Too stripped down and as such the game experience isn't even close to the PS1 or Sega CD version
For starters, the game is far too easy and will not even challenge beginners, so much so that playing the game becomes rather boring. This is not helped by the gross simplification of the battle system, where the strategic positioning element of previous Lunar games is completely taken out in favour of traditional old-school RPG combat where the characters are rooted to the spot, a definite step backwards. True the in-battle graphics look prettier, but at the expense of gameplay and strategy and thus involvement. The extra 'special attacks' may also look quite nice, but there really is no need for them given the game is easy enough already. You could literally beat the game just by closing your eyes and pressing the button for the 'attack ' command during battles.
Furthermore, the game's storyline and text content really suffer in the scaling down. Part of the appeal of the US versions of other Lunar games was Working Design's witty translations, where instead of always literally translating every word, they took the meaning of the whole sentences and reworded them to 'flow' better in English and make more sense to a Western audience. Whilst some may have hated WD's pop-culture references, and whilst seeing Lunar with a new translator may have some appeal, a lot of the fun in Lunar was seeing the reactions of the characters, whose personalities come over stronger in the PS1 and Sega CD versions than here, and also discovering the huge amount of well written text and story development in the game by talking to different NPCs at different times, a huge amount of which has been cut for this GBA version.
Although it may seem that I am comparing Lunar Legend too closely to previous Lunar games, as a game in its own right it still falls short of the mark and is far from being one of the best RPGs on the GBA. It's a perfect example of how sometimes a CD-based game does not fit well on a cartridge. For Lunar novices I would recommend either of the Lunar games on PS1 before trying this (or indeed the Sega CD originals, particularly the second one which is arguably the greatest 16-bit RPG of all time!), as Lunar Legend really is just a shell of its predecessors. For people desperate for a new GBA RPG to play, you might want to give this a go as it retains some of the charm of the originals, but don't expect too much from it.