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Review: Lunar Remastered Collection Revives Two Classic JRPGs
If you were a Sega CD owner back in the day, you would have spent a lot of money on an add-on that didn't seem to get much respect. Nevertheless, you could weather all of the jokes about FMV games and barely-enhanced Genesis ports because you were privy to a well-kept secret: the JRPGs were great. The Lunar games were every RPG-loving Sega CD owner's dream, should they have been lucky enough to get their hands on them, and now we can see why with the Lunar Remastered Collection with the first two games. However, it's a bit of a miracle they exist. The PlayStation remakes of those two Lunar games put them in front of a much wider audience. Things were looking golden for the series, but for whatever reason things faltered. Developer Game Arts moved on to the Grandia series, Western publisher Working Designs shut down after a few bad bounces, and it seemed like every attempt to get Lunar going again met with misfortune. Even getting the existing JRPGs reissued proved to be difficult due to some complications with the rights. The first Lunar game has popped its head up now and then over the years, such as with a PSP remake titled Lunar: Silver Star Harmony. The PlayStation remake was ported to mobile devices. The sequel Lunar: Eternal Blue has not appeared again since Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete on the PlayStation. That was almost a quarter of a century ago. Screenshot by Siliconera With that in mind, the mere existence of Lunar Remastered Collection is worth celebrating. For whatever nits I may have to pick, and I have a few, just having Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete widely available on your platform of choice is great. These remakes already included a bunch of improvements to the originals, and they hold up extremely well. This collection makes a couple of excellent quality of life improvements that you are free to use or ignore. The presentation has also been put through the remastering process, but this too is all optional. One major new feature is the ability to speed up battles. There are three settings, and you will likely never want to stay at the original speed. Lunar's battles were always rather slow to play out, so this speed setting is a godsend. The other cool addition is a more flexible inventory system. You don't have to have items in a character's personal inventory to use them in battles anymore. There are various graphical settings you can tweak as well, and you can play either game with remastered widescreen visuals or in the classic 4:3 style with crisp pixels. Saves carry over, so you can swap between the versions as you like. Screenshot by Siliconera Indeed, the only change that isn't optional here is the English voice acting. The original cast's work isn't included for either game, presumably due to rights issues. Instead, we get a completely new set of voice actors. They all do a generally good job, though I would be lying if I said I didn't miss some of the more iconic performances like John Truitt's Ghaleon. Since the games mainly use the original Working Designs localizations, the actors are stuck with the lines as originally written. It sometimes sounds awkward. If it bothers you too much, you can always switch over to Japanese voices. The JRPGs themselves are both awesome, especially considering the context. I personally prefer Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete to the first game, but you should play both. The plots and characters of both games are so far ahead of most of their contemporaries that they still come off well a decades later. The pacing of both games is brisk, and the battles are satisfyingly challenging. Some of the gameplay mechanics play it safe, but everything is done to a high enough level of quality that it's hard to complain. I would have liked more granular options similar to those in the mobile version of Lunar. The difficulty of these games varies wildly by the version, and it would be nice to be able to tweak that like you can on mobile. Since these games use the PlayStation versions as their base, the shimmering issue they have persists here. Some aspects of the localization also feel dated, mostly due to Working Designs' penchant for pop culture references. Even with some flaws, Lunar Remastered Collection is a great way to play these two JRPG classics. If you haven't played them before, I strongly recommend doing so. Those who have played them probably don't need me to give them a push. Welcome back, Lunar. Lunar Remastered Collection will be available on April 18th, 2025 for Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC via Steam. The post Review: Lunar Remastered Collection Revives Two Classic JRPGs appeared first on Siliconera.
If you were a Sega CD owner back in the day, you would have spent a lot of money on an add-on that didn't seem to get much respect. Nevertheless, you could weather all of the jokes about FMV games and barely-enhanced Genesis ports because you were privy to a well-kept secret: the JRPGs were great. The Lunar games were every RPG-loving Sega CD owner's dream, should they have been lucky enough to get their hands on them, and now we can see why with the Lunar Remastered Collection with the first two games.
However, it's a bit of a miracle they exist. The PlayStation remakes of those two Lunar games put them in front of a much wider audience. Things were looking golden for the series, but for whatever reason things faltered. Developer Game Arts moved on to the Grandia series, Western publisher Working Designs shut down after a few bad bounces, and it seemed like every attempt to get Lunar going again met with misfortune. Even getting the existing JRPGs reissued proved to be difficult due to some complications with the rights. The first Lunar game has popped its head up now and then over the years, such as with a PSP remake titled Lunar: Silver Star Harmony. The PlayStation remake was ported to mobile devices. The sequel Lunar: Eternal Blue has not appeared again since Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete on the PlayStation. That was almost a quarter of a century ago.
With that in mind, the mere existence of Lunar Remastered Collection is worth celebrating. For whatever nits I may have to pick, and I have a few, just having Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete widely available on your platform of choice is great. These remakes already included a bunch of improvements to the originals, and they hold up extremely well. This collection makes a couple of excellent quality of life improvements that you are free to use or ignore. The presentation has also been put through the remastering process, but this too is all optional.
One major new feature is the ability to speed up battles. There are three settings, and you will likely never want to stay at the original speed. Lunar's battles were always rather slow to play out, so this speed setting is a godsend. The other cool addition is a more flexible inventory system. You don't have to have items in a character's personal inventory to use them in battles anymore. There are various graphical settings you can tweak as well, and you can play either game with remastered widescreen visuals or in the classic 4:3 style with crisp pixels. Saves carry over, so you can swap between the versions as you like.
Indeed, the only change that isn't optional here is the English voice acting. The original cast's work isn't included for either game, presumably due to rights issues. Instead, we get a completely new set of voice actors. They all do a generally good job, though I would be lying if I said I didn't miss some of the more iconic performances like John Truitt's Ghaleon. Since the games mainly use the original Working Designs localizations, the actors are stuck with the lines as originally written. It sometimes sounds awkward. If it bothers you too much, you can always switch over to Japanese voices.
The JRPGs themselves are both awesome, especially considering the context. I personally prefer Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete to the first game, but you should play both. The plots and characters of both games are so far ahead of most of their contemporaries that they still come off well a decades later. The pacing of both games is brisk, and the battles are satisfyingly challenging. Some of the gameplay mechanics play it safe, but everything is done to a high enough level of quality that it's hard to complain.
I would have liked more granular options similar to those in the mobile version of Lunar. The difficulty of these games varies wildly by the version, and it would be nice to be able to tweak that like you can on mobile. Since these games use the PlayStation versions as their base, the shimmering issue they have persists here. Some aspects of the localization also feel dated, mostly due to Working Designs' penchant for pop culture references.
Even with some flaws, Lunar Remastered Collection is a great way to play these two JRPG classics. If you haven't played them before, I strongly recommend doing so. Those who have played them probably don't need me to give them a push. Welcome back, Lunar.
Lunar Remastered Collection will be available on April 18th, 2025 for Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC via Steam.
The post Review: Lunar Remastered Collection Revives Two Classic JRPGs appeared first on Siliconera.
