Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete

"A well rounded title that stays true to its old school heritage."

You start off in a scene where three young teens embarking on an adventure. They go off in search of gold and danger and their motives are like any other teenager: to tick their parents off.

The Story: With out a doubt the best element. It goes a lot deeper than the traditional save the princess or stop the asteroid from smashing the planet. It involves young people in a new fantasy world, and even with some romance thrown in. The additional anime cut scene every 20-30 mins really adds to the story and helps define each characters personality. This story will keep you hooked.

Gameplay: This is also another promissing point. The magic system is somewhat in depth and features a lot of unique spells. And there's still that urge to just play nonstop all day just to "gain your level" now that's when you know you're playing a good rpg.

Graphics: This is where the game slips and ultimately keeps ot from achieving it's perfect 10 score. It's not as bad as many claim though. It's just your typical old school sprite based rpg. These graphics could look exactly the same and came out two years ago and it would be a perfect game. But if gameplay and story are what drive your rpg cravings the graphics shouldn't bother you.

Sound: This is superb. Not as great as say FF7 but exellent none the less. The voice actor of Luna the female future top 20 singer is really great and it features quite a few tracks of her singing her own songs. And the boat scene is a classic that will be thought of for years to come. Speaking of voice actors, the translation is bar none and even features a few american style puns and one liners that become famous in those old Chevy Chase movies.

Extras: The extras like the incredible packaging helps make this game worth it's $60 price tag. It features a hard leather insstruction booklet with an exerpt from the strategy guide. Plus there is a whole hour of anime scenes! Then it comes with a CD full of the in game music that plays in any CD player. THEN there's is another CD full with a video on the making of the game. All that on top of two game disks.

Smmary: IF you're an old school fan of rpgs BUY IT! Not the Zelda old school but the in depth FF3 old school. It's like watching a movie and you're the main character. Whether or not you'll enjoy it is not the question but whether or not you don't mind giving up your social life just to complete it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 06/09/03