January 2019 Playthrough - Lunar Knights

[singlebanana]

[img width=700 height=629]http://i.imgur.com/TESZuO8.jpg[/img]

Participants
grayghost81
singlebanana
douglie007
crabmaster2000
turnaroundandrun

Checkpoints
1/1 - 1/12 - Complete Chapters 1 and 2
1/13 - 1/19 - Complete Chapter 3
1/20 - 1/26 - Complete Chapters 4 and 5
1/27 - 1/31 - Complete Chapter 6

[douglie007]

Don't know this game... I'm in

[Crabmaster2000]

I've been sitting on this for a while and havn't checked it out yet. Count me in

[douglie007]

Last copy at any GameStop within a hundred miles near me[img width=700 height=340]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20181210/7ad94ebd8a7e8a9f3dca0ac94695b0a0.jpg[/img]

[douglie007]

Well non of my DS systems are charged..

[singlebanana]

Up to Chapter 3 and really enjoying the game so far!  Mechanics are fun and one of the things that bothered me about Chapter 2 is much better now. (I'll go into this more after the first checkpoint)

[TurnAroundAndRun]

Currently up to Chapter 3 myself. Very fun game!

[Crabmaster2000]

should be starting it up tomorrow

[singlebanana]

Currently up to Chapter 3 myself. Very fun game!

Awesome! Welcome to the site and welcome to the playthroughs.

[Crabmaster2000]

Started Yesterday. I'll through some thoughts up once I hit the check point.

[douglie007]

Also just started chapter 3, haven't quit figured out the benefits of changing the weather.

[Crabmaster2000]

I'm all caught up on this one now too. So far I'm into it. That opening cut scene before you even start the game got me hyped up and excited for what I was about to play. It's got that sweet spot for me where the gameplay is quite simple, but there is just enough complexity in the other systems to keep the game from getting too stale as you progress. I'm intrigued as to the two characters/gameplay styles/night and day cycles that it has. Curious if they are going to merge together at some point or stay completely separate throughout. It took me way longer than it should have to figure out how to shoot my gun with Aaron when I first got him. Didn't realize you had to equip Toasty to get access to it so I was playing stealth mode and sneaking around for quite a while before I accidentally got it going.

The music is pretty stellar so far. Only 1 or 2 tracks I havn't cared for. My only major complaint is the space shooter level. I really disliked both how it was designed and how it controlled. Stylus controls to fly AND fire your ship contradict each other and doesn't feel very good. or accurate. On top of that when I have my hand blocking the right side of the screen while I tap and swipe I can't see approaching enemies or asteroids on that side. It's a really bad setup. Even if it was traditional buttons though I don't think this section would be very fun. It's soooo slow just waiting for things to show up to shoot. It's probably designed to be slow and easy because they knew the stylus controls weren't gonna be the best so I get it, I just don't like it. Fortunately that seems to be a very small part of the game.

During chapter 1 I felt like the game was far too generous with item drops, but I actually used a fair amount of them in chapter 2 and they seem to be pretty important now. It's kind of clunky having the crafting items take a slot in your healing item inventory and you just have to look at them to have them transfer to the appropriate inventory. Seems like a very unnecessary step I need to constantly take to make sure I have open slots for health/energy drops.

Other than the space ship stage this game doesn't really feel like it needed to be on the DS. The whole top screen could easily be added to your play screen HUD with some minor tweaks. It really doesn't add much to the experience. If they at least flipped the screens so that you always had quick access to your items/save/status/etc as well I could maybe see it, but since you have to pause to access those anyway it just seems silly. I also with they let you navigate your menus with buttons too. I don't like having to sheath and unsheath a stylus constantly. Make me keep it out or put it away!

Storywise it's incredibly light so far so not much to dig into yet.

[singlebanana]

You can actually navigate the Menu with your buttons Crabby, though I can only speak for the 3DS, since that is what I am playing on.  The 3DS allows you to use the shoulder buttons to scroll up and down the menu.  I didn't know this at first and I agree that it is annoying holding a stylus between my fingers and trying to play or having to set it down and continually pick it up again and again.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the shmup stages either, but I do like the idea of them incorporating them into the game. I've played through two so far, and other than being a little more difficult, they are pretty much the same.  The wife isn't a big fan of me continually tapping on the screen while I'm playing in bed either....  I would have liked this to be done better and maybe even a Gyruss-like style would have been pretty cool.

All in all, I'm enjoying the game. Some of the mechanics like running out of energy with Aaron constantly, gets much better in Chapter 3 and beyond, I won't tell you why, but it does. I just find it a bit awkward that you can keep attacking with Lucian without energy, where you can't do the same with Aaron; he needs a weaker melee weapon I think.

I dig the story a lot and the cutscenes are nicely done as well.  The shared inventory system is neat in the fact that you can share equipment by only purchasing it once. However, it's a little silly that you have to eqip it on each character; though I assume they may get different beneficial armor in the future.  I do agree with the crafting inventory, just let me stash it in another bag or let me pick it up as what it really is, besides "junk," and automatically transfer it to my crafting table.  I haven't done any stealth really and other than being kind of neat, the whistling mechanic seems rather superfluous.

Enjoying the game so far. In Chapter 4 and doing a little backtracking now, which I'm not sure is even necessary.  Not a fan of the climate stuff, but more on that after the next deadline ends.

[Crabmaster2000]

Hit the 2nd checkpoint yesterday. I love being able to swap between both players on the fly now. It's not just cool gameplay wise, but also thematically having a "light" and a "dark" type character who thrive under different conditions. I tend to spend a lot more time with Lucien, but I like both characters so far. Really starting to hate the inventory management in this game though. So many item drops and so little space means spending some time in that menu every 15-30 seconds when I'm in a dungeon. Thanks for the tip that I could use the L and R triggers to navigate the menus though, that helps a bit for sure.

I've put every single bonus stat into my SKILL so far and havnt touched the other two. It's making Lucien shred through nearly everybody without much trouble, including bosses. I used a TRC move on the chapter 3 bosses second form and it one hit killed him. Was pretty impressive.

The second space shooter stage wasn't any better than the first. Thankfully they aren't very long.

I'm a bit surprise at how little story we have so far considering we are halfway through the game according to the checkpoints. I'm maybe expecting an unbalanced amount of story to be thrown at me somewhere late game now to make up for it. Or maybe it's just not that style of game and it's more about the game play side of things. Regardless I've got two new elements to mess around with for Chapters 4 and 5 that I'm eager to test out!

[TurnAroundAndRun]

Currently up to Chapter 3 myself. Very fun game!

Awesome! Welcome to the site and welcome to the playthroughs.

Thanks! As Crabmaster mentioned, I also love being able to switch between both players on the fly. I am currently at the beginning of chapter 5 and running into some trouble, but I won't elaborate because I don't want to ruin anything for anyone who isn't in chapter 5 yet.