Welp, I finally finished LUNAR 2 on Sunday! Or was it Monday? Either way, I finished it!
I really do love this series, and I wish that it was picked back up. My only fear is that they would change up the gameplay too much, which I dunno, I find the current system charming. Dragon Song was far too different and lost a lot of what made the previous LUNAR games so good.
I originally meant to just write out a few plots / story beats / combat elements that I'd like to see, but it quickly evolved into a full-fledged fanfic plot. I'm sorry, and you don't have to read it, haha...
So here's my thought on a potential sequel story...
First, some background: SILVER STAR HARMONY's prologue explored what it called the HERESY WAR, which was the adventure of Dragonmaster Dyne, Ghaleon, Mel de Alkirk, and Lemia Ausa. This new scenario showed their final battle against the FIVE PRINCES OF THE BLACK STAR, eldritch horrors that were allied with the villain EIPHEL to steal the powers of Althena. As we know, this adventure ended with Goddess Althena becoming human and leaving the world without a proper deity.
The story picks up 300 years after Silver Star and 700 years before Eternal Blue...
It follows a blue-haired warrior, GALE, who is serving in a backwater outpost on the edge of the FRONTIER. His best friend is the prince of the now-nation of Pao, PRINCE ERRANT GRAY, a trouble-maker that often gets the two into trouble -- which is soon revealed to be why the two are being punished and force to serve in this backwater location. Errant is a capable swordsman and more skilled than Gale, but he is arrogant, selfish, and while not evil, he isn't a very good friend.
Rumors have been circulating that mysterious masked figures, called SCIONS, have been visiting various kingdoms promising wealth and magical artifacts in exchange for political cooperation. One of these figures, the SCION OF EHTRIC, has come to the Pao nation and is meeting with KING ZEPHYR GRAY.
Through a series of events, Gale and Errant end up back in Pao's capital and Errant steals a magical relic from the Scion. He force Gale to try it on, and it's revealed to be a magical ring that binds itself to Gale's hand. The ring allows Gale to summon a magical black blade at will and grants him new sword art skills that make him a powerful swordsman - even better than Prince Errant himself. However, King Zypher, tired of their antics, sends them out of the kingdom and to the magical city of VANE to find an enchantment to remove the ring.
After leaving the nation of Pao, the two pass through the FOREST OF ILLUSION and get separated by moving trees of the forest, and Gale finds an abandoned laboratory. Deep within it he finds a beautiful, sleeping woman with jet-black hair, who has been frozen in stasis for centuries. Gale awakes her to learn her name is AMARIS, but she has amnesia and remembers nothing about herself. She also hears a mysterious hears a song that is calling out to her. Gale convinces her to accompany him to Vane, and upon leaving the forest they find Prince Errant, who rejoins the party. He expresses jealousy that Gale has both acquired a powerful magic relic and a beautiful woman.
The trio is accosted by the Scion of Ehtric, who demands both the magical ring and Amaris. He expresses that "the ring was meant for someone else, King Zypher." Since the ring cannot be removed due to the enchantment, the Scion attacks them to take off Gale's hand instead. Despite the party's best efforts, their power isn't enough to defeat the Scion, and they are defeated...
...before the Scion can strike Gale down, however, the trio is rescued by a mysterious, WHITE-HAIRED WARRIOR. He defeats the Scion (who escapes) and warns that both Gale and Amaris are in grave danger. He is annoyed that Gale woke Amaris up, and has been trying to protect her "for ages" so she could awaken her latent powers. He expresses that Amaris' powers will one day be needed to stop the Scions, who are actually evil, corrupted men serving the Five Princes of the Black Star. Last, this mysterious warrior encourages Gale to get to Vane quickly -- he worries that the the powers of his magical ring come with a terrible cost. This white-haired warrior (who is later revealed to be Nall) then runs off on his own mission.
The group makes a pitstop in ILUK, where they meet a beautiful inventor named FORSS ALBRIGHT. Forss joins the party and uses her inventions to essentially create magic-like effects. Despite not having any actual magic ability, she is the spellcaster in this journey. Forss builds them a hot air balloon to hasten their journey to Vane, but the journey is short-lived and they end up crashing in the MERYOD SWAMP.
After reaching the sinking village of MERYOD, the group meets another party member, FALION AUSA, one of the two premiers of the MAGIC GUILD of Vane. He explains that his father, the leader of the Magic Guild, recently died and made his two young sons their new leaders. Falion has very limited magical ability and has no interest leading the Guild, so he ran away from home. Despite these events, he agrees to help the party travel to Vane.
