Lunar Knights
2006 Konami (NDS)

In a nutshell: Some generic anime protaganist and Slash from Waku Waku 7 (so, a generic anime badass) fight vampires- IN THE FUTURE! Good game, awkward isometric play. Overall good if you liked old-school Metal Gear, but the shooting levels fall flat.

I don’t know if it qualifies as blasphemy that I never played the Boktai games. The sun sensor aspect, even downplayed in the other installments sounded too much like a pain in the ass rather than a ‘neato!’ factor to encourage me to buy it. So, no, I won’t be making extended comparisons to the Boktai series from which this was inspired. I do usually rename the heroes to Django and Sabato, their Japanese names though, just because they sound better.

The premise is the best part of the game. Vampires (IN THE FUTURE!) have rigged a device called the ParaSOL up to filter out the sun’s rays, and with that weakness removed, they swiftly take over and subjugate the mortal humans for use as both servants and snacks. As a tag-team of vampire hunters, you have to defeat the vampires (in their SUPER ROBOT ARMOR) then fly them into SPACE, to purify them in the unfiltered rays of the sun.

So that’s the idea behind all of this, how does it translate into action? It’s a bit awkward, actually. The isometric perspective combined with all the precision ‘moving platform’ sections leads to more than a few unecessary deaths- the best thing I ever did for my success was change the d-pad settings from the actual directions to well, the Q-Bert style. Trying to hit diagonals on the DS d-pad usually accidentally triggered a dash for some reason, which not only sent me off the edge of many a plaform, but dashing consumes your energy. Which by the way, kind of screws you, since either you crawl along at normal walking pace, or dash with less control while the same meter that controls your special attacks wears down.

One hero gets power from the sun, and the other darkness, which combined with the day/night dynamic of the game theoretically means you have to strategize who to use when. This is largely bull- Aaron is completely worthless once his energy is tapped out, and the sun/moonlights you use to replenish yourself in absence of items are precious few in dungeons. Lucian pretty did all of my heavy lifting, since his sword attacks don’t HAVE to have an element attached.

About that; there’s a series of elemental beings called Terrenials that you can cycle through to do various types of damage against enemies who are weak against that element. It’s a video game.You pretty much know what that means- shoot the red guys with ice, the blue guys with fire, and then earth and wind usually kind of trade off who’s more effective from title to title. Aaron/Django, as previously stated, MUST equip one in order to fire his Solar Gun.

One of the reasons I got the game was due to the hybrid nature of the gameplay- Action RPG plus shooting levels sets off flags in my brain that want to instantly compare it to some other certain game. Suckily, the shooter levels aren’t all that great. In fact, if they were all there was to the game, I’d dare say that game sucked it hard. You control your ship with the stylus, and also shoot with the stylus. You get what that means? You can’t fire and shoot at the same time. The enemies are relentlessly repetitive too- pretty much three grunts, some asteroids, and a boss character who shows up with slightly different attacks at the end. Oddly, she sounds like a cat girl, but you never really see her, which has me pondering whether or not she really exists. Schrodinger’s catgirl, if you will.

It doesn’t exactly have the deepest of plotlines, but it’s pretty fun game wise. There are a good amount of stealth segments which are enhanced by little things like being able to whistle and draw an enemy’s attention away from items they’re guarding and such. You can level up, but you never reach a point where enemies are pushovers, in fact you’re usually better off to avoid some enemies than fight them at all, like the fire and ice breathing dogs. You can quick-save within dungeons, though they always restart you at the beginning of the room or leg of the road you were in, so you’ll pretty much always have to sit through pre-boss cutscenes repeatedly if you die. Ugh.

I always consider it a pro for a game’s secret content to actually ADD to the game experience, and this game does that pretty well. It’s not necessary to find or enhance all of the weapons to finish the game, but it does make your life a bit easier. Oh yeah, and the guy who modifies your gear? He’s fabulous.

For the most part, Lunar Knights is pretty enjoyable but not spectacular. The shooting stages mar it further, and the difficulty seems to come from sticky controls almost as often as from enemy patterns or ‘clever’ obstacles. There are some nifty bits of trim, for instance, ‘common’ phrases almost all come with a voice bite (including shopkeepers’ “Welcome!” and Lucian/Sabato’s “DANGIT”.) It’s good if you’re in the mood for a Zelda In The FUTURE kind of experience. Just grin and bear with the shooter segments, and try to only use the gun kid when absolutely necessary.