Pros: Amazing Story, Excellent Ending, Perfect Character Chemistry
Cons: MIDI music leaves much to be desired
The bottom line: This is hands down the best RPG I have played to date. The title is no longer in print so be sure to grab it if you see it.
The year was 1986. Back then I was just a spry young boy with nothing better to do than play my newly acquired Nintendo Entertainment System. A new release on the golden wall at the Toys ‘R’ Us immediately caught my attention: Dragon Warrior. This was the first RPG that I played and the first in a long line of RPG’s I’ve played ever since. In those 15 glorious years of Pizza, Pop, and Chips, I have never stumbled across a game as captivating as Lunar: The Silver Star Story.

History

Lunar: The Silver Star Story was originally released for the Sega add on, Sega CD. I was strictly a Nintendo boy, so I never had the privilege to play this game on this particular platform. The game was initially released in 1992 and was about par as far as graphics for the time. The new version of Lunar: The Silver Star Story has added anime cut scenes and from what I have read, updated some graphics. The story line has stayed near the same from the original release.

The Plot

The last time the world of Lunar was in peril, four great heroes stepped forward and saved it from imminent disaster. These four heroes were Ghaleon, Lemia, Mel De’alkirk, and the Dragonmaster himself, Dyne. Young Alex lives in the isolated town of Burg on Caldor Isle. His hometown is home to a monument dedicated to the memory of Dragonmaster Dyne. All his life Alex has dreamt of being the next Dragonmaster. The winter has ended, and the ice surrounding the great cave of the white dragon has been opened. It is here where your adventure begins. You set out to meet your destiny. Your traveling companions include Ramus, Luna, and your adorable flying “cat” Nall.

Along your quest to become Dragonmaster, something goes dreadfully wrong. One of the four great heroes from times past, with evil aspirations and ambitions, takes it on himself to destroy the 4 great dragons and take over the divine position of the Goddess Althena. It is now the task of you and your party, young Dragonmaster, to once again save the world.

The Game

The game starts with an amazingly good anime movie intro. Where it really doesn’t pertain to the immediate story, it is a great watch. You start out standing at Dynes monument talking with Nall. Make a mental note now, Nalls’ voice sounds like Lacy Chabert after inhaling helium, if that is even possible. It’s both cute and annoying at the same time. Ok back to the game. After you finish your minute conversation with Nall, your pal Ramus finds you there, and proceeds to tell you about the thawing at the white dragon cave. Ramus dreams of obtaining the Dragon Diamond and moving to the city of Merbia to sell it and make his fortune. After meeting with Ramus, it’s off to find Luna. You were supposed to meet her for a singing rehearsal and you are late. You find Luna, and after another great anime cut scene, you prepare yourself for your big adventure.

Your initial ambition is to become the next Dragonmaster, you will fulfill this quest in the course of the game. The plot unfolds and thickens throughout the game and your true quest as the Dragonmaster become clear. It is the duty of the Dragonmaster to protect the creator of Lunar, the Goddess Althena. You will meet 4 other characters that will be the main party you play with for the majority of the game. As with most RPG’s, your party will be split up at times to allow for flow of the story. There will also be other characters that you will get in your party on a temporary basis for some of the dungeons.

Another thing that singles Lunar: The Silver Star Story out from the rest is that the bosses are actually tough. I envision you cursing at your television repeatedly throughout the game. It may sound frustrating, but it brings an element of RPG’s out that I haven’t seen in quite some time.

The game takes roughly 30 hours of play to complete (I completed it In 27).

The Controls


World Map and Dungeons
If you keep in mind that this game was created back when game controllers were sparse on buttons, the controls are quite simple to figure out. In non-battle situations there are only 3 buttons used. The Triangle brings up your inventory screen (so does select), the circle will procure the save screen, and the X acts as your action key for talking to NPC’s and opening chests etc. As you can see it’s quite rudimentary.

Inventory
The inventory section boasts 4 commands. The magic command allows you to cast healing spells on your party during non-battle sequences. None of your characters have status elimination spells, as if your status changes (poisoned, stoned, etc) it only lasts as long as that particular battle takes place. There are items that can null these while in battle. The Item command allows you to transfer items between characters and between your backpack and your party members as well. It also allows the ability to use and drop items that you currently posses. One thing you should know, only items on your person can be used while in battle. Any item carried in your backpack is unavailable during combat.

The Equipment button is one of the more important buttons, for obvious reasons. This is as easy you can imagine. It simply allows you to equip and remove items from your personal inventory. Once again, you can only equip armor and weapons that you carry on your person. If you want to equip an item you have in your pack, you’ll have to transfer it from there to your character first. This can actually be a pain, as some items are very similar but can only be used by certain characters. In this instance, you would have to alternate between the item screen and the equipment screen to find out which character to give it to.

The final button is the combat button. Lunar has an interesting aspect of combat that allows you choose to fight manually, or to use AI (Artificial Intelligence) to control your battle. There is also the option to automatically use defend. This forfeits your attack for the ability to increase defense (for that round).
I would recommend leaving this setting at manual, as you can choose all of these from the combat screen when battle in ensued.

Combat
The combat screen is just as easy as the rest. When you engage in combat you are presented with four choices. AI, Manual, Defend, and Run. Choosing AI lets the system make the decisions for you. In this mode the computer will decide which magic to use, which items to use, and which pattern of attack to pursue. The second command is manual. Just as stated this allows you the player to make all the decisions for that battle. The third command is defend which acts the same as described above in the inventory section. The fourth command is the run command; the function of this choice should be blatantly obvious.

If you choose manual control for your battles, you are then presented 6 choices per character. Choice number one is AI. In manual mode you can individually set AI per character instead of using it for the group as a whole. Choice number two is Magic. This allows the use of magic attacks for mages, healers, and swordsman. Yes even the warriors have magic they can use, it’s quite a nice change of pace. Choice number three is Defend. Just like AI, you can set this per character. Choice Four is Attack. Played out the same as you see it, it allows for you basic weapon attack. Choice number 5 is items. This allows for usage of the items on your person. The final choice is run. Once again you can set this per character when in manual mode. It is also a good way to survive a battle that you are sure you will lose. As long as one character survives, so will your party.

Summary

Lunar: The Silver Star Story was by far the most enthralling and entertaining games I have ever played. Being a huge anime fan to begin with, the plethora of anime movies used for cut scenes really grabbed my attention right from the very start. Top this with gut busting humor (Mostly adult humor, but only insinuated in most cases) and the most incredible ending I have ever seen in 15 years of gaming. Call me a pansy if you must, but I nearly wept watching the ending. The story is one of love, and I might add is better than most movies I’ve watched recently. You really form an understating and almost love with the characters. I have never encountered a game that has this much depth of character and story.
The one and only downside to Lunar was the MIDI music. In most cases it was utterly terrible. There were a few good ditties here and there, but for the most part it left much to be desired. Some will argue with me that the graphics were terrible, but if you think that this game was made for a 16-bit platform (8-bit maybe, I’m not 100% sure) then you realize that it was standard for the time.

One more note, the game itself is a box set. It comes with 4 discs: two discs for the game itself, one is a music soundtrack CD, and the last is quite unique. The last disc is the making of Lunar: The Silver Star Story. A small cloth map is also included in this package. I should warn you now, that Lunar is no longer in publication. I would highly recommend purchasing a copy of this if you happen to find it on an online auction site, or stumble across it at a garage sale or pawnshop. The later is where I purchased mine.

I think I’m going to go and reminisce about my 3 days of game play, drink a beer, and weep some more.