So I’ve got a long weekend now. Managed to beat the Lunar Trials yesterday. It was a pretty cool experience, with the only trial I didn’t get the full reward for being Rosa’s. Other than that it didn’t exactly feel very challenging, but it’s nice that each character’s trial was actually unique and kind of added to their story. Kain’s trial gets special mention. For as frustrating as it is with its final battle, it was very fun to play a murder mystery, however basic it was. Though if I were to compare all the post-game stuff that they added to the ports, I’d say the Lunar Trials were probably the weakest. Aside from the trials themselves they kind of had a similar setup to the Soul of Chaps dungeons, but Soul of Chaos was actually challenging, which made the whole experience more compelling. The Labyrinth of Time may be annoying but at least it had a very interesting gimmick, and I think the Arcane Labyrinth may be my favorite new addition to the series as it’s interesting both in terms of mechanics and story. I feel really stupid for skipping it before and now I regret not visiting it multiple times throughout the game to get everyone’s weapons. Oh well. I’m also curious to see how the Sealed Cave and Dragons’ Den compare. I’ve only beaten the latter once years ago and I’ve never actually beaten the former, so it’s definitely gonna be interesting.

I think the coolest part about the Lunar Ruins comes from hindsight, seeing how they’ve pretty much inspired the After Years. The challenge dungeons are the obvious result here, but even in terms of story you can see that some of the story ideas in the trials later got much more fleshed out in TAY (see again: Kain’s trial). Now I’m actually even more excited to go back to the After Years. Sadly, I still have the Interlude to deal with, which may just be the title I’m least looking forward to on my agenda. Thankfully, it’s also super duper short so I hope to get it out of the way tonight