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"An inexplicably enjoyable game"

Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete

The manual makes a reference to Ed Asner. You know this game has got to be good.

My opinions of Lunar have always been tumultuous. After finishing it for the first time, I considered it my fourth favorite game ever. But about half a year later, after having a sort of epiphany with Star Ocean: The Second Story, my opinions on role-playing games drastically changed. What I once considered great was now rather mediocre, and in some cases, vice versa. I fell head over heels in love with RPGs with fast-paced battles systems of the Star Ocean ilk. I also like a good challenge and some degree of randomness. Lunar, of course, doesn't offer much as far as any of those qualities go. So before replaying Lunar I was saying to myself over and over: "I just know that I'm going to be bored to tears. I know I'm going to like Lunar a lot less the second time through." But you know what? I didn't. Sure, saying it was my fourth favorite game ever was a little extreme, but I must admit that Lunar was fun to replay. It's almost sacrilegious to a grizzled old purist like myself. What's so special about Lunar? Isn't it a game that only RPG freaks could love? Am I now to be lumped together with all the mainstream RPG fans out there? Oh well, I guess everybody has a guilty pleasure. I suppose for this review I'm going to figure out why exactly I like this game right along with the reader.

White, Red, Blue, Black, the end?

On the surface, Lunar has a very simple plot, fitting for the time when it was originally released on Sega CD. Alex, the main character, wants to be like his hero Dragonmaster Dyne. To do his, he has to find the four dragons (each of a different color) who help protect the goddess Althena. Then he can become a Dragonmaster and help protect the goddess of his world just as the dragons do. He meets various people who aid him in this quest. The plot seems very formulaic and dull, but it's executed so perfectly that for most of the game you'll completely forget about the Dragonmaster goal and get completely enveloped in your current little "mini-quest".

What makes Lunar's story interesting is not so much the plot, but something that few RPGs truly have, character interaction. Not only do non-playable characters have an overwhelming amount of dialogue for you to read, but your characters will often get involved as well. For example, perhaps the ever-lecherous Kyle will respond to a non-playable character, and his girlfriend Jessica won't approve of what he says. Then they could get into a little lover's quarrel right then and there.

While the characters in Lunar don't have that original of personalities at first, the dialogue gives them more depth and makes them more likable. The characters I liked the least were all ones who were only in the party for a short period of time, therefore there wasn't much character interaction for them to take place in. I also dislike Alex because Working Designs tried too hard to make the player feel like he or she is Alex by making him rarely talk. Instead we end up with a character whose entire personality could be summed up in two sentences. He wants to be a hero. He likes Luna. Whoopty-freakin'-do.

Lunar is plagued with a problem many RPGs have. It spoils its own surprises. Unless you're really not paying attention, you should see most every plot twist coming a mile away. But when the game isn't trying to be shocking, the plot is rather enjoyable in its simplicity. You have four main goals, and to accomplish each, you have to seek help from many people, solve minor problems, and acquire knowledge to aid you in your quest.

Another nice thing about Lunar is the anime scenes. I've never been one to rave about FMV, but in Lunar, it's more than just eye-candy. They actually help immerse you in the game. Sure, the developers went a little overboard at times, throwing in FMV which really wasn't needed (the Blue Dragon cave rising out of the water, for example), but for the most part, the anime scenes were very effective. Whenever you meet an important or semi-important character, you view a short FMV sequence of him or her. It gives you a much better mental picture of them than a sprite would. Hearing their voice also helps you get a good idea of their personality. And of course, there are anime scenes for all the dramatic events and touching moments.

An oldie, but a goodie.

There's no way to deny it, Lunar has an archaic battle system. So why the heck do I like it? As I type this, all I can say is: "beats me..." Let's analyze it step by step. First off, on the menus you are given four options. "AI", "Command", "Defend", and "Run". If you select any option other than Command, your decision is final and combat will begin. If you select Command (just a tip, always do this!), you can then select what each character will do. You choose from: "AI", "Attack", "Magic", "Item", "Defend", and "Run". Simple, no?

Lunar is completely turn-based. While such battle systems can get repetitive, I think it can be a bit more fun than the common place (and inaptly-named) Active-Time Battle system. There's a bit more strategy to it. You're forced to predict what will happen during your turn and the enemies turn. You have to try to guess when during combat the enemies will attack (ie after all your characters, before all your characters, or in between). You also have to determine what attacks or spells the enemies will use, but Lunar makes that easy for you since they have different pre-battle poses, which change depending on their next move.

