Lunar Silver Star Story – Review

I’ve been curious about the Lunar Story games for a very long time. I have been captivated and intrigued by this title forever but I never got the chance to play them.

In the 2000’s I would sometimes see copies of the game in stores and the box art would always stand out with a design that was unlike anything at the time. The Playstation case was always bulky and commanding making it just impossible to ignore.

From time to time and especially during the pandemic I would see the game come up on places like eBay and I would see the same old artwork that impressed me back then and my curiosity would be piqued and I would think about buying it but then the price of a single copy would leap out at me. A minimum of 250 dollars for the game – and I would regret that I didn’t get it back when it was widely available in stores.

For a long time, Lunar Story was un-reachable and gated behind massive prices, so you can imagine my excitement when it was announced that a remaster was coming to the PS4. I knew I had to get it and it would be the one game that I would pre-order in 2025.

I am going to be talking about my time with Silver Star Story – The first of two games in the Lunar Remastered Collection. Silver Star Story was first released back all the way in 1992 before there was even a playstation on the SEGA CD – it was then ported and in a sense remastered to the Playstation 1 in 1996 – and as old as it is Silver Star is still a very impressive and playable title that shows how incredibly capable RPGS are at delivering stories with exciting characters.

The story, the characters, the music, the battle system are all incredibly well produced, charming and enjoyable more than 30 years later — for people who played this game when it was first released, I can only imagine that it must’ve influenced them greatly.

Story and Characters

The game starts off simply enough; Alex dreams of leaving his small village to go on a grand adventure like the legendary Dragonmaster Dyne he grew up idolizing. And while the opening premise is quiet straightforward – the characters around Alex elevate the experience to legendary status.

Alex gets his first opportunity for adventure when his friend Ramus, who is motivated not by any heroic aspirations but for acquiring wealth, hears of a supposed diamond inside what was thought to be an abandoned dragon cave. The fact that It wasn’t a need to save the world but simply money that gets the plot started I found to be incredibly funny. 


They are joined by Luna, Alex’s love interest and the game’s other protagonist and a flying cat named Nall that can talk and likes to eat fish. Inside the cave they meet the white dragon Quark – who gives the party the diamond they were seeking after they complete a trial – Ramus is excited over the diamond’s monetary value, Alex is encouraged when the dragon express belief in him becoming the next dragon master and we glimpse that there might be more to Luna’s role in this story than just a side kick.

What really struck me was how a character like Ramus is motivated by his own needs and desires that are completely separate from the main plot and the protagonists – he will eventually leave the party because he gets what he wants and the story moves forward without him.

This happens a lot in this game – nothing and no-one is ever truly static – all the characters have their own personalities and motivations and they all react differently to the events they find themselves in. The decisions the characters make do impact the party and the overall gameplay too, so it does make a difference on your experience and you will have to change strategies accordingly.

Also, it’s not just the main story characters, the same goes for all the NPC in the cities that you visit, they are so incredibly responsive to the the major events of the game that it manages to add to the weight to the scenarios that play out drawing you further into the experience. I absolutely love the attention to detail in this game.

I was completely surprised by Luna; they were able to maker her so expressive that you can feel the sadness that she carries within and the creators gave the her time to express her inner feelings. Luna’s sadness is balanced with quietness of Alex, the arrogance of Nash, the quiet anxiety of Mia, the brashness of Kyle and the enthusiasm of Jessica.

I certainly didn’t expect Lunar Story to be this thoughtful but Silver Star is full of surprises and the 40+ hour gameplay is full of twists and turns. This JRPG isn’t simple at all.

Graphics – Art

The remaster looks great – you will primarily be looking at pixel graphics but the cutscenes mix traditional animation with early CGI to advance key story beats and introduce key characters in the game. And while it all looks great in the remaster – I love the hand drawn animation cut scenes. They’re incredibly high quality and memorable and even have voice acting, I am hoping that Eternal Blue is packed with more of them. They are so well done that they will take you back to the the 80’s and 90’s with the old anime art style that I think is far more visually appealing than some of the anime we see today.

The pixel graphics are nothing to dismiss either. The Lunar Story’s pixel graphics have solidified my love for pixel art – I really got into gaming with PSone and not with the era that preceded it but having played Silver Star Story I now see the charm of pixel art and why it resonates so strongly with people till this day.

Gameplay

The turn based gameplay is both challenging and rewarding. There is a balance between traditional hacking away at monsters of traditional turn-based RPG fashion and a bit of strategy with having to properly position characters on the board which determines how far they can move, who they can attack and if they are effected by splash damage – it’s takes a bit of time to grasp but it’s a nice take no an old formula. And it keeps encounters fresh and exciting.

Regarding difficulty, some of these battles were just really tough. It takes time to figure out attack patterns of bosses and there were some abilities that I had no idea how to properly utilize – there is an AI option, that allows the cpu to fight the battles for you – I used it once and immediately regretted it.

It’s far more rewarding to figure things out on your own. That said I do enjoy the feature to speed up battles because turn-based gameplay can get repetitive. As a tip, it’s essential to equip the party with the latest gear and to take some time level. There being no quick save feature it is essential to manually save on a regular basis.

Conclusion

I never would’ve expected that I would get to experience this game on the PlayStation 5. I’m so glad that I caught wind of this game and got to play through it. I can’t wait to play through Eternal Blue and see how it builds on the original.

For a long time, nearly 20 years, this game was gate kept behind incredibly high prices on eBay but thanks to the current trend of game preservation these classic titles have a chance at a new life – I do wish they kept the voice acting from the original game for those of us who wanted to experience the original PSone in it’s purest form and that the physical edition had a bit more to it to celebrate 30 plus years of the game.

This collection reminded me of why I became a fan of this genre in the first place and I can’t wait to play get into Eternal Blue.