Lunar: Sanposuru Gakuen is commonly known to series fans as Lunar: Walking School; a
fitting title as walking is something the party does a heck of a lot of.
Walk around the island, walk around the school, and walk around the big empty dungeons.
There has never been a game that sorely needed a sprint button more than this one.
But as ironic as the title is, it may have been less awkwardly dubbed Lunar: Traveling
School as I suspect Sanposuru refers to the fact that the boarding academy Iyen sits upon
a moving island that floats along the ocean currents, picking up prospecting magicians
from around the lands of Lunar.
Players of the Lunar series should be familiar with Vane, the famed magical university that
floats in the sky.
Well, Iyen is sort of Vane’s prep academy for high schoolers, and serves as the stage
for all the silly hijinks of the game’s adolescent heroines, Ellie and Lena.
Walking School is well… pretty silly.
The game begins, more or less, with a quest to retrieve a bunch of stolen underwear from
a group of rival boys (who reason that without their clothing the girls would be forced to
wash their laundry naked, of course).
I would call Ant and his gang comedic relief, but that would require the game to have a
serious side.
It doesn’t.
Each chapter just ups the ridiculous ante- one after another.
Eventually the focus shifts away from schoolyard shenanigans as the Vile tribe makes an appearance
to harass the academy.
Why they’re so interested in a bunch of horny teenagers is unclear, but for reasons
they continue to show up again and again while Iyen’s star students Ellie, and Lena effortlessly
smack a witch up.
And therein lies Walking School’s biggest short coming: the combat (like the rest of
the game) is a big joke.
Because every party member is a fledgling magician, magic rightfully becomes the focus
of the battle system.
As the characters level up they have to wander around the school searching for teachers with
new magic to impart.
If the player remembers to do this once a chapter they will always have crazy strong
spells at their disposal- so crazy that trash mods are easily felled in a single hit or
two.
Bosses of course take more, but not much.
If the girls neglect their education however, combat difficulty spikes.
The biggest head scratcher of this system though is the MP recharge mechanic.
There is no inn or church to visit, no, the characters simply stand still and their mana
slowly refills.
Which turns dungeon exploration into a pattern of fighting a few enemies before idling as
the player pauses to get a drink, play with their phone, or poop or whatever.
It’s weird that the game rewards the player for, essentially, not playing it.
Especially as this is a Game Gear title and recharging MP is a dumb waste of precious
battery power.
The game does provide a good deal of regeneration items, dungeon chests even restock, but the
item descriptions are pretty vague and figuring out what each item does is a matter of experimentation.
There’s also a crude crafting system but again, good luck figuring out which items
are used for what.
I’ll just loiter in the dungeons for the free MP gains thank you very much.
Now all that said I do want to give Walkathon credit for one of the most unique dungeon
themes I’ve ever encountered in a JRPG.
Most of the game revolves around the tiny island of Iyen, but at some point the school
docks at Shell, whereas an art festival of sorts is underway.
The theme this year is monsters, and apparently the sculptures are so life-like that they
are springing to life.
One particularly trouble-some sculpture kidnaps that one unfortunate student that’s always
getting kidnapped and the heroines dive into the labyrinthine exhibit hall to find her.
While the wall tiles are boring in that repetitively samey way that all the dungeons are boring
the general concept and monster designs are fantastic.
Which is saying a lot because all the monster designs in the game are pretty darn good.
If one were to strip away the lame combat system, and boring dungeon navigation Walking
School would make for a pretty enjoyable but short visual novel.
There is a ton of dialogue to read, and the humor is admittedly funny in a stupid charmingly
immature sort of way.
In the game’s existing form however, with all flaws considered, it’s unlikely that
more than a handful of you viewers are going to jump right up and search out this uh…
gem.
So for those you that want to avoid spoilers this is the end of the video.
Go away and good-bye.
Still here?
Ok.
You’ve consented to spoilers.
I don’t want to hear any grumbling in the comments.
But I do want to talk about the game’s ending.
What the h-e- double hockey sticks is this shit?
Ok hold on I’d better recap the plot for you: at some point in the story a magical
virtuoso, Winn, enlists at the school, is kidnapped by Vile’s resident pedophile,
brain washed, lays waste to the entire island, is rescued by the heroines, falls hopelessly
in love with Lena, and confesses his love at her graduation ceremony.
Lena then runs off to study magic at Vane with Ellie leaving poor Winn alone at Iyen
to continue his education.
Sweet right?
But after the credits the player is treated to this uh….
bonus scene… of ummm….
Winn polishing his wizard’s staff: And you thought the crude masturbation jokes
in Silver Star were all Working Design’s fault.