. Despite its few flaws, Knights is one of the best action RPGs currently released for the DS.
