Lunar 2:
The Eternal Blue

Review by Chi Phan

After a long wait, the remake to the sequel Lunar: The Silver Star Story finally hit North America. With all the extra packaging and bonuses that came with this game, you don't want to get lost in all that glitter. The question is very simple. How does this game stack up to Silver Star Story? Well I can say that I enjoy the game better than Silver Star. Eternal Blue reminds everyone that 16 bit rpg still have what it takes to get it done. Even though there were some improvement in this remake of the Sega CD classic for the playstation. Keep on reading fellow rpgers.

Lunar 2 story takes place 1000 years after Lunar 1. In some way it's a direct sequel and in other way it's not. The story begins with the main character, Hiro checking out an ancient ruin. Here, he discovered the coming of Lucia, a being from the Blue Star that orbits just outside the world of Lunar. Lucia is on a quest to find Althena, the Goddess of Lunar, to warn Althena of the coming danger of Zophar. Zophar of course is the main bad guy of Lunar 2. Hiro, of course being the hero that he is, offers to help Lucia find the Goddess Althena. This as you can tell sets up your quest to save the world from Zophar. Along the way, you'll meet up with different characters as well as a couple of returning characters.
The story of Lunar 2 is an uplifting fun story. It's not too serious and it's more of a showcase of the power of love and hope. I don't know if I enjoy this story more than Lunar 1 but I think that a couple of story scene where they feature the return of some familiar faces from Lunar 1 help gives this story a heart warming emotional tug that this story definetly needed and was lacking. It's a good story and one that Lunar 1 fan should enjoy.

Characters are an abundance here. Whether or not they are your party members or secondary support characters. Each of your party members have a small background history which are gradually showned to us. Although I wish sometimes the game would give us more details then what was given to us. Each characters have their own unique personality but on a whole this group isn't as colorful or exciting as Alex's group. The best characters in this game doesn't come from your party members but from the secondary support characters. Prime example of this is Ghaleon. Ghaleon of course is the worst kept secret in the game. He, of course is easily the scene stealer in this game. It's too bad they had to power down Ghaleon/Magic Emperor in this game. You're know what I'm talking about when you play this game. Best characters in this game comes from the Lunar 1 characters. Hard to believe but true.

Lunar 2 uses 16 graphics. That's obvious since it came out during the late era of the 16 bit machine. Now the graphics have been updated a little for the remake on the playstation but nothing much. Most of the updated graphics stem from the anime cut sequences. Overrall what you have is little short sprites character designs in a 2-D background world. This is one of the best 16 bit graphics that I've seen so you can easily say that this is 16 bit graphics at it's best. The rich colors in this game is done very nicely too and help compliment the 16 bit graphics. The only downside to the graphics is the anime graphics. This is unusual as usually it's the anime graphics that is the best in the Lunar series. Unlike regular anime graphics, Lunar 2 mixes regular anime with 3-D CG background graphics. This in my opinion doesn't give a very nice result. What you have a result of this, is that the anime cut sequences are often too soft and somewhat fuzzy looking instead of the usual clean and smooth anime cut sequences. This is a minor thing as overrall I like the graphics presented to us in Lunar 2. I just wish they would have given us a more cleaner and smoother anime graphics.

Another strong points in the Lunar series is their music. One can even say that Lunar music can be rank right up there with the FF series. Lunar 2 music is done very well. There are 2 songs that have been translated into english. I'm not too sure who the english singer is but she's done a pretty good job. There are a total of 24 tracks and you can listen to them anytime on your CD player since you can find all 24 tracks on the game soundtrack that came with the game. Nothing beats better that.

The gameplay of Lunar 2 is very similar to Lunar 1. This is pretty much your very basic traditional turn base rpg game. You won't find anything that's cutting edge here. You explore the world of Lunar going to your next destination as it require you to help progress the story along. There really are no mini games or anything extra added to the gameplay elements. The encounter rate is done through running into monsters that are roaming about unlike the other rpgs where encounters are done randomly. The battle system is basic turn base. You can have up to 5 members in your party. Each 5 of your members comes with their own unique magic attacks/skills. About 90% of the game, you can only control 4 of your 5 members as Lucia is uncontrollable throughout the game. You may hate that aspect like I did. The battle menu is simple, attack, magic, defend, and run. The quest itself is very straightforward. Overrall gameplay is just basic stuff. Nothing more that I can say. I find the gameplay kinda boring at times. I don't want to knock this game down for the basic gameplay as it was made quite a few years back but in today's rpgs, one needs to have something unique added on to give that extra fun edge to the gameplay. Lunar 2 doesn't do that. Again it's not fair to rate Lunar 2 gameplay with today's rpgs gameplay so I'll give it an 8 cause overrall I did enjoy the game.

The extras and replay in this game are great. Now with the extras, you can find and collect all 22 bromides. Bromides are anime pictures of the characters in Lunar 2. Overrall most of the replay and extras can be found after finishing the first game. There are two endings in this game. The original ending leaves things unsettled. After completing the first game, you will be able to access the Epilogue game. Basically the extra Epilogue gives you an extra 10 to 15 hours of replay value with 7 new dungeons to explore, the chance to find the rest of the bromides, pick up the Rememberizer, and get the second and real ending to Lunar 2. Now the Rememberizer is the same kind of device that you get in Lunar 1 where you are allow to view all of the anime sequences. The only differences is that inorder to view the anime sequences you have to find the anime clips. You can find the anime clips by going back to all the places where anime sequences took part at. 3 of the extra dungeons are required for you to do inorder to get the real endings. 4 of the 7 extra dungeons just contain extra bosses with special items to be found. I never played the original Lunar 2 that came out on the Sega CD system so I'm not too sure if the Epilogue was included in that game or not. Still the Epilogue is a great extra value of gameplay even though it could've been added to the regular game.

In the end of it all, Eternal Blue is a great sequel. I enjoy it much better than the first Lunar despite the fact that I didn't like the overrall cast of Lunar 2 and the so called bad guy name Zophar. I found Zophar to be a weak bad guy and I much prefer the Lunar 1 cast members. Still it was a great rpg game that kept me glued to my playstation for the coming hours ahead.

Time to complete: 40 hours including the Epilogue.

Favorite character: Ghaleon. Duh!

Best sword: Althena sword

Best Fighter: Leo

Best personality: Lemina

Least faovorite character: Ruby. More annoying than Nall!

Best Attack: Blue Dragon Fist

Most heartwarming scene: Appearance of Luna.

Second heartwarming scene: Nall talking about his old posse.

Best quote: Ghaleon:"Your light shine on them, Dyne."

Up next: Persona 2