A Modern Classic For JRPG Fans

Lunar has always been one of the more interesting JRPG franchises out there. Everyone who played them seems to remember them quite fondly whether it be the original Sega CD releases, or the remakes across Sega Saturn, PlayStation, Game Boy Advance, and PSP. But despite that fandom, they’ve been out of reach for modern audiences for decades even with so many re-releases. Until now. Finally, it’s easy to say that Lunar is a must-play for any JRPG fan.

For those unaware, Lunar: The Silver Star, the first game in the series, debuted on the Sega CD peripheral for Sega Genesis back in 1992 (or 1993 in North America) featuring high-quality CD-ROM sound, full motion anime-style video cutscenes, and lots of voice acting. For the time, it was revolutionary. The sequel, Lunar: Eternal Blue, was released on Sega CD as well in 1994 (or 1995 in North America), and pushed the CD format even further in all areas with a more mature storyline and even grander adventure.

If you really want to trace the lineage and timeline of the series you can totally do that, but let it be known the first game has been ported and remade a ridiculous number of times and each version has its own brigade of defenders. For the sake of clarity, this collection focuses specifically on the PlayStation versions of both games dubbed Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete. In my opinion, these are the best and most balanced versions.

With the Lunar Remastered Collection, we’re finally getting both games together for the very first time in widescreen, at higher resolution, with remastered audio, new voice acting, and a few quality-of-life improvements like the ability to speed up combat and customize auto-battle parameters. Additionally, the classic versions of both games are also included, so you can play those versions instead if you really want to.

All in all, this is a very solid collection that modernizes the games in subtle ways without stripping away what made them feel special. All too often remasters and remakes of games from this era dramatically change things, but that wasn’t the approach here. In fact, unless you look at the two versions side-by-side, you’d be hard-pressed to spot major differences beyond the widescreen resolution and a few visual flourishes here and there.

To me, that’s the trademark of a great remaster: it looks precisely how my memory thought it did all along, while also still sticking true to the core of its identity.

The Lunar Remastered Collection As A Modern JRPG

Even though the games are just loosely connected, I recommend starting with the first game. Not only does it take place first chronologically in-universe and in terms of the actual release order, but Lunar 2 also generally builds on the first game’s mechanics and presentation so it would feel like a step backward to play the original afterward. Thankfully, both are wonderful adventures with incredible music, gorgeous visuals, and charming characters so you can’t go wrong.

The first game is the shorter of the two with a slower ramp-up narratively, so it’s a solid entry point in that regard as well. You take on the role of Alex, a young warrior who dreams of being a hero like the ones from the stories he’s always heard growing up. He’s from the same small town as Dyne, one such legendary warrior, and what begins as far-fetched fantasies eventually become a reality as you’re thrust into an epic world-spanning story full of danger and heroism.

What I like most about the first Lunar game is that it feels like JRPG comfort food. There’s a wonderfully animated cinematic introduction with excellent music, a cozy small-town introduction, and a wide cast of characters that each feel distinct and opinionated.

To put it to a specific example, near the start of the first game you set out on your adventure but eventually turn back home due to the children being too scared to carry on. Every now and then you’re reminded these heroes are very young and they don’t mature overnight. I really appreciate the small little touches like that because, when you consider the time period this game was released in originally, the amount of lore detail, dialogue depth, and character progression was relatively unheard of even in the RPG genre.

It’s a pretty by-the-numbers hero’s journey for the most part, but keep in mind it was originally released in the early 1990s and admittedly is part of the early wave of games that established the very tropes we all know and expect.

In the sequel, things get underway immediately and overall it’s a slightly darker story with a more mature tone. There are still moments of whimsy with some silly jokes, as expected, but it feels like the target audience is a little bit older than the first game.

Lunar 2 takes place 1,000 years later as you take control of a new main character named Hiro with a fresh cast of characters aiding him in his journey. Once you meet Lucia, you get mixed up in her mission to stop an evil being from destroying the world. There are a handful of returning locales, characters, and other elements that tie the adventures together in some surprising ways.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it feels like one continuous game by any means, but together they’re an engrossing collection of games absolutely worth playing for any fan of JRPGs.

