Lunar – Silver Star Story

Lunar Silver Star Story – Review

I’ve been curious about the Lunar games for a very long time. These game have captivated me and have been on my radar but I never got the chance to play them.

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

I never tried to get the because I just didn’t know anything about the series. It was never recommended by anyone I knew – so I just left it but I didn’t forget it, it stayed in my subconscious and never truly went away.

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

For a long time, the Lunar games were 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 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 and exciting with great 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 – Characters 

The game starts off simply enough; Alex dreams of leaving his small village to go on a grand adventure like his hero Dragonmaster Dyne. 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 after they complete a trial – that excites Ramus for the monetary value – and Alex is encouraged when he hears the dragon express belief in him to become 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 these games. 

I was completely surprised by how the characters were built, especially with Luna; they were able to maker her expressive that you can feel the sadness that she carries within and the creators gave the character time to express their 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 to be this thoughtful but Silver Star is full of surprises and the 40+ hour gameplay is full of twists and turns. Turns out this game isn’t simple at all. 

Graphics – Art 

This game looks great upscaled – 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 school anime art style that I think is far more visually appealing than some of the overly stimulating 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 2D era that preceded it but Silver Star 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 completely in pixel graphics and is both challenging and rewarding. It struck a balance between traditional hacking away at monsters of traditional turn-based RPG fashion and a bit of strategy with the position that the characters occupy on the boards that determining 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.