Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete

"A classic remade on the Playstation"

Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete is a remake of the game Lunar: The Silver Star, which was released on the Sega CD, and Sega Saturn. Unfortunately, both systems did not fair so well, and the Lunar series did not get the recognition it deserved. I got my first glimpses of this great series when Working Designs brought this, the first game of the two in the series, to the Playstation. Although even with the release on the Playstation, the series has not garnered the same respect as the Final Fantasy series, it has still enjoyed decent success, and popularity. Working Designs was so happy with the success of this game, that they stopped producing copies of it, and selling it to the public at the end of 1999.

The story starts out with two friends seeking an adventure. Alex, the main character, is always dreaming about becoming a Dragonmaster, like his hero Dyne, so he is always looking for an adventure. He is convinced by his money-obsessed friend Ramus to go with him to the cave of the white dragon to try and discover dragon diamonds, that would make them filthy stinking rich. As the game progresses, you run into many new, interesting people, and eventually end up on a quest to save the world.

It is a shorter game, but the story flows at a nice pace. The game is probably around 20 to 30 hours, but it has one of the most incredible stories I have ever seen. Each character has a unique personality, and an interesting history. When talking to the different people you will encounter throughout town, you will notice that dialogue is fairly interesting to read. Dialogue throughout the game contains many jokes, some of which use pop-culture references. Most of the jokes are really funny to read, and help maintain a light-hearted atmosphere in different spots.

There are no random battles in this game. The only place that you can encounter enemies is in dungeons, and that is only if you choose to. All enemies that you can fight are shown on the screen, and will come towards you. Being able to see them, you can run away and try to avoid them if possible. It may not always be possible to avoid enemies, but it is a nice break from games with too many random battles.

When you do get into battle, you are given the choice of fighting on your own, or letting the artificial intelligence fight for you. Although it may sound like a good idea, just sit back and let the computer do all the work for you, it is not always the best option. The computer tends to use the best moves possible, often draining you of all of your magic points. You can choose to use the computer for the whole party in general, or for certain characters.

If you choose to fight on your own, you can perform any of the standard choices for an RPG, like attacking, defending, using magic, using an item, moving in your position, or running from a battle. For running from battles, just like the when using the computer to fight for you, you can either choose to try to run as a party, or as specific characters.

Magic is learned by each character when you reach a specific level. Some people may not enjoy the way magic is used in battles. You will often be using the same 1 or 2 moves for boss battles with each character, until you get a better move. Personally, I believe that this could be said about many different RPG’s, so it is not much of an issue with me. For regular attacks, you will only be able to perform one at first. As you reach higher levels, this will increase, and you will be able to perform more attacks each turn. Of course, landing an attack depends on how far you are from an enemy.

There is an element of strategy associated with the battles. Each character can move around to any spot on the battlefield you choose to move them. If you are too far from an enemy, you will not be able to attack them, as characters can only move certain distances each turn. Spacing out your characters is a good idea when fighting boss battles, because it means that magical attacks concentrated only on a certain area will not be able to hit your whole party at the same time.

With the graphics, some people will like them, and some people will not. The thing to keep in mind here is that these are the same 2-D graphics that came with the original release of the game, a few years ago. I liked the character sprites in the game. I thought that they were very unique looking, and looked pretty good. Enemies were done fairly well too, especially some of the dragons you will encounter. Towns, and backgrounds are bright and colorful, and well designed. The world map, although nothing special with graphics, has a decent design to it.

Throughout the game are many beautifully done anime cut-scenes. A great job has been done on them, other than one small point. During some scenes, the characters mouths move, but they are not always in synch with the voices. During some times, it does not even look like anything you have heard the character say. There are only a couple of small cases like this, so it is not too bad.

Sound is one of the best aspects to this game. The music is excellent. A lot of songs have a bright cheery tune to them, but there are also some good pieces for the dark and sad times in the game. There is also a good deal of voice acting to the game. Voices are very well done, and it is apparent that Working Designs took a lot of time to get the lines perfect. The main villain of the game has one of the best voices I have ever heard. His voice helps portray him as a witty, and intelligent, but also evil individual. Sound effects in the game are pretty good also.

Control is fairly easy to pick up. Menus are well designed and they are easy to navigate. There is even a button that takes you straight to the save screen, which is very convenient. You can also save anywhere in the game, so having that button is a major benefit, and time saver.

As far as difficulty, I would rate this game somewhere between easy and medium. There will be a few situations where you will tend to have difficulty on bosses, but most are not too hard. Figuring out where to go next is generally not too much of a problem, and it is usually fairly obvious or easy to figure it out.

There is not much replay value, unless you are willing to wait a few months before playing it again. If you play it again too soon, you will recognize the whole plot, so you may not enjoy it as much. There are items called bromides, that are well hidden through the game. They are pretty much the only big secret that you may want to go back and find. Other than that, I’d say wait until you forget a little of the story so that you will enjoy it just as much when you play it again.

This is an incredible game, and it is a great thing that Working Designs has released it on a popular system, which will allow it to get some of the respect that it greatly deserves. It is an old game, but it still has cool 2-D graphics, great anime cut-scenes, excellent music, and voice acting, an incredible story, and a lot of funny dialogue. I would definitely recommend buying this game if you can find it. Since it is no longer produced or sold by the company, you will probably not find it in many stores. You may have to resort to buying this game off of an online auction site like ebay, and you may have to pay a good chunk of change, but it is well worth it to enjoy this fantastic game.

Story - 10/10 - truly amazing story, and lots of interesting and funny dialogue
Gameplay - 10/10 - great battle system
Graphics - 8/10 - they are old but they are fairly good. Cut-scenes are fairly well done
Sound - 10/10 - great music, and the best voice acting you will find in a game
Control - 10/10 - very easy to pick up and figure out in a few minutes
Difficulty - easy to medium
Replay Value - other than the story, not too much
Buy or Rent - definitely buy

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/27/01, Updated 10/27/01