Lunar: Remastered Collection Review: Showing its age

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Nowadays, Role-Playing Games (RPGs) are a regular element in video game production. In fact, it’s quite usual to encounter RPG features in various games these days. Concepts like level progression, enhancing character attributes, embarking on quests, and taking on side missions have been widely adopted from the early days of RPGs. Over time, what constitutes an RPG has broadened, with many titles being revamped or reinterpreted to align with contemporary gaming styles.

This revamped collection, titled Lunar: Remastered Collection, breathes new life into two timeless pixel-art role-playing games: Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete, which hail from the late ’90s. Originally developed by GAME ARTS, this collection is now being managed by ASHIBI and Gungho Online Entertainment, in conjunction with the original creators.

The remaster significantly enhances the visual quality of both the pixel-art characters, environments, and hand-drawn animated cutscenes, which now feature full voice acting. Additionally, it incorporates contemporary game mechanics to elevate the overall playing experience. If you were a fan of these RPGs from years past, this remaster provides an unparalleled way to revisit them today.

In essence, this freshly polished set boasts several significant enhancements compared to its predecessors, yet it maintains a strong commitment to preserving the narrative and characters of the initial games. It’s worth noting that this collection doesn’t venture as deeply into reimagining an old favorite like the Final Fantasy VII Remake. Perhaps, it could have. Despite the nostalgic appeal of Lunar: Remastered Collection’s vintage aesthetics, it seems a bit too rooted in yesteryear to truly shine in today’s gaming landscape.

What Is Lunar?

Back in your early years, around age 6 or 7, you might have been among those who welcomed the debut of the Lunar video game series in Japan. The game quickly spread to North America, but despite an initially positive critical response, this role-playing game (RPG) franchise failed to become a widely recognized household name as a popular RPG franchise.

If you’re encountering these games for the first time, let me tell you that Lunar: Silver Star Story and its follow-up, Lunar 2: Eternal Blue, share similar visual styles and gameplay mechanics. When you take command, you’ll be navigating a compact pixel character across an isometric pixel art environment. The towns and cities have intricate details, but when moving between specific locations, the view shifts to display your party traversing a broader landscape.

The game’s experience is split between discovering the world and its various cities, interacting with non-player characters, and delving into locations that can be dungeons, caves, sewers, or even ancient palace ruins. Although they may differ in appearance, they function similarly in the overall gameplay.

In the open world, monsters will approach you if you get too close, leading to strategic turn-based combat sequences.

In some instances, the hand-drawn cut scenes in this game truly pop. These moments are spoken and may include unique tunes. They often evoke memories of high-quality animated movies and TV series from the late 90s. Despite pixel-art RPGs being relatively common in today’s video games, these animated scenes make Lunar stand out. Although I haven’t played the original games, it seems that the remaster has put extra effort into enhancing these scenes.

PROS:

  1. beautiful hand-drawn animated cutscenes;
  2. visual upgrade across the board;
  3. easy to sit back and relax if that’s what you’re looking for.

CONS:

  1. the story feels outdated and cliché;
  2. characters are stereotypical and uninspired;
  3. combat gets repetitive quickly.

A Dated Narrative

The Lunar: Remastered Collection, in its commitment to maintaining the original story, characters, and snappy dialogue, finds itself entrenched in what feels like familiar patterns of classic RPGs today. These patterns, once perhaps novel, have now become tropes and cliches, a testament to the evolution of role-playing games over more than two decades. While these games have undergone visual upgrades since their initial release, they have remained largely unchanged in terms of gameplay, leaving some players yearning for more innovative elements.

In the initial game, titled Lunar: Silver Star Story, I found myself yearning for a continuation. The characters seemed bland and overly typical, which made their interactions and humor repetitive within the first hour. Instead of keeping me engaged, they often interrupted the immersion by adhering to stereotypes rather than developing unique personalities.

