Long in the tooth, but still a fun game...in small bursts, of course.
In 2003, a game entitled, "Boktai," was released on the Game Boy Advance, and while it included some amazing stealth concepts and gameplay mechanics, the experience was hampered by a solar sensor that deeply affected the quality of any given play time. The sequel, as well, was widely received as a novel idea, but again Konami added the extra sensor that let the game be played only in certain conditions and made the once-portable game not so portable. The Japanese, in fact, made and shipped a third game that America never got. Well, finally Hideo Kojima had the balls to make a DS game with most of the Boktai elements without the reliance on the solar pack.
Lunar Knights is a hack and slash action game with elements of role playing, stealth, and adventure, and while it has some simplistic combat and gameplay, the polish is eons beyond any of the brilliant diamonds on the DS at this point. From the jazzy music to the brilliant, Kojima-flavored cutscenes, Lunar Knights is a fun reworking of an old and played-out genre made into a portable romp. Several of the gears are missing or rusty, but the rest has so much oil on it that it's a slick and fresh game for the ages.
The game's premise is simple: hit the Y button until you kill your enemy. Most of the play time is this Diablo mentality, and when the game has some strategy it seems to be giving you a glass of fresh water. The boss battles are similar to a Castlevania game where the immense enemy begins rotating attacks, and the player is forced to react to each situation, while the sneaking levels are just plain fun. The game never forces a certain gameplay paradigm, and even when there is a huge enemy around the corner, bolting away is always an option. There's also some leveling up and number management to think about, which adds a shiny coat of RPG to the mix.
This mixing makes the game a little less linear than it might compliment. With dungeons that can't exactly be called "sprawling" but branch into many different passages, the first few hours of play can be very disconcerting, where there's always an image of doubt in the air. "What if I am doing the wrong thing?" runs through each passageway and gun shot, which makes the experience a little muffled in terms of enjoyment. The game is far from hard, and although there are a few game-over screens, the trap that tripped up the player is easily solvable and only costs time. So with such an odd balance of non-strategy and non-linear gameplay, it's hardly the absolute shining beacon, but I'll be darned if it doesn't give up hours of enjoyment.
Boktai's emphasis on stealth is greatly reduced in this edition, and the game is hurt by that. The peek-a-boo relationship with enemies is all but evaporated now, and it's all too easy to just lay the hurt on instead of hiding. This makes the game less like Metal Gear Solid, which Kojima handles as his brain child, and more like another action hack; that's a shame, because the Metal Gear Solid masterpiece on the Game Boy Color doesn't work in a DS. So Lunar Knights isn't quite the same game as Boktai, which is a saddening process and yet gives the game some flavor and a nice platform to reach its own. At least they dropped the sequence where the player drags the coffin through the entire dungeon again, thank god.
Also spread out in the game are shooting levels that follow boss battles, in which the player moves and shoots solely with the touch screen. While not bad, these segments are an annoying diversion at best, and the simplicity of it makes it all the more frustrating when they usually take a playthrough or two of each level to fully understand. You simply touch enemies to kill them, and that's all there is to the combat. But you can't move your ship at the same time because it's moved by dragging the stylus around, so then you're either dodging or attacking, but not both. Then it really becomes artificial, a minor scratch in the rest of the fun, well crafted game.
The story adds a little to the game, because although it is a pretty good and has several twists and turns, the writing isn't very good. Most of the talking is rudimentary in they way it introduces characters and parts of this world that Konami has created, and while it is a well crafted plot, it isn't told in the best wording and sometimes it's just a bit cheesy. Some of it's enough, though, and these parts are the best.
A real treat that pops up about every half-hour are the brilliant cutscenes. Much like Metal Gear Solid's cinematic direction, Kojima knows how to direct the heck out of a movie: he chose the very best moments to cut to an intense, well done anime scene where this takes place. The most trivial story segments are then turned into a fast moving--abet dramatic--key in the fabric of the game. It's done with full voice acting, where applicable, and subtitles. The gamer then starts looking forward to the next one at that point, and it's probably one of the many defining moments in the game compared to any portable game out now. Each movie is about two or three minutes long, and only the unimportant section of the any frame are a little fuzzy (like backgrounds or blocks of one color). Major kudos for including these.
The rest of the visuals, sadly, lose this appeal. Konami barely improved upon Boktai's original face graphics from the Game Boy Advance, and it gives the game a feeling of something missing. Boktai had some really cool effects, and the whole thing looked like a watercolor painting, while Lunar Knights looks more like an isometric game with very little taste (which is saved from becoming by the cutscenes). Then it starts bringing images to mind of the Megaman Battle Network series, and we don't even want to go there.
But the game is smooth enough, though this is defeated by the choppy animations each monster has. In interacting with the player, visual cues are given to show what it is doing, and these are usually very jerky. A sword swing from the player is swift but sparsely animated, and does actually have a quick movement of an anime movie, which everything seems to evoke a theme of. It's a bugger that the game doesn't have an artistic vibe to really flesh out what was trying to be done here. The shooter levels have a moderately pleasing 3D effect to add to this, but those levels are so bland and repetitive that there's nothing to justify this.
On a totally different train of thought, the sound is amazing, and is the best music on the DS yet. From the jazz symphony on the front theme to the deep, well crafted dungeon themes, the speakers are almost a necessity. Several distinct instruments are used in making these beats an almost intensive quality, without being oppressive or moody. The music makes the game that much better, and with such a borderline gameplay blend and a few graphical hiccups it shines; the music almost makes it worth listening to the atrocious voice-overs.
Honestly, the stuff that comes out as voice work sounds like the development team of Lunar Knights grabbed some microphones and made the tracks themselves. From nerdy and overly earnest to overly dramatic, it's not as bad as Resident Evil, but it's laughably bad. At least the cutscene chattering is well done, with the visual, animated reactions coupled with the talking. That's all there really is to say about the cast, though, and it would have been nice to get some quality people saying "Ugh!" every ten seconds.
Lunar Knights is long to the point where you enjoyed the experience and it's done for now, but you don't plan on playing it again for a few months. A typical playthrough averages around nine or ten hours, with plenty of side quests to keep a player occupied. There's also a multiplayer mode, which isn't quite suited to a deathmatch showdown due to the Diablo style dressings. A co-op mode would have been rocking, but Konami skipped on this one.
So in the end, Lunar Knights is a fun, abet odd game for the DS. It doesn't quite have the gameplay to back it up one hundred percent of the time, but when everything does click it's a great game that any action fan would be very pleased with. If it was sure what it was, it would be a masterpiece.