With a lot of weird changes to the genre it's a try before you buy type of game.
The worst part of the game. Let's start out with the battles. Before you start the battles you are given an option if you want to have a virtue battle or get items from the enemies in the combat mode. Virtue is the experience points in Lunar:DS. There are a certain number of enemies in each area and if you kill them all a treasure chest appears with a rare item in it, the only problem is the only way to kill enemies is to fight in virtue mode.
When you fight in combat mode and get items they aren't the kinds you'd expect to win instead they are items you use in the deliveries you do for money. Another problem is the only way to earn money (besides treasure chests) is to do boring and tedious deliveries. After a couple you get bored and will stop doing them because they essentially all the same.
When you have decided on what battle you want to do you get to the fun part the fighting. Right? No, the battles in Lunar can fight by itself if you want it to or you can fight and not choose what enemy you want to attack. You want to attack the enemy that you think is almost dead but you just have to hope that the dumb AI will pick that enemy which they usually don't.
Outside of battles the levels are large but that leads to another problem. If you run you lose HP and you walk super slow so the levels either take forever or by the end of them you need to heal you and your partners badly.
STORY:5
The story is that you (Jian) are a delivery boy and you slept late and need to find your partner (Lucia). In the middle of the game the story isn't compelling enough to make you want to play it so you get burned out on the game. But in the beginning and end is where the story shines. This is like the old Lunar's, there's a dragon master and there's the goddess Althena.
GRAPHICS/SOUND:9
The graphics for Lunar:DS are good but they're not really pushing the DS's hardware. It looks better than a GBA game. The character and enemy sprites are big and colorful, some of the bosses take up the entirety of the two screens. The Music what I think is the best aspect of the game. The songs for each level and area is different. They are all have a sense of an epic especially when you're in the Dragon's caves. Although there are some weird and annoying sound effects in certain areas.
PLAY TIME/REPLAYIBILITY:7
The length o f Lunar is what I consider par for portable RPG's. It's almost thirty hours long. A little longer if you go back and get every treasure chest. However there is no reason to go back and play through it again.
FINAL SCORE:6
Lunar is good for about twenty hours before you start getting bored with it. The story just isn't good enough to make you want to keep on playing. It's much better if you play a little a time so you don't overload it like I did.