Lunar: Silver Star Story – Golden Era of RPG’s

Working Designs was way ahead of its time. The American publisher did a lot of different things that I’m sure caused them to close their doors too soon. They localized many different Japanese RPGs and top down shooters favoring the CD medium for storage capacity and most importantly, the ability to support voice acting. It’s hard to imagine games not having voice acting now, but in the early 90’s, it was almost unheard of. They had many cult hit releases across Sega CD, Sega Saturn (where are my downloadable Saturn games?), Playstation, and Playstation 2 before closing their doors in 2005. I was fortunate enough to play a few of these games. Their most notable release was Lunar.

If you haven’t played the first game in this series and want to, there’s no excuse. It’s rereleased about every 5 years. The original Lunar was on Sega CD. A remastered version came to the Playstation with the subtitle Silver Star Story complete. A few years later a differently translated version in the form of Lunar Legend made it’s way to the Game Boy Advance. Finally, the last rendition came in the form of Silver Star Harmony for the PSP. The PSOne version was by far the best, coming with a making of disc, soundtrack, cloth map, and hard back manual. Working Design had amazing packaging and extras.

With the exception of Legend, all the game told the same story with beautifully rendered animations and voice acting. In retrospect, the main plot is a little simplistic. We follow Alex, with his pet flying cat Nall and two of his childhood friends, Luna, and Ramus. They investigate a cave to find Quark, the White Dragon. He senses great promise in Alex, encouraging him to take the dragon trials to become the next Dragonmaster, like his fallen hero and idol Dyne. The Dragonmaster is the champion of the Goddess Althena and protector of the world. During Alex’s travel he meets Dyne’s friends and previous travelling companions. In Vane, the floating magical city, we meet one such person, Ghaleon, now the head of the magic college. After impressing Ghaleon with a task, he asks Alex to take him to meet Quark. Upon meeting the dragon he attacks, revealing himself to be the Magic Emperor, a shadowy figure that’s been plaguing the land. He swears vengeance on the dragons and goddess for letting his friend Dyne die. He departs after murdering Quark and kidnapping Luna.

The story continues with Alex recruiting more companions to help him become the Dragonmaster, defeat Ghaleon, and save Luna. By many standards, the story is pedestrian and maybe difficult for some to digest today only because they’ve seen it before in later titles that aped it. At the time, it was revolutionary, especially considering the technical leaps it made. This, along with the gameplay, it’s easy to see why the release the game so often, it still easily holds up today.

There’s one story element that still stick out to me. It makes the plot that much more interesting, and it’s barely touched upon. Easily missable in the first game, but still present. The second title, Lunar 2: Eternal Blue, expands on this idea more.

Notice the background of the final shot in the image above (or in the video)? Earth. Earth is in an ice age (seen in Lunar 2), and Althena brought everyone to the moon until it passed. They don’t outright say you’re on the moon, only strongly allude to it. The final confrontation of the game takes place on the darkside of the moon. It’s these strong, yet simple, background elements that make this game a must play every time it’s released.

What’s the first game you played with voice acting? Does it still hold up? Comment below!

Tony writes for his own site, thecredhulk.com, about comics, video games, movies, TV and more, six days a week. You can follow his updates on Facebook or Twitter. Drop by and tell’em hi.

I miss Working Designs.