Another thing that adds strategy to battles is the battlefield. Most RPGs, new and old, have your characters and the enemy stuck in the same spot for every battle. Moving around just isn't a factor. When movement is incorporated, though, I think it makes for a more complex and enjoyable battle system. In Lunar, characters and enemies have to be next to their opponent to attack. If a character or enemy has a short range, they will often not reach their opponent. This can work against you if your character can't reach the enemy. It's basically a wasted move. Not to mention, then you're closer to the enemy, so you may be able to attack on the next turn, but you're also making it easier for the enemy to attack you. Therefore to use it to your advantage you may want to move as far as possible from the enemy by using the "Defend" command. Or you can simply rearrange your battle formation prior to the battle. In some special battles the enemy (as well as the characters) can only move so far. If you have everyone as far away from the enemies as possible, they might not be able to attack you at all.

Lunar has many different methods of attacking. Usually you have to walk up to the enemies and attack with a sword, cane, or mace, but there are also long distance weapons such as bow and arrows and slingshots. I discovered something my second time through that I never noticed the first time. Many canes have magical powers. If you select them as an item and use them, they will cast a magic attack on a selected enemy. This is a much better method of attacking than having your weak characters with poor range try to get into the fray to get in a few whacks.

I must say that I love Lunar's menus. This game has one of the quickest most intuitive RPG menu systems ever. I can only think of one problem I have with it. For all but one of the characters, you can hit cancel until you return to their command screen and change your command (which is absolutely great), but on the last character (usually that would be Jessica), if you make a mistake and finish your selection, you're screwed. That round of turns begins. I like to make my selections very quickly. Every now and then I'd hit a command that's for all enemies or allies on accident, and I couldn't change my command if that was the last character. It would have been really nice if they included an additional confirmation button press. So for example, if I chose Calm Litany (a spell that heals all characters) with Jessica, there would be little markers above all the allies heads, and then I'd press the button to confirm my selection. Same for attacking spells. A marker above all the enemies, then confirm. As it is, the command is carried out as soon as you select that spell or special attack. Likewise, if you select "AI" or "Run" with the last character to be given orders, you can't change the command.

Math is power.

Lunar throws a curveball at you with the boss battle system. In most RPGs a boss is easy to defeat as long as you level up enough. This is probably the main reason why I dislike most RPGs. They're always so easy. Regardless of the genre, I like boss battles best in games. I want the bosses to look interesting, attack in a unique way, challenge me, and force me to develop a strategy. Lunar's bosses do exactly that. You can throw levels out the window because they won't help you. Every boss's statistics are determined by the level of Alex. The boss's base statistics are multiplied by Alex's level, and the result is the boss's statistics for that battle. The higher your HP, the higher the boss's HP, and so on. Sure, you'll want to level up to some extent. You have to be able to survive minor battles, especially because the monsters tend to hunt you down, so they're unavoidable. But also because you need to some spells to defeat certain bosses, and spells are only obtainable by leveling up. I suppose you could cheat the system by having Alex run from a lot of battles while the other characters level up, but that's just wasted energy.

The only way to beat a boss is with strategy. Unfortunately, you'll find yourself using the same strategy for pretty much every boss battle. Power up your attackers, use defense spells if you want to, then just use your strongest attack techniques and spells for the rest of the battle, and heal when needed. Few bosses have any sort of unique defense or attack that forces you to alter your strategy. Overall, I found minor battles to have more variety. The Lunar boss battle system had a lot of potential that it didn't quite live up to, but at least you can't completely overpower the bosses.

As with the story, the battle system at its base is very simple, but with a mastery of the old elements and a few twists throw in, you never really get that "been there, done that" feeling. Some people find the random battles repetitive, but I almost never felt that way. There are just the right amount, and you can get through them very quickly. They're challenging enough to keep you on your toes, and since you can save anywhere in the game, you never know when the next boss battle will occur.

Beastwomen, killer bushes, and nipple yankers. (Get your head out of the gutter!)

Anyone who says Lunar looks like a Super Nintendo game is stump-dumb. With that said, Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete has beautiful detailed 2D graphics which couldn't occur on anything less than a 32-bit system. I've seen the best of the best on the SNES. Castlevania 4, Secret of Mana, Seiken Densetsu 3, Chrono Trigger, Tales of Phantasia, Star Ocean, Donkey Country 3, etc. While these games are arguably just as beautiful as Lunar and definitely have style, Lunar simply is smoother and more detailed. Granted, Lunar's overworld is very reminiscent of Chrono Trigger, but that's where the similarities end.

