The same battle on each battle speed: Normal (the original timing), Fast (the default), and Faster.
When Lunar: Dragon Song was announced, it was a dream come true for me. Lunar 1 and 2 are two of my favorite games ever made, and here was a new one. Then I played it, and the dream turned into a nightmare. It is the most disappointing game I have ever played, and not only because it's bad. Chrono Cross never lived up to Chrono Trigger either, but it was still a good game with a story of its own. Dragon Song had a legacy to live up to, and it fell flat on its face.
So I'm fixing it. Dragon Song: Definitive Edition is a ROM hack of the USA release that reworks the systems around the battle system, so that playing it feels like Lunar 1 and 2. It is an early beta (v0.1.4), and it's playable now.
What was wrong with it
If you haven't suffered through it yourself, these videos cover it better than I can:
- My Brief Obsession with the Worst RPG Ever Made (i am a dot), whose closing list of fixes got me to finally start this
- I Played the WORST RPG Ever Made So YOU Don't Have To (Nudl)
- ItsChocobose's review ("the only RPG I know where you could lose progress to a sneeze")
- The Worst RPG Ever Made. (flyann)
The short version: running costs HP, you choose between experience or items in every battle, you can't pick your targets, attacks land on enemies that are already dead, you run from battle by blowing into the microphone, battles are agonizingly slow, your healer can cast her first heal once before she's out of MP, and the MP items aren't sold anywhere.
What the patch changes
Battles
- One battle mode: experience, items, and silver from every fight. Bosses give experience too.
- You pick your own targets, on the touch screen or with the D-pad, as in Lunar 1 and 2. An attack is never wasted: if the target dies first, the attack moves to the next enemy.
- Three battle speeds, switched with R: Fast (the default), Faster, and Normal (the original timing). Party attacks and the gaps between them are much quicker, and enemies die on the hit that kills them.
- No microphone: hold L and R to run away.
- Nobody falls behind: benched characters gain the same experience as the party, even before you meet them, and gear and items broken or stolen during a battle are returned when you win.
Exploring
- Running costs no HP. It's a timed dash with a short cooldown, like Eternal Blue.
- Walking and running are 50% faster than the original, and ramps and stairs no longer slow you down.
- Enemies come back when you leave an area, not on a timer, and blue chests are unlocked once every monster in the area is beaten.
- Healing statues heal more quickly, cure status, and work from any side.
- Clearing an area no longer recovers HP and MP.
- Town and world map menus work with the D-pad.
Spells, menus, and everything else
- Spells cost about 40% of their old MP, Lucia learns them one level at a time, and Mental Gum is sold in shops.
- Select opens the Save screen, and the menus are much faster.
- Hold A to make text print 3 times as fast (it still stops for another A press where it used to), or hold B to print it 3 times as fast and advance by itself.
- Gad's Express jobs grow with your journey and only ask for items you can actually find.
- Leaving characters leave their gear behind, so you don't lose it.
- Fixes for the Underground Tunnel save glitch and a crash when a counterattack kills an enemy.
Every change is listed here: CHANGES.md
Where it's going
A lot of the systems work is done, but not all of it. I keep playtesting and fixing whatever still sucks. Next up is trimming the fluff out of enemy attack animations: the slimes and Ice Mongrels hopping back and forth several times before they actually attack, for a start.
The story is the other half. The goal is better character development and smoothing off the rough edges, including the retcons and the contradictions with Lunar 1 and 2. In the original opening, Jian's defining characteristic is that he's good at handstands. We can do better than that. A new opening narration (retranslated from the Japanese release) and a new wake-up scene are already in.
How to play it
- You need your own copy of Lunar: Dragon Song (USA). The patch contains no game data. Check your ROM's SHA-1: e5ac472b2a5de04215e54ab098c94247a88e1c08. Other dumps and regions won't work.
- Download the .bps patch from the latest release.
- Apply it with any BPS patcher, for example Floating IPS or ROM Patcher JS.
- Play it in a DS emulator, or on a DSi or 3DS with TWiLight Menu++ (tested on a 3DS). I'll test it on an original DS with a flashcart soon.
Start a New Game to see the new opening. Saves from the original game work, but a few changes only show in a new game.
Tell me what drove you off it
I'd love to hear what you hated about Dragon Song, story or engine: scenes that made no sense, characters who needed more, systems that wore you down, anything. Bug reports and feedback are welcome here or in the GitHub issues.
If you read Japanese and would like to help, I'd love to hear from you. Where the original Japanese script is better than the English localization, I want the hack to be faithful to it, instead of just rewriting the English.
The hack is built on ds-decomp (dsd) and assembled from source by a Python build. The repository contains no game data, so you can build it yourself from your own ROM. New code lives in a cave in ITCM at 0x01FF8300, which changes the arm9 autoload table inside the secure area, so the build recomputes the secure area checksum with your own ARM7 BIOS dump for real hardware (emulators ignore it). nds-bootstrap has no fix patch for this game and doesn't use that ITCM range, so it runs under TWiLight Menu++. Each change is tested with scripted runs in BizHawk, and every one is documented in docs/status.md.
Thanks to i am a dot for the reminder that this game deserved another look.
