Just finished Lunar Eternal Blue, damn that was a good game

[RvR]

Ive been a huge game fan since first playing duck hunt 30 years ago and its a real shame I never heard about this gem until a few months ago. Its as good as any RPG released at the time but I guess because it wasn't on a Nintendo console it just never got mainstream attention. For all the people who say Sega CD sucked Id like to see them play this game and still hold that opinion. From a technical perspective, the confrontation of Lucia and Zophar was a huge leap forward in terms of what video games were capable of. On the less technical side this one got me all emotional at multiple parts of the game, Im still feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. Also the humor had me LOLing IRL multiple times. Theres something just hilarious about a flying pink cat ruthlessly roasting NPCs. Its too bad there wasn't a proper sequel, wouldn't it be cool if they made a game that took place 100 years later and you play as Hiro's descendant? Minor nitpicks: I wanted to revisit Burg and Saith from the first game but at least we got Meribia and Vane. I also wanted to name the characters but of course that would be impossible with the voiced scenes. Hiro's voice actor sounded like he was reading from a sheet of paper and overall just seemed a bit awkward. They also laid it on a bit too thick with the whole "power of friendship and love is stronger than all(even the supreme deity of the games universe!)" Overall 10/10 game though.

[Bloodreign]

In the US, the Sega CD saw far too much FMV stuff, and not enough beautiful games, like both Lunar games, and Popful Mail, as well as games like Robo Aleste and Snatcher.

Now if you haven't, you should try the first Lunar title (and Popful Mail), it'll keep you glued to the end, much like Lunar 2 Eternal Blue did. The voice acting was likely staff of Working Designs, shame there isn't a nice hack that replaces the voices with the Japanese voices, but with subtitles (someone did it for a PS2 Suikoden game, so it is possible), as the English voices really have not an acting bone in their body.

[Lync]

I used to pour over the ads for Lunar in Electronic Gaming Monthly. Years later, getting to actually play it, it was magic.

Silver Star and Eternal Blue for me are the pillars to the Sega CD library; And I really enjoy that period of RPG.


Lately I think about picking up both "complete" games for Playstation. But I'm not sure...

Even in 1998, it felt too soon to remake a game from '92 and '94!

I think even if I found myself caught up with my gaming backlog, and played the PS versions, the Sega CD would still probably be my preference. Those are two titles that are just too definitive for the system to be played anywhere else.

[roce]

I just started Lunar 2 today, after Lunar 1 kept hanging on a specific spot*. It's a massive, night and day difference between the two. Lunar 1 was barely playable, with meh-to-bad graphics and just ok music. Its story was nothing special. Lunar 2 is downright great-looking, the music is very good, playability improved tons, and they even shortened loading times. Pretty much everything got better production values. Story looks better so far, the dialogue is funny too.

So far it looks like I'd give Lunar 1 60% and 2 85%, when the gamerankings numbers from wikipedia are 88% and 90%. Quite a difference for the first game. Still, Lunar 2 looks like an actually good RPG, the only one on the extended Genesis platform pre-Pier Solar.

*When you play the harp to raise the tortoise island. It hangs there trying to read the cd forever. On two different burns, on media from different manufacturers (Ritek and Falcon Media, both high quality discs). Maybe I'm hitting copy protection, or perhaps the dumped image was faulty.
Could even be some bios issue, my unit is a model 1 with the early, 1.10 us bios.

[Gryson]

I just started Lunar 2 today, after Lunar 1 kept hanging on a specific spot*. It's a massive, night and day difference between the two. Lunar 1 was barely playable, with meh-to-bad graphics and just ok music. Its story was nothing special. Lunar 2 is downright great-looking, the music is very good, playability improved tons, and they even shortened loading times. Pretty much everything got better production values. Story looks better so far, the dialogue is funny too.

So far it looks like I'd give Lunar 1 60% and 2 85%, when the gamerankings numbers from wikipedia are 88% and 90%. Quite a difference for the first game. Still, Lunar 2 looks like an actually good RPG, the only one on the extended Genesis platform pre-Pier Solar.

*When you play the harp to raise the tortoise island. It hangs there trying to read the cd forever. On two different burns, on media from different manufacturers (Ritek and Falcon Media, both high quality discs). Maybe I'm hitting copy protection, or perhaps the dumped image was faulty.
Could even be some bios issue, my unit is a model 1 with the early, 1.10 us bios.

You have to consider Lunar 1 more in the context of the time to fully appreciate what it accomplished. It came out in mid-1992, and JRPGs back then were fairly primitive compared with what we'd have by 1995 when Eternal Blue was released. I mean, Lunar 1 came out just a bit more than two years after Dragon Quest IV, and the difference is striking. Game Arts was also a much smaller developer than Square and Enix.

[roce]

FF3 (NES) came out in 1990, and it was better. Dragon Quest 3, 1988, again better (however I haven't played the original NES version, only the SNES and GBC ports).

[RvR]

I think he means Lunar 1 was superior to the previous games from a purely technical standpoint. From a gameplay standpoint I still liked Lunar 1 more than FF3 but less than DQ3. And for other good RPGs on Genesis I recommend Phantasy Star 3 and 4(although the encounter rate is a bit too high in 3).

[roce]

I played PS 4, and found it lacking in many ways (you can search my old posts for the details). It was a disappointment given all the hype.

[roce]

Lunar 2 beaten, it was good til the end.

[Black_Tiger]

You have to consider Lunar 1 more in the context of the time to fully appreciate what it accomplished. It came out in mid-1992, and JRPGs back then were fairly primitive compared with what we'd have by 1995 when Eternal Blue was released. I mean, Lunar 1 came out just a bit more than two years after Dragon Quest IV, and the difference is striking. Game Arts was also a much smaller developer than Square and Enix.

I won't get into the merits of Dragon Quest IV, but you know that it was made exactly the way it was to appease fans and isn't representative of the time. You're actually the one who took Lunar SS out of context.

Eternal Blue came out just a bit more than two years after Silver Star.

A better context would be the fact that Lunar SS came out the same year that the PC Engine began receiving a steady stream of quality CD RPGs. More importantly, it was released after Tengai Makyo II.

I played through Silver Star when it was released for Sega-CD and was disappointed by it at the time, but could still appreciate what it was shooting for. Eternal Blue fixed most of Silver Star's shortcomings, although I don't think the characters hold up well to the cast from the first game.

[Gryson]

I won't get into the merits of Dragon Quest IV, but you know that it was made exactly the way it was to appease fans and isn't representative of the time. You're actually the one who took Lunar SS out of context.

Eternal Blue came out just a bit more than two years after Silver Star.

A better context would be the fact that Lunar SS came out the same year that the PC Engine began receiving a steady stream of quality CD RPGs. More importantly, it was released after Tengai Makyo II.

I played through Silver Star when it was released for Sega-CD and was disappointed by it at the time, but could still appreciate what it was shooting for. Eternal Blue fixed most of Silver Star's shortcomings, although I don't think the characters hold up well to the cast from the first game.

I would group Lunar SS with those PCE CD games in signalling the genre shift that I was describing.

If not DQIV, then something like Final Fantasy III - it might have more involved mechanics, but the story line is practically non-existent (as I recall...). The CD-ROM RPGs brought so much more personality to the genre with cinematics, voice acting, etc. at a time when those things had practically never been seen in a game before.