Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete

"Enter the World of Lunar! But beware, you WON’T want to leave!"

This is pure GameArts work. Just after playing the disappointing Grandia 2, I enter Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete, a remake of the original Sega CD sequel to Lunar: Silver Star Story. While Working Designs did a lot of work in the repackaging of this game (which is highly impressive, and now sets a new standard for console game packaging, in my opinion), the real gem of this game lies in its amazing story, the wonderful character development, and its solid gameplay.

Gameplay

You play as Hiro, a young boy accompanied by his companion (and/or pet) Ruby. Hiro, inspired and fascinated by the legends of Dragonmaster Alex and the four dragons of the world, meets a mysterious young lady named Lucia who is urgent to meet the Goddess Althena and asks Hiro to help her find the Goddess. The game adds lovable characters that are accompanied by fantastic voice acting, and plot twists along with that to draw you in even more. For me, this game, while not complex in its story, drew me in by its characters and its RPG traditional battle system (gain some levels, learn a new spell, cherish new spell until you gain some more levels, learn new spell).

Battle System

In fact, its battle system also follows the traditional turn-based system of classic RPGs. An interesting key about this game is that there are no random battles in this game, and that instead, little sprites of enemies are used, and that a battle begins when you run up to one. I found this to be a nice addition, especially with the O button assigned as a “run” button so that you can run away from enemies you don’t want to fight, rather than encounter an enemy and then choose the “Run” feature. But battles still occur very often, and in some cases they occur enough to drive you insane.

Difficulty

Lunar 2’s difficulty can be summed up as an “average” RPG, if you decide to fight all the enemies in a dungeon. Otherwise, it can be quite a difficult game. Because your “level” almost always determines your capability to win a battle (along with good thinking, mind you), it would be smart to train your characters a lot to have success in this game, because a boss battle varies a lot if your characters are at Level 12, and when they’re at Level 9.

Sound

Working Designs put a lot of effort into this remake. Most importantly, the voice acting is astounding and the most of the music tracks fit the scene very well (a joyous town theme, the dark and riveting theme of Ghaleon). There’s even two incredible vocal songs in the game! My only gripe about this game is the repetitive dungeon battle theme. Yes, the end does provide a nice track for the final dungeon, but we often hear the same dungeon tracks over and over again.

Graphics

Though the remake does smoothen most of the graphics in Lunar 2, the graphics aren’t a visual splendor. They aren’t terrible, but they aren’t impressive either. In the game, you’ll run along a 2D world map, which is fairly designed; most towns you’ll visit in the game show a similar design, with icons showing weapon and item shops. As with most RPGs, the towns are divided into the “upgrade” shops, regular townsfolk that have interesting things to say, and the “important” house. Lunar 2 is an RPG that doesn’t suffer from this completely because there just isn’t enough of it; while progressing the plot you will see towns formatted this way, but with designs that are enough to keep it from being a very bland RPG. However, from a popular standpoint, most RPG players won’t care too much about its old 2D look. In fact, this is the same Lunar we’ve played years ago.

Presentation

Normally, video games don’t deserve a presentation rating, but there is just so much inside, you would have to argue it as being a reason why to buy the game again. The packaging box contains a leather cover instruction booklet that’s about 70 pages, a soundtrack with almost all the tracks (‘cept the dungeon themes), character stand-ups, a map of Lunar, a making of Lunar CD, and a “Lucia’s pendant”. If the game isn’t reason enough to buy it, the neat soundtrack and the rest of the additions are. I ended up shelling $100 CDN for this game, but even today you can find a used copy for only $40 CDN, or for a bit more than 20 dollars for Americans. Overall, this game, because of the story, the characters, the music, and the gameplay, kept me drawn in until the end and for more. This is an excellent game that you’ll want to replay again (not to mention an extra bonus at the end that I won’t spoil!), but most of all, it’s a memorable RPG experience.

Summary

8/10 - Graphics: 2D, old school RPG style. Nice anime-ish cinematics to make up for its old look.

9/10 – Sound: Excellent music, and excellent voice acting.

6/10 – Difficulty: As in most RPGs, training your characters should be enough to deal with most bosses, and training even longer should be enough for “super bosses”.

9/10 – Story: An illustrious story filled with love, determination, and even moments of sadness. The character development is excellent.

9/10 – Gameplay (Fun Factor): Simply put, its gameplay is dependent on its musical score combined with its story-telling and classic battle system to keep you addicted. Until the end.

9/10 – Replayability/Value: This game is very replayable; while the story does finally “end”, reliving the adventure again would be just as fun as the first time playing it. And, now that you can find a used copy at almost any EB store around (for $40 CDN), it makes this game a must-get. There’s a lot in the package, too.

9/10 – Overall: This game, overall, despite its old look, does what every good RPG does--- it lives an amazing story with amazing characters and an awesome soundtrack. Oh, but most importantly, it’s a very fun game that you’ll be into almost immediately.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/02/02, Updated 09/02/02