Lunar has large towns filled with little animations here and there. Little birds flying overhead, trees waving in the breeze, the light ripples of the ocean. It's nothing to take your breath away, but it helps flesh out the world. The towns also have people hustling about, and I'm impressed by the number of non-playable character sprites. You'll see the same ones many times, of course, but not quite to the extent of most RPGs. Each town has a different sort of atmosphere. Burg is quiet and calm, Saith and Lann are dirty little fishing towns, Meribia and Vane are high class cities, Reza and Nanza are gritty towns filled with thieves, Meryrod is a town literally on the water, and so on. One thing I especially liked about towns was that doors would stay open after you've left the building, even if you've gone into other buildings. This really helps when you're trying to figure out where you've already been in some of the larger and more confusing towns.

While dungeons use palette swaps sometimes (the Red and Blue dragon caves, for example), most are original and look nice. There's also a good variety to them. Sometimes you'll be in forests, caves, mysterious towers, high-tech places, etc. Lunar's dungeons are designed in such a way that you can easily get lost and confused at first, but once you clear out all the enemies, you can quickly run around and figure out where you are, where you've been, and what areas you've missed.

Characters look microscopic on the overworld map, but in towns, dungeons, and in battle, they are super-deformed and old-school, yet in a pleasing way. They have a certain "softness" to them. The colors are light and their bodies are very rounded. When talking, a little anime face shot will appear next to their dialogue. There are several pictures for each character, and they change depending on their mood. The anime pictures are very crisp and help you understand the feelings behind the words better.

There are different battle screens for most every area, and they are quite possibly the most detailed graphics in the game. Unfortunately, though, some are a little too busy. The vegetable gardens behind Iluck, for example, have so many different bright colors that it's easy to lose view of your characters for a second, or even more likely, have difficulty reading what your characters' HP and MP is. Perhaps it would have been wise to add some sort of background behind the stats, but the downside would be that the battlefield would be smaller.

Lunar uses a fair amount of palette-swapped monsters, but in most areas you will encounter many enemies that you haven't seen previously. Palette swaps are pretty spread out as well. You'll be fighting slimes, bees, and bushes throughout the game. Unlike the original Sega CD version, you can see monsters ahead of time in Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete. Palette swaps are used far more often on these monsters you see prior to battle, and many times the monster will look nothing like the ones you fight in battle. The worst example of this is the Water Elementals. They look like dragon heads made out of water, but the monster sprite that attacks you before battle is a slime, which is just a round blob.

Monsters in general look very nice. They range from very cute critters to hideous abominations. They can also be as small your characters or many times taller and wider. They all have animations for ordinary movement, attacking, and special attacks. And as I said much earlier in this review, they have different poses that they'll do while you are making your selections.

While I mentioned the anime scenes before, I think I should point out their quality as well as their impact on the plot. They overall have a sort of "fuzzy" appearance due to the PlayStation's limitations. The edges where two different colors meet are blurred. While this isn't that bad, it is noticeable. There's a bit of CG animation worked in, which fits in naturally for the most part, but when the camera pans around the CG boat it's a little jerky.

The animation is very nice. It has sort of a South American flavor to it with all the bright colors and geometric shapes. Character designs are creative. Luna looks sweet with her soft blue eyes and gypsy-like dress. Jessica has little fangs and beastman markings, which make her look like the tomboy that she is. The female villains keep with the tradition that sexy women are invariably evil. ; ) One is wrapped in cloth in an almost bondage-like manner, and another has full dark lips. The male characters aren't quite as interesting, but there's a fair amount of variety to them. Ramus is a big tub-a-lub, Alex has an innocence in his appearance to compliment Luna's, Kyle is a grade-A beefcake, Nash has one of the weirdest hairdos in all of video game-dom (the inspiration for Something About Mary's infamous hair scene, perhaps?), second only to Tempest's girly pigtails.

One complaint about the character design in the anime sequences, though, is that it doesn't quite match up with the in-game sprites. In the anime Mia's hair is black, in the game - blue. In the anime her mother, Lemia Ausa's hair is blonde, in the game it's a light brown. There are other minor discrepancies, but they don't detract from the experience much at all. Besides, giving an animator artistic freedom is a good thing.

Everybody sings, and Nash's voice cracks for good measure.

With such a focus on music in this game's plot, you'd think it would have better songs. By no means am I suggesting that they're bad, some I look forward to hearing each time I play, but after listening to the soundtrack which was included with the game, I was a bit disappointed. The soundtrack seems to have mostly original Sega CD tracks and some remixed tunes, and they're all so much better than the in-game music. Why the heck didn't they use these songs? What were the developers thinking? "Oh yeah, these older songs are better, but let's use these newer ones because we're supposed to be updating the game." Lame, man, just lame.

