Lunar Knights is a DS game and currently the most recent entry of the Botkai series from Konami, with the legendary Hideo Kojima as producer. The series is notable for a popular gimmick with a solar radar was used to help you in gameplay but since that wasn’t really made for the DS, it was reworked. Since the 3DS is not backwards compatiblewith the Gameboy Advance,I cannot comment about the features there.
Lunar Knights revolves around two characters: Lucian and Aaron. Lucian is a vampire hunter, wielding a variety of weapons. He possesses the power of darkness, and can turn into a vampire like creature after he builds up something called a Trance (shortened to TRC in-game) meter by fusing with his Terrennial, Nero, which allows him to absorb the life of his foes. Aaron is an apprentice sharpshooter, and uses various Solar Guns to deal damage to his enemies. Unlike Lucian, Aaron has light powers, and can temporarily become an avatar of the sun when needed by fusing with Toasty,his Terrennial. The player increases the two characters' levels by killing enemies, and their weapons may be upgraded with various parts, allowing more abilities to be used with that weapon.
Storywise outside of the interesting goth sci fi feeling atmosphere and artstyle it just falls pretty generic typical shonen of the 2000s instead of something like shadowhearts pre comedy direction.
You have to destroy a certain number of boss vampires in their respective dungeons by exploiting their weakness or by using Trance. After being defeated, the boss vampire is sent into space via the Casket Rocket, Laplace. Laplace is controlled with a stylus. Moving the stylus causes Laplace to move while tapping the screen makes it fire lasers. The vanquished vampire boss is purified by solar radiation in space. The control system itself is an interesting use of the ds functionality certainly better than what last konami did with dawn of sorrow lol.
As more bosses are defeated, the player is able to gain access to different elements through Terrennials. There are four different terrennials available besides Nero (Dark) and Toasty (Sol): Ursula (Flame), Tove (Earth), Alexander (Cloud), and Ezra (Frost). Each Terrennial brings a different climate for the player to manipulate. This can be done by going to Sheridan's Mansion and selecting 'Change Climate' to change the default weather. Certain parts of dungeons, which often hold new items and weapons, are inaccessible unless the player changes the weather.
The game relies on an in-game weather control system, known as the paraSOL. It has a thermometer, and measures humidity and wind speed. The weather is generated from the game itself, not from the local outside environment. There are five types of weather: balmy subtropical, tropical rainforest, humid continental, arid desert and frigid arctic.
The Trance meter is loaded as enemies are attacked and when it is full, extra powerful blows can be delivered to multiple enemies with the aid of the Terrenials. It almost in a way reminds me of the trend system in The World Ends With You and its a pretty interesting expirament.
Burst attacks are Trance moves performed by Terrennials other than Toasty and Nero and these can change the weather. Terrennials represent the elements that accompany the characters such as earth, wind, fire, and ice. When the Terrennials are equipped, the player can use TRC powers, and they will add their elemental attacks to weapon strikes. Elements are vulnerable to their opposites.
The graphics were excellent and the cutscenes still stand up today. The controls were easy to pickup and place like i mentioned before .
Overall, it was a decent game.
It gets 4 out of 5 stars.