by Jay "THE FLEA" Wade
A thousand years have past sense Silver Star Story. An evil force is coming to destroy the world. A young girl “Lucia” from the blue star is sent to warn the goddess Althena of this destroyer. But the Althena’s guard mistakes her as the destroyer.
The main hero “Hiro” (must be a play on words) and his side kick “Ruby” (a pink flying cat who claims to be a baby dragon) finds her first and help her find Althena to save the world. In their quest they find many odd characters who help them in their journey.
That’s the basic story to Lunar 2: Eternal Blue. Lunar 2 originally appeared on the Sega-CD, one of the few games worth playing on the Sega-CD I might add.
But this version adds more depth to an old classic. Full anime cinema play along with the story that is really fun to watch, sure it’s no CAI master piece as the Final Fantasy series. But any player will be looking forward to each one that appears. The cinemas are all voice acted and more are not the best, but they do pull it off.
One of the things that made Lunar Silver Star Story so great was it’s characters. Characters that make you laugh and feel for their pain. You really cared for their quest. Lunar 2 continues this with a funny jealous flying cat, a naive young girl from another world who doesn’t understand this worlds way of life, a womanizing gambler, a kung-fu dancer, a money loving young mage, and a wannabe superhero.
The graphics are sharp and colorful, but don’t expect a Final Fantasy world. This is old style RPG.
Small pixel characters, and large mapping with tons of exploration that is missed in the RPG world of today of who can do the better graphics. This is a must own for anyone who likes old style RPG.
One little thing that bugged me in Lunar 2 is some of the pop culture dialog. This is a little out of place in an RPG when the characters use quotes from famous movies and television.
Included with Lunar are tons of goodies, a manual made into a hard cover book, the Lunar 2 soundtrack, the making of Lunar CD, a life-size or Lucia’s pendant, a large fold out map, and paper standees of the characters from Lunar 2. But all this comes with a price, around $60 at most stores.
Overall Lunar 2 is worth your RPG hours, but if all you care about is fancy graphics and CGI FMV.
Then Lunar 2 may not be your style. But if all you need a great story with fun characters, then I highly recommend Lunar 2. I hope this isn’t the end of the Lunar series
PUBLISHER: WORKING DESIGNS
GRAPHICS: 7 MUSIC & SOUND: 9.5 CONTROL: 9
SECRETS: 10 ORIGINALITY: 9.5 FUN & REPLAY: 10
OVERALL: 8.5