zigfried's Lunar: The Silver Star review

As usual, you are the best. Lunar is hard to write about because it's difficult to express what makes it so great without it coming off as lame. Then again, I've only played the 32-bit remakes, and my love affair is with them. From what I learned in this review there are actually quite a few appreciable differences, but some of your remarks nevertheless echoed some of my feelings on the remakes. Some funny stuff too.

Thank you for the compliment! The remake (for the first game) actually aims to a slightly older audience; it succeeds in several ways, and weakens the magic in others. As you could probably tell, I personally prefer the original.

When reviewing Lunar, it would definitely be easy to slip into effusive praise... I tried to focus on concrete things that are unique to this version so that anyone reading it would feel somehow informed, even if they're already familiar with the series.

If you ever have the chance, you should check out the original Lunar 2. The storylines and cinematics are VERY faithful to the remake, except that the original has:

1) bigger, more complex dungeons
2) differently balanced boss difficulty (Borgan and the other "character bosses" are harder, while the dragons near the end are easier)
3) an unexpected death scene
4) a cool special song for the final dungeon that didn't make the Playstation cut
5) fully animated cinematics, but no artifacting since it's not FMV
6) most of the music sounds muddier :(

//Zig

Also:

7) Much, much cooler music for the first phase of the final boss.

The music sounds muddier, but beneath all that compression it's higher quality than the Playstation MIDIs.

I thought the song for the final dungeon in the remake was pretty cool

What a horrible shame Working Designs is no longer with us. One can only wonder if XSEED will do justice.

I really enjoyed reading your review. Good job and good memories.

Thanks! It's too bad that Working Designs really started going crazy near the end though (they boasted of a PSX-exclusive Thunder Force V boss, but there is not one)

Radicaldreamer: It's not that the final dungeon music isn't cool... but it was recycled from a previous dungeon. In the Sega CD version, the Star Tower has unique music.

//Zig

As an FYI, I just submitted my high score for Lunar.

//Zig

Wait, do you mean the final dungeon in the epilogue, as in, post-Zophar? Because I was thinking of the final dungeon music in the remake as this.

I was referring to the final final dungeon (the tower in the epilogue). I think it's the first track on the Lunar 2 CD that came with the PSX game, if you have that. Working Designs commissioned a new song because they didn't think the last dungeon in an RPG should re-use music from earlier in the game. Sadly, they didn't do the same in the remake.

The song you linked is very good, by the way. It's in the Sega CD version too. My personal favorite track is "Lucia vs Zophar".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOwReK9FQ0g&feature=related

EDIT: changed the link to a different version of the song

//Zig

I'm guessing you're talking about this one then, which is never actually played in the remake. Somehow I still very much associate it with my experience with the game and love it accordingly.

Yep, that's the one.

//Zig

This review is a labor of love to rival "Lunar: Eternal Blue." You absolutely nail the vibe of the game, and you sprinkle a lot of interesting trivia tidbits that a true devotee to this cult classic would know and appreciate.

(For the record: My copy was one of the later prints, with the embossed letters.)