In one of their initial escapades, our would-be hero Alex, his strangely affectionate adopted sister Luna who harbors feelings for him, the enigmatic talking beast companion Nall, and money-oriented friend Ramus embark on a journey into an icy cavern in search of a dragon’s hoard. Throughout their trek, they face scores of monstrous foes. Each confrontation sees vital contributions from all three humans, with Ramus, despite lacking special moves, dealing greater damage with his ordinary strikes than even Alex on numerous occasions. Upon their return to the village, Nall scolds Ramus for being preoccupied with food instead of helping in battles, a remark that seemed contrived and forced, suggesting the writers were trying to insert humor at the expense of a stereotypical character rather than focusing on gameplay dynamics.

Although it wasn’t excessively dull or annoying, the story failed to engage me fully. Given the nature of this RPG, especially in today’s gaming world, it can be challenging to persuade players to invest more than 20 hours if the story doesn’t initially grab them. Despite the appealing retro graphics and hand-drawn scenes, the plot detracts from the overall gameplay experience.

Compared to its predecessor, Lunar 2: Eternal Blue exhibits a slightly improved narrative, with more original character development and a less predictable storyline at the outset. However, it doesn’t quite break new ground or appear contemporary. In essence, both games deliver a serviceable story, but some may find the dialogues, tropes, and clichés to be dated. If you can overlook these elements, the story will keep you engaged. However, it might not appeal to everyone. What truly sets these games apart is their gameplay, which could potentially win over even the most critical of players.

Dungeon Crawling

In both Lunar games, you’ll find identical gameplay patterns. You traverse new locations, delve into what resembles a ‘labyrinth’, encounter and combat creatures, reach the labyrinth’s core, and face a formidable boss monster. This could range from tracking down a burglar in the sewers to passing a test for admission to a mystical floating city in the sky.

In this game, strategic clashes occur on a compact grid with a rectangular shape. Before engaging in combat, you get to arrange the positions of your party members, setting up each character’s initial placement. However, during the battle itself, there are no additional tactics required for moving characters; this is incorporated into the attack selection instead. Typically, characters have both a standard attack and a variety of special moves or magical abilities at their disposal.

The game prefers to let players discover its workings independently rather than providing numerous tutorials. This approach has its advantages – it allows for a smooth, uninterrupted gaming experience at the start. However, encountering a tough boss fight without fully grasping the combat dynamics might inadvertently make the challenge more demanding.

Similar to numerous Role-Playing Games, battles may become monotonous rather swiftly. To ease this, the game offers an auto-battle feature. By pressing a key, the system will handle the combat on your behalf. This updated compilation further provides the ability to modify the pace of combat, making those repetitive skirmishes seem even more fleeting. Although this added option is thoughtful and self-aware, it might suggest that the combat isn’t particularly engaging when the game lets you accelerate things and let the system play out the battles for you.

As you advance, characters acquire more intriguing abilities, and additional characters join your team. If you’re fine with somewhat repetitive combat or even find pleasure in a role-playing game that frequently becomes mindless grinding, then this is the perfect match for you. By increasing the battle speed and opting for automatic battles each turn, you can glide through the dungeons. Although it doesn’t appeal to me, I won’t pass judgment on those who find satisfaction in such an experience.

Final Thoughts

The remastered version of Lunar: Remastered Collection, which is quite good, sticks close to its original form. It doesn’t aim to break new ground, but that could be why it falls short somewhat. Now, this is the best way to experience these classic RPGs, yet I find it challenging to envision anyone diving into the world of Lunar without prior affection for the series due to nostalgia.

These games aren’t exceptional, they’re merely average. That makes it challenging to recommend them given the abundance of outstanding RPGs currently available. Recent releases like Baldur’s Gate 3, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Metaphor: ReFantazio are prime examples. However, if you prefer a more nostalgic feel with pixel-art aesthetics, you might enjoy Sea of Stars, Octopath Traveler, or Triangle Strategy as well. The distinction here is that the newer RPGs cater more to contemporary audiences, while these remastered games may not be created with that same focus.

Essentially, Lunar: Remastered Collection is a decent RPG. What truly sets it apart from others is its stunning artwork, particularly the enhanced visuals in this remastered set. While the story and gameplay are sufficient to make for an enjoyable time, I’m not convinced that they will be enough to attract a new fanbase. For now, Lunar: Remastered Collection seems content with reminiscing about its past glory days, and it appears that these memories will remain the strongest within this series.

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2025-04-14 17:33