Lunar: Eternal Blue (Sega CD) review "Man, the 1990s were a great time to be a RPG fan!"

While all bets are off when a game gets one follow-up after another, as the odds of sequelitis tends to grow as the number of games increases, I feel a person should expect that first sequel to a good game to be something special. Designers are able to take the lessons learned while making that first game and expand upon their accomplishments to craft something that looks, sounds and plays better. Sure, this doesn’t happen all the time, but I think it’s still a reasonable hope to have.

Games like Lunar: Eternal Blue play a big role in me feeling that way. The first game in the series, Lunar: The Silver Star was a charming Sega CD role-playing game featuring a young hero teaming with allies to save the world from the diabolical plans of a fallen hero. While not a perfect game, it was enjoyable enough for me to play both the original and its PlayStation remake, so it definitely must have left an impression upon me.

Eternal Blue takes things a step farther, with Game Arts creating something that probably wouldn’t feel out of place as a launch-era disc on that original PlayStation. The graphics are improved, the sound is great and the game is loaded with voice acting and animated cutscenes. While it also is not a perfect game, it was more than I was expecting and I had pretty high expectations that I’d be playing something really good.

You’ll start out controlling Hiro, a young explorer who lives with his grandfather and Ruby, a female cat-like creature who serves as this game’s version of the first one’s Nall. While exploring a strange light that appeared at a nearby tower, they encounter Lucia, a strange young woman with great magical powers who expresses a need to see the goddess Althena in order to help prevent doom from descending upon the planet.

Said “doom” goes by the name of Zophar, an evil god-like being who revels in destruction and misery. And as your small party soon finds out, is very skilled at doing things such as drain the magic out of Lucia to turn her from an imposing figure to a near-helpless damsel. Oh, he’s also pretty good at the public relations game, too. Seems that one of the land’s great heroes, Leo, is under the impression that Lucia actually is the being known as “The Destroyer” and is hunting her down.

While Lucia wants to complete her mission on her own and not involve ordinary citizens like Hiro, that quickly proves impossible as she now is in no condition to take on the powers that be in the world. Fortunately, that chance encounter with Hiro left quite the impression upon the lad and he basically proclaims himself to be her protector. Even more fortunately, much like Alex from the original game, Hiro finds himself adept at finding allies, gaining the aid of drunken, gambling priest Ronfor, reluctant martial artist Jean and money-grubbing mage Lemina. Completing Lucia’s mission won’t be easy, though. Not only do each of those additional party members have their own demons to overcome, but remember that whole thing about Zophar having a good P.R. campaign? Yeah, let’s just say that our heroes will have a lot standing in their way.

Much like the first game, combat is handled via of standard turn-based RPG battling mixed with a bit of strategy, as characters and enemies have to walk up to each other in order to attack with melee weapons and only have so much energy to expend per turn. If people have to cross the entire screen to reach a foe, they might not have the stamina to actually perform their attack, but they will be helplessly standing right in front of that enemy when it’s their move. There are a couple additions to that formula, though.

The first is Lucia. She is controlled by the computer and will only either use magic or attempt to escape an enemy’s immediate proximity. She also doesn’t gain experience, with her character growth being directly tied to Hiro’s. When he gains a level, so will she. After Zophar strips her of her power, she’s initially a pretty useless ally who only occasionally will actually do something remotely helpful. However, as Hiro gets more and more powerful, her presence becomes the sort of godsend you’ll definitely be missing whenever the plot decides to take her away for a bit. There’s something really nice about having a party member with infinite magic who can choose between any number of damaging spells on a turn-by-turn basis.

Also, enemies tend to have multiple battle poses, which serve as clues as to what their next attack will be. For most of them, changing their pose simply means they’ll be hitting you with a different attack; however, there are a few foes that necessitate you paying damn good attention to their appearance. I still remember the shock I felt in a late-game dungeon when I realized that when one particular foe got hit with a normal attack while in a certain pose, it would immediately retaliate with a brutal move that caused an obscene amount of damage to every single character in front of it. Screw up a time or two in a fight with those guys and you’ll be in big trouble.

Another interesting touch is the addition of magic experience to go along with the standard XP that goes towards gaining levels. By going to the menu screen, you can allocate that magic experience to the various spell categories that characters have to both strengthen their existing spells and occasionally either get new ones or upgrade older ones to a more powerful version. On the other hand, while you can save your progress at any time, doing so costs some of that magic experience for reasons that I’m sure are really, really stupid. It’s a real annoyance, especially in the early going when enemies don’t provide a lot of any sort of experience.

The game’s other notable annoyance can simply be summed up as Working Designs being Working Designs. As with the first Lunar, they handled the English localization for Eternal Blue and also, as with the first game, made sure that everyone from main characters to random townspeople have a lot to say, much of it humorous regardless of how well those jokes fit the moment. You have pop culture references, so then-president Bill Clinton gets name-dropped by one person despite how the game’s world is most definitely not Earth. There are all sorts of jokes about various characters’ quirks and your party members have a never-ending stream of snappy comebacks to the various things NPCs blurt out.

Here’s the thing: while Eternal Blue has its light-hearted aspects — Lemina’s hunger for money, Ronfar’s roguish nature, Lucia being a fish out of water in the game’s world, Ruby’s clingy nature towards Hiro — this game’s plot is very serious. You have a godlike being whose only desire is to torture and torment all of humanity. Your party members all have their own past tragedies they need to overcome, while also being pursued and assaulted by their world’s alleged heroes due to being suspected of harboring a force of destruction. You’ll encounter a corrupt martial artist who teaches a brutal, murderous discipline and you’ll visit a temple where people are taken to be brainwashed into being Zophar’s lackeys. There are times for humorous dialogue and there are times to shoo out the clowns and let the plot speak for itself. That sort of discipline is lacking in this game, creating a situation where the all-too-frequent jokes can detract from the actual story.

Still, Eternal Blue is a resounding success — a sequel I found superior to its very enjoyable predecessor in most ways. It’s not an easy game, with a few dungeons in particular being very challenging to get through, but it was a rewarding one to play that boasts a fun combat system, memorable characters and a great story that gets touching at time. There could have been a bit more discretion used when it came to Working Designs’ sense of humor, but regardless, this is one pretty great game.

Staff review by Rob Hamilton (January 12, 2024) Rob Hamilton is the official drunken master of review writing for Honestgamers.