The party has several other adventures while traveling to reach the Magic Guild of Vane. Now a complete party, we have Gale, our sword-wielding hero; Amaris a mixture of healing and attack spells; Prince Errant a physical attacker with both ranged and non-ranged attacks; Forss, the technology-wielding "battlemage"; and Falion, a physical attacker with a few power-up spells.
They eventually reach Vane, where they meet Falion's twin brother, LUMOS AUSA. Lumos was worried about Falion and begs him to come home, as they are stronger together, but Falion refuses. Regardless of events here, the Magic Guild's council are able to study Gale's magic ring and reveal that the ring is made ancient magic from the Dark Star and the ring cannot be removed without the powers of the four dragons... which we learn have been missing from the world since the events of Silver Star.
Thus, the heroes are forced to try and locate the four dragons. The party first travels to try to find the White Dragon. On their travels, the party continues encountering the evil Scions, who are revealed to be gifting similar powerful relics (with dark secrets) to the leaders of Meribia and other countries. The goal is that the artifacts gifted to the leaders will eventually corrupt them and turn them evil, and no nation on LUNAR will have leadership that can help rise to stop the Five Princes of the Dark Star when they enact their evil plot. While on these adventures, the Scions try to recruit Prince Errant, who has slowly been harboring a growing jealousy over Gale. In Meribia, they eventually succeed, and Errant turns into a villain and leaves the party.
Upon finally crossing the ocean and reaching the White Dragon Cave, they find no sign of a dragon and decide to find either the blue or red dragon. It's a small branching storyline with only slightly different events, but regardless, their efforts are ultimately in vain, and they fail to find the other dragon.
Feeling confused and frustrated at the disappearance of the four dragons, however, they end encountering the white-haired warrior again, who reveals himself to be the white dragon, NALL. Nall explains that after the events of Silver Star, the dragons lost their powers and were forced permanently into their human body forms. Thus, the Nall of this game is currently just a normal human without any of his transformation abilities or magical spells. He joins the party (replacing Prince Errant) and explains that if they can find the four dragons and take them to the fifth STAR DRAGON, they may be able to harness the powers of the Blue Star (where Althena's lingering magic is slowly healing the planet so that humans may one day return) and revive the powers of the four dragon's.
The party ends up tracking down the blue dragon, CYAN, who is happily living life as a human in Meribia. They then manage to locate the red dragon, AMELIA, who is also living as a human (and is guarding a red dragon egg - hinted at being baby Ruby). Amelia explains more about the nature of the dragons and their offspring. She also explains that the black dragon, RUBEUS, died at the Grindery during the events of Silver Star. No black dragon has been seen since, although per the nature of dragons, a replacement dragon would have been magically created before Rubeus had died.
Nall and Amelia then reveal that the shadow dragon has been with them all along: the black dragon is actually Amaris, who was hatched/born before the events of Silver Star and was being studied (in her human form) by the evil scientist, Taben. However, Taben was defeated and his hidden laboratory was lost in time, Amaris with it. This explains the song she has been hearing since awakening - it is Luna's song from Silver Star, and it is the magical song of Goddess Althena guiding her to embracing her dragonic heritage as the black dragon.
Having found all four dragons, the group locates and then climbs the Star Dragon Tower, where the Star Dragon challenges their dedication. Upon defeating him, he explains that he can create a bridge to the ruins of the Blue Star, where they may be able to find the lingering magic of Althena they need to revive the powers of the four dragons.
Just before they use the powers of the Star Dragon to travel to the Blue Star, the evil infection of Gale's magic ring is revealed to have almost entirely consumed Gale's soul - they're almost out of time!
They nevertheless travel to the Blue Star and explore the ancient ruins of a city that is very, very similar to modern-day Earth (it may even be Earth, who knows). There they are confronted by Prince Errant, now evil and imbued with dark powers from the Five Princes of the Dark Star. They manage to defeat him, however; the Five Princes then take back their power back from Prince Errant and belittle him, calling him weak and feeding his insecurities and his rivalry to Gale.
The party finds a crystal garden created by Goddess Althena when she left the Blue Star, where her lingering magic is slowly healing the Blue Star so that humans can one day return. They pick a crystal flower that contains her power and return to Lunar via the Star Dragon's power. Prince Errant begrudgingly goes with them.
Back in the Star Dragon Tower, Gale and Amaris attempt to use the magic of Althena to revive the four dragons, but find that the magic still isn't powerful enough to break the seal, only weaken it. The seal is weakened just enough so that Nall gains a few new battle abilities. Regardless, the four dragon's powers are being blocked by the Five Princes of the Dark Star, and thus the Princes must be defeated entirely - without the powers of the four dragons.
