Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete

"The world will once again be mine on a delicious half shell."

"Fang of Justice!"

If you liked Lunar 1, you'll like Lunar 2. Simple as that. Lunar 2 doesn't quite measure up to the standard set by 1, but in fairness it's impossible to compete with a game that's perfection in every way. Still, Lunar 2 is a great title that stands up on its own, and worth a playthrough of Lunar and RPG fan alike. While it's preferential to play Silver Star Story Complete before getting into the sequel, it's not 100% necessary. Eternal Blue is meant to stand on its own with only spotty references to the original, and it does a good job of this.

Eternal Blue takes place 1000 years after the conclusion of Silver Star Story Complete. If you play 2 before 1, the thing to know is that the game takes place on Lunar, with a giant planet called the Blue Star orbiting overhead. In ancient times, the Blur Star was a rich world inhabited by humanity, but was eventually corrupted beyond repair. The Goddess Althena had to turn the world into a barren wasteland to kick all the evil out, and helped the humans migrate to Lunar. Althena created a good world on the smaller Lunar, and promised humanity that she would one day return them to a thriving Blue Star. Lunar 1 in a nutshell is evil rising up and taking control of Althena's powers, and the good guys eventually winning. However, the populace still inhabited Lunar, not the Blue Star.

1000 years later, a new character awakens from cryostasis on the Blue Star. Her name is Lucia, charged with guarding the Blue Star until it's able to be restored. Unfortunately, her awaking early means Lunar is about to be in huge trouble, so she flies to the other planet in hopes of meeting with Althena and preventing catastrophe. When she arrives, she meets with the main character of the game, Hiro. Hiro is an adventurous child who always barely escapes from danger, living in peace with his grandpa Gwyn and his pet baby red dragon, Ruby. Hiro falls in love with Lucia at first sight, and vows to help her find Althena.

Problem being Althena's Guard, specifically Leo the White Knight, was assigned to execute someone named Lucia the Destroyer on sight. Apparently someone got the bright idea that this "Lucia" character was destined to come to Lunar and destroy the place. For the first half of the game, Hiro assists Lucia in running away from Althena's Guard and meets some new friends along the way. It wouldn't be a Lunar game if there weren't some good characters, good relationships and NPCs worth talking to several times. Ronfar is an ex-member of Althena's Guard, currently wasting his days away as deadbeat bar trash; Jean is a carnival dancer, who also randomly knows the strongest karate in the world; Lemina is the current head of the Vane Magic Guild, even though Vane itself is a town in ruins; and of course, there are a ton of surprises and plot twists along the way.

Admittedly, the first half of the game where the party runs away from Althena's Guard is very dry. It's all character relationships, vague hints of what will happen later and wholly boring plot events. But right around when the party finally makes it to Pentagulia, the game becomes the proverbial book you can't put down. Saying more would obviously spoil a ton, so play the game and see for yourself. Just know that all the boring nonsense you have to deal with in disc 1 is worth it. Very, very worth it.

"I saved this for you, infidel!"

The gameplay is almost identical to Lunar 1, with some added features and fixes. In battle, you start out in whatever formation you want. Basic attacks bring you close to enemies, enemies can get close to you during their own attacks, and the abilities and varied weapon and character types you get throughout the game make it all a fun, clustered mess. Characters and enemies are all over the place in fights, and it takes quite a long time until you get the GG abilities and items that lay waste to any enemy in the game. Until then, true strategy is involved with what skills to use and when and having enough items to get through a dungeon. Enemies aren't quite as hard as they were in Lunar 1, but you can still get killed if you're careless. Hiro is a standard overpowered RPG main character, but he can't carry the team by himself all the time. Enemies will have strengths and weaknesses to certain attacks, and so forth. It's a simple system to get used to, and one that any Lunar 1 vet will jump right into with no problems.

Each character gets skills and weapons that fit their theme. Hiro is a swordsman with a lot of HP and great stats, meant for the front line. Ronfar is a healer that does no damage, meant for back line support. Lemina is your mage, and pretty much breaks the game with the right items. And so on and so on. Lunar 2 also has more stuff to play around with than in 1, such as the Crest system. Each character can equip up to two crests, which affect various things. Most give you some magic, others give stats, and others give random abilities like Attack Power going up every round. It's fun to play around with, though you'll find that it's a gimmick by game's end. Very few of the crests are relevant. There is also the standard weapon/shield/head/armor/2 accessories equipment system, an item inventory, and of course bromides of various characters. But perhaps the biggest improvement from Lunar 1 to 2 from a gameplay perspective is item stacking. No more dealing with a million Star Lights in one place. You can hold 20 at a time, in one spot.

Most importantly, there's a epilogue adventure once you've beaten the main game. Lunar 2 doesn't do the ambiguous ending. You get to make a true conclusion, with challenging bonus dungeons and bosses, and some awesome items to find.

"Taste my refreshment!"

Graphically and musically, it's virtually the same game. This is a good thing, because Lunar 1 had some amazing sprites for characters and monsters and NPCs, and some very cheery music that got serious when it needed to. Lunar 2 does the exact same thing with no complaints. They even brought back the cheesy, over the top voice acting that everyone loves. Anime scenes pop up now and again during the story, and in battle everyone has ungodly over-the-top spell quotes. Playing around with all the crests and magic spells is worth it just to hear everyone's spell quotes, especially with a spoilerific character you get late in the game.

"Discipline feels GOOD, haha!"

There are however a couple of glaring problems that keep Lunar 2 from being as good as 1 was. It's nothing game-breaking and Eternal Blue is a great game in spite of this stuff, but they're still there.

For starters, this game has a HUGE audio problem. The game itself seemed like it was recorded very loudly, which would be fine if it was constant. But if you turn the volume down, an anime scene will pop up and you won't be able to hear anything the characters are saying. So then you turn the TV back up to hear what's going on, and by then you've either missed stuff or the game shifts back to normal and you're back to annoying the neighbors and helping your own hearing loss. There's a very unconstant volume coming from this game. Thankfully you're thrown a bone with the Rememberizer item found in the epilogue. You can go back and view all the scenes from the game, provided you zoom all over the world to where the scenes took place and add them to your list. The music player comes with all the music free of charge, but the Rememberizer requires scene-hunting. Makes little sense.

Another audio problem comes in battle, though this was seemingly done on purpose. In Lunar 1, you felt all the attacks your characters put out. When Alex stabbed something, you heard it plain as day and almost felt bad for that skewered beetle. In Lunar 2, it sounds like the characters are fighting with sandpaper underwater. You barely near any sound effect from any attack. It's a good thing voices are so fun in fights, else fighting in this game would not be much fun.

Lastly, Disc 1 truly is boring. Every RPG has some exposition, but this one has exposition unnecessarily taking up half the game. Lucia being in battle is nice, but for half the game? No one likes AI-controlled allies.

"Kneel and perish!"

Overall, Lunar 2 is a damn good game and any RPG fan should play it. It has a few minor problems and isn't as good as Lunar 1, but then again how many games are as good as Lunar 1? You won't be disappointed here. Play Eternal Blue. Or better yet, play them both.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/08/09

Game Release: Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete (US, 12/15/00)