Lunar Remastered Collection Review – Review
It’s Christmas 1993. My big brother Phil is deep into Lunar The Silver Star on Sega CD. As the tag along brother, I loved nothing more than to watch any game he was into as I wasn’t confident enough to play anything bigger than a simple platformer. He would even go as far as recording his play sessions on VHS for me to watch later (this is how I experienced Final Fantasy VII initially.) Lunar always felt different, though: a magical mix of classic sprite-based art with these eye-catching anime cutscenes (thanks to the CD-ROM technology.) It wouldn’t be for a few more years that I take the plunge into bigger games such as these but the core memories are the foundation of my love of games. Enter Lunar Remastered Collection, a long-awaited celebration of the series.
The Lunar name has been around the block in various iterations since its initial releases on Sega CD, like in the subsequent ports and re-releases on Sega Saturn, PlayStation 1, PlayStation Portable and mobile. Yet, there hasn’t been a good way to play the series outside of the PlayStation Classics version on PSN (this has since been removed as of the launch of the new store,) which spins up an emulated version. Now we finally have an accessible updated version with touched up pixel art and cleaned up animation sequences. The real question that drove me to this review was, does Lunar: The Silver Star and its sequel Lunar 2: Eternal Blue hold up to today’s retro-styled RPG standards? In the process of answering this question, I found a pleasant, nostalgic surprise that shows how far ahead of its time Lunar really was.
Lunar: The Silver Star and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue are pretty boiler plate turn-based RPGs. They involve a hero’s unexpected journey to stop a world threatening evil, all while amassing a lovable rag tag group of allies.These kinds of games live and die by the level of personality they display, but luckily that’s where the series stands out most. Outlandish Kyle and boisterous Nash from the first game are as charismatic as Lemina and Jean of the second game. These characters all play well with our protagonists Alex and Hiro, who are the pure-of-heart, hopeful, heroes-of-lore archetype in their respective games. Everyone in the main and supporting cast make for engrossing personalities; fortunately, the villains are equally as magnetic. Throughout the course of their fairly linear stories, you really get to know a cavalcade of extra dastardly villains, led by the best in class Ghaleon. Adding to the mix is a wild localization from a team that originally chose to include ‘90s American pop culture references such as Austin Powers jokes into a Japanese game. It’s a community fan favorite.
I mentioned the game being fairly linear, but that’s to its benefit. The linearity is used to really hammer down an engaging story that keeps you moving forward at a pretty steady pace. While other games prefer an open-world approach, there’s a charm to a curated straight forward experience. This has come more in vogue with games like Sea of Stars and Jack Move, but it’s easy to see how these more recent games were influenced by classics like Lunar or Chrono Trigger. The stories of the world ruled by the ancient goddess Althena suddenly in peril from the ancient evil Zophar can get to some dark places but remain hopeful throughout. Considering the games follow a fabled hero dragonmaster attempting to slay the four dragons and save the people of Lunar, you can see how the stories build onto each other despite taking place hundreds of years apart. What also helps is the constant stream of animated cutscenes that take place during major story beats to really punctuate the proceedings and flex that CD-ROM power.
The familiar turn-based combat has some slight positioning mechanics built in. There is an invisible grid that has characters only able to move a certain distance before they can attack. In addition, some attacks will do area of effect damage, so spacing is important. Outside of that, the remastered version allows for automatic commands to be set for your party so you can program how your party acts automatically. This takes a bit of the repetitive nature out of combat, and there’s also a fast forward button to speed up the flow if you feel it’s a slog. Enemies appear on screen and can be avoided but if touched will take you to the combat screen. Unlike other remastered collections like the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, there isn’t any other way to avoid the monotony of enemy engagement. The number of fights isn’t tedious but it’s right on the cusp of being so. A slider lowering or raising the number of enemy encounters would have been welcome, and perhaps an increased XP or money slider, too. These are the quality of life improvements I would’ve wanted from this kind of remaster, especially since my replay reminded me of the grinding necessary to progress past some of the story bosses. It isn’t egregious, but the more I avoided combat, the harder the story became.
Along those lines, while everything looks crisp and beautifully brought into high definition, it’s unfortunate that the original English voice acting isn’t an option; we’re stuck with the new voice acting presented here. How about some behind the scenes content, or a toggle to swap between the original vs remastered versions? Currently, the Remastered Collection offers the choice of playing the original games or the new remastered versions, but they are separate executables. Luckily, the save carries over from one version to the next but you still have to exit the game entirely to switch. This lack of content may have to do with a breakdown in communications between the original localization team Working Designs, but I would have even loved to see the Collection expanded with the other versions of the games and offshoots like Silver Star Harmony, Silver Star Complete, Lunar Legend, All The Lunar: Hyper Applications, Lunar: Sanposuru Gakuen, and Lunar Dragon Song, just to make this the definitive compilation. All that said, here we are with the PS1/Sega Saturn versions of Lunar 1 and 2, and that will have to be enough for now. We’ve definitely seen more robust collections and compilations of revered games from the past, and it’s a bit unfortunate that Lunar hasn’t been afforded the same treatment.
As a long time fan of the Lunar series, I am more than overjoyed to finally have one of my childhood JRPGs in a playable format on modern consoles. In 2025, I still find the series relevant and as charming as it was back when I was a starry-eyed child. I saw myself in Alex and Hiro; they were the heroes I wanted to be. Still, this is far from being a definitive collection. There’s so much more that could accompany a package like this in addition to combat speed, a cleaner look, and widescreen presentation. Original English VO, missing games, art work, orchestrated soundtrack or even quality of life gameplay improvements could have pushed this to the high standards that companies like Square Enix and Capcom have set. I am happy that Lunar can now reach more people, but I long for more to share from such a cult classic and one of my all time favorites.