Before they can make their next move, however, Gale finally succumbs to the evil ring and collapses, before awakening as an evil Scion, now-imbued with powers gifted to him from the Five Princes of the Dark Star. The party fights him and tries to talk him out of it, and it is only with the combined efforts of Amaris and his friends that they are able to give him the strength to overcome the evil curse. Through the power of friendship and love, Gale is able to overcomes the darkness, focus, and...
...he chops off his own arm, severing the infected arm that wears the ring. This sacrifice causes the evil ring to lose it's power entirely. Prince Errant, still consumed by his own insecurities and wanting to regain the favor of the Dark Princes, betrays the party yet again and kidnaps Amaris and takes her to the Five Princes.
A short time passes, and Gale is despondent, thinking that he is weak and useless, and that he has failed Amaris. He has also lost his battle prowess and sword with the loss of the magic ring. However, his friends come to him and reveal that they have built him a new, mechanical replacement arm. This emboldens him, and despite his lack of ability, he resolves to save Amaris and save the world. Proud of his resolve, the Star Dragon then gives him a dragon relic of his own: the Ring of the Star Dragon. Gale equips it and essentially regains the powers he had from the evil relic, but this time his black sword is comprised of goodness and holy light.
The party stages a final assault against the Five Princes of the Dark Star, who are revealed to be trying to revive their king, the evil deity ZOPHAR. The party defeats the Five Princes, and Prince Errant is betrayed by the Five Princes and forced to become the living host to the soul of Zophar, allowing him an avatar to re-enter the world.
The heroes battle the Five Princes, defeat them, and then battles the Zophar-possed-Errant. As Zophar returns to his slumber, Errant dies (no redemption for him). Gale uses his Ring of the Star Dragon to deliver the final blow and re-seal Zophar away, rendering the relic useless (side note: the party will muse that they may have only delayed Zophar's revival (thus setting the stage for for Eternal Blue). In a way, the Five Princes succeeded, as this they are ultimately revealed to be what allowed Zophar to return to the world of LUNAR... it will just take ~700 years for him to reawaken.
With the Five Dark Princes of the Dark Star gone forever, the four dragons regain their powers and everyone celebrates... Gale is now celebrated as a hero and is invited to become a Knight in the nation of Pao by King Zypher, but he declines and decides to travel the world and maybe retire to Meribia (and run for mayor one day). Forss is invited by Lumos Ausa to join the Magic Guild of Vane, where she hopes to bridge the gap between magic and technology. Falion embraces his heritage and returns to the Magic Guild with Forss and his brother, Lumos, where together they'll help run the Magic Guild. Amaris embraces her heritage as the black dragon and decides to help bridge the gap between human and non-human (beastmen, dragons, etc).
A few random thoughts:
-It's clear I intentionally twist some series tropes on their head here. Gone is a goddess Althena proxy character, and there's no baby cat dragon. Errant is also a Nash proxy, as he turns against the party, but unlike Nash, he never redeems himself, showing that not all people can be saved.
-Since the lead protagonist, Gale, has blue hair, it's heavily implied that he is a descendant of Alex and Luna. In actuality, we learn that he is descended from Tempest and Fresca (and gained his blue hair from her bloodline). His name is the hint -- Gale, like a Tempest. Haha!
-Nall in this story is really depressed and nihilistic having had lived for several hundred years and having had to watch all of his friends eventually grow old and die, so we see him almost process that grief and steady his own emotions like we eventually see in Eternal Blue.
-There's no baby cat dragon that runs with the party this game, as the dragon that hangs with the party is Amaris. She sort of holds the role that Luna / Lucia played in previous games. At the end of the game she, of course, goes on to accept the mantle of being the black dragon. In the first draft of the story I also thought about her trying to become a dragonmaster and failing because she, herself, is revealed to be one of the four dragons, but I removed this as the powers of the dragonmaster are gone with the absence of Althena.
-I didn't explain it very well, but the Five Princes of the Dark Star are Eldritch horrors that are currently an enigma in lore, and in this game they're mostly pulling the strings while their Scions try to gain powers for Zophar's return. I made up the fact that they're trying to revive Zophar, so that's not canon, although they do exist -- we just don't know who/what/why.
-There's no overwhelming love story here, unfortunately. I thought it wouldn't quite work between Gale and Amaris, although I thought that it would be heavily implied, just never confirmed one way or another if their friendship is deeper or not.
-Phacia does appear in the story as an NPC, where she is now very old and long-lived (as part of the Vile tribe) and helps the party find the Star Dragon Tower. She is the only returning character from either Silver Star or Eternal Blue.
That's about it.