Lusipurr.com – Presenting the Sundry Opinions of Lusipurr and Friends

As the old adage goes, it is not the size of the thing that matters, it is what you do with it. In this case, it is not the size of the mini-game that matters, but rather how much freaking time I spend obsessively, compulsively playing it.

Mini-games are nothing new, and come in all forms and fashions. In fact, if you ask Nintendo, mini-games are their own bloody genre now. Some are frustrating, some are fascinating, some provide useful tie-ins to the games, and others are meaningless, mindless, wonderful wastes of our time. All of the games in the Gold Saucer come to mind, along with a slew of card games, racing games and, well, about half of Final Fantasy IX’s content. My all-time favourite, though, the one that has devoured the most hours of my life, is Lords of Lunar.

Lords of Lunar is an arcade game included with Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete. It is accessible through the “Making Of” disc that came with the game. When the movie begins, press Up, Down, Left, Right, Triangle, Start to access it. The game, name and all, is a tribute or homage to the Atari classic Warlords. Up to eight characters at a time can share the screen in a Pong-like battle of epic proportions. Unfortunately most characters will be AI-controlled, but the difficulty setting is customizable, so the robots can pose a bit of a challenge at times. My favourite part of the game was deliberately putting couples at opposing ends of the map, and watching them beat the snot out of each other.

Lords of Lunar may be a bit out of date (even when it came out) but that’s part of its charm for me. It provides simple, classic video game fun, and I spent almost as much time playing it as I did playing the actual Lunar game. What about you guys? Any closet mini-game addicts in the house?