While there are a handful of great quality-of-life changes like being able to speed up battles by up to three times speed, I would have liked to see a little more work in this department. For example, characters tend to repeat themselves in combat. A lot. And speeding up combat does not speed up the voice lines, so you’re going to hear Luna sing her, “La la, la la laaaaa” jingle after every spell over and over and over again for dozens of hours. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very nice and beautiful melody, but I would have loved being able to turn that off or something.

Lunar Is Still An Iconic JRPG Classic

On the one hand, I love that they’ve made it extremely easy to automate and speed up all of the simple fights and grinding that happen in games like this because it certainly helps sidestep a lot of the tedium. But on the other hand, it begs the question of why this sort of game design was ever popular in the first place.

If the developers feel the need to provide a way to shortcut through a massive chunk of the game experience to the point that I can watch TV while mashing auto-battle over and over to progress to the next plot point of interest, is that content really compelling in the first place?

I’m not sure I know the answer to that question because, as I said, it’s a lot like comfort food to me. Longtime fans of JRPGs often enjoy mindless grinding, or at the very least don’t mind it very much, so it’s not fair to use Lunar as a soap box since it’s far from being one of the worst offenders. The fact of the matter is that you can zip through most fights extremely quickly, the animations and music are fantastic so it’s a pleasure to witness even on 4x speed, and all enemies are visible during exploration with zero truly random encounters, so it’s not a massive intrusion. But it’s still worth noting that if you never liked the frequent fighting and grinding of old-school JRPGs, consider that even though it’s alleviated a lot here, those elements are absolutely still present.

At least the grinding requirement isn’t bad at all. You can mostly critical path your way through both games with little trouble, only needing to stop and grind before a boss occasionally.

Lunar Remastered Collection doesn’t change a whole lot about either game mostly because it doesn’t need to. Since this collection is based on the PlayStation versions, which were already remakes of the original games, it had a great foundation to build from. As far as I’ve seen all of the dialogue is identical, despite the actual voiceovers being new, and many elements still feel fresh even all these years later.

To that point, the anime cutscenes in both games are absolutely superb. With a little bit of upscaling, they look sharper than ever and add so much depth and complexity to the narratives. It’s worth noting that, as far as I am aware, not many JRPGs have this amount of quality animated cutscenes like this—even today. Fully rendered 3D cutscenes of course take center stage in many modern JRPGs such as the Final Fantasy series and event-driven dialogue scenes are the norm in most other franchises, and then you might get a handful of animated cutscenes as very rare treats in a few other games, but the Lunar series is really in a class of its own in my opinion.

Each game features over an hour (if my math isn’t wrong?) of fully animated scenes which may not seem like a lot, but when you realize each scene is quite short and spread out across the entire game, it feels like you get at least a few scenes per play session. It’s almost like a little reward for progressing the main story, especially since many of the game’s biggest moments are included in these animations. Don’t skip the fantastic songs or sections with actual lyrics!

Lunar Is A Must-Play For Any JRPG Fan

I am careful about throwing around recommendations like calling something a must-play, but I genuinely believe that if you’re a fan of JRPGs, especially the early to mid 90s era of roleplaying games, then you truly owe it to yourself to experience Lunar despite the ways it can show its age at times. Neither of these games will feel groundbreaking to play when measured against modern RPGs and they do require a bit of grace and nostalgia for the time period to fully appreciate, but even outside of all that they have a secret sauce that’s difficult to replicate.

What Lunar lacks in gameplay complexity it more than makes up for in wonderful animations, captivating characters, and riveting music. You’ll absolutely feel the surge of excitement as you set out on these adventures, letting the whimsical charm sweep you away.

Prior to the Lunar Remastered Collection, I had not played either game in well over two decades, but I still found myself looking up the introductory animations and various music tracks for background sounds while working. These are the kinds of games that stick with you and you’ll remember them for a very long time.

Platform: PlayStation 4 & 5 (Reviewed), Xbox One & Series X|S, Switch, PC

Developer: Ashibi Co., Game Arts

Publisher: GungHo Online Entertainment

Release Date: April 18th, 2025

Price: $49.99

Score: 8/10

Disclosure: A representative on behalf of publisher GungHo sent me a download code for an NA digital copy of Lunar Remastered Collection on PlayStation 4 (played on PlayStation 5) for the purposes of this review.