But what did I like? Well, there are a few dramatic pieces with strings. I'm a sucker for those kinds of songs. The intro song is very good, but it gets old after awhile. I can only listen to and enjoy a generic pop ballad so many times. I like it more than the original intro song from the Sega CD version (which can be heard on the soundtrack), though. Some people really like it, but, eh... cheesy eighties pop... Not my cup of tea. The boat song is my favorite of the vocal songs. It's a sweet song, but it has some melancholy to it. Some of the town sounds are soft and relaxing, and the battle themes have a courageous feel to them.

And the bad... The first one that pops in my head is this blaring piece that plays in a few dungeons. Every time I enter a dungeon with that tune, I'm like: "Let me outta here!" Then there's the song in Reza... You know, this song wouldn't be so bad on its own, but some idiot decided that the song should restart every time you enter or leave a building. Since you move around pretty quick that means it's pretty much constantly restarting.

I saved the worst for last. LYTON! The very name of that town strikes fear into the heart of every Lunar player. What sick demented person wrote this wretched god-forsaken song? Actually, Lyton has two versions of the song. A little back story... Lyton is a town where everyone sings (no, not literally, they "sing" in text), and the wind creates a melody (ugh... for lack of a better word...) when it blows through some holes in a nearby cave. When you first arrive at Lyton the song is like a bad trip. It's all warped and messed up sounding. That's because some stones have been misplaced in front of the holes that the wind blows through. So you fix that, and your reward? The song gets louder, and it's just as bad! Gah! Just typing this is bringing back bad Vietnam-ish flashbacks. Next paragraph...

Sound effects are your typical RPG fare. You got the "swoosh" of swords, the "whack" of canes and maces, the "pluck" of bow and arrows, the "cling" of confirmation, the "plunk" of cancellation, etc.

Making the Band

Lunar has quite a bit of voice acting, and, surprisingly, it isn't that bad. Most of the time you hear voice acting, it'll be during anime sequences and battles, but there is some worked into other parts of the game. It's kind of weird actually. You'll be reading text, and then all of the sudden your PlayStation will load a little, and you'll hear the characters talking. It seems a little out of place. The voice acting is fitting for the FMV and battles, though.

As far as the quality of individual character voices go, I'd say that I like Nall, Luna, and Phacia least. Yeah, yeah, I could get a lot of flack for criticizing Luna's voice because it seems like most people love her voice, but I can't stand mousy, high-pitched, little miss goody-two-shoes female voices. They just rub me the wrong way. Nall's voice is a woman's voice shifted up a few octaves to make it sound like it's coming from a small animal, but, man... there's good reason why cats and birds and other small critters can't talk. Voices that high-pitched are irritating as hell. Phacia is just... ick. I cringe when I hear her voice. It's like listening to Angela Lansbury.

The other voices aren't too bad. Alex's is pretty nice, but the guy who played him went on to join O-Town, so we have to hold that against him. ; ) Jessica and Mia sound hyper to the point of being nauseating at times, but when they're calm or serious, their voices sound okay. Nash sounds arrogant, as he should, but his voice cracks sometimes (purposely, irritating nonetheless.) I think the best voices in Lunar are Kyle's and Xenobia's.

And finally there's all the singing. Luna sings the most in Lunar, but you will also hear Kyle, Jessica, Nash, Mia, and non-playable characters singing. The characters in the game are always going on and on about how Luna has a perfect singing voice, but I sure as heck don't think that. The boat song is very nice, but the "La la la" thing just sounds weird. When your other characters sing... plug your ears. It ain't a pleasant experience. Same goes for non-playable characters. What's really funny is that one singer is supposed to be really horrible, but she sounds no worse than the other non-playable characters who sing in the game! Sheesh.

If Lunar teaches you anything, it's to eat your Wheaties and to hate ABBA with a passion

So, what have you and I learned? Well, Lunar isn't all bad. It's got qualities that old gamers, new gamers, casual gamers, and hardcore gamers can appreciate. There are many valid reasons to love this game and many valid reasons to hate it. You might love the plot, or you might hate the simplistic base of it. You may love the detailed 2D graphics, or find them too old-school looking. You might find the battles repetitive, or you might love the tiny little complexities of the battle system.

If you're an RPG junkie, pick it up; you should like it. If your tastes in RPGs are kind of random like mine... well, I simply cannot recommend you buy it or avoid it. But if you get it and you don't like it, at least you have a very collectable game due to its rarity and bonus goodies, and you have a great soundtrack to listen to.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/14/01, Updated 05/14/01