Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete

When Working Designs released Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete, 2 years ago in North America, it garnered critical acclaim from all corners of the gaming media. Keeping that in mind, it was only a matter of time before WD translated Game Arts’ sequel to the remade Sega CD classic. That’s right, Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete is finally upon us and is every bit worth the wait. While it’s not perfect, the title promises to please gamers who crave a quality role-playing experience.

Your party grows and the story unfolds in epic form over three CDs filled with tricky puzzles, tough boss battles, and terrific animated cut scenes. With an engrossing story, excellent character development and plenty of challenging gameplay, Lunar 2: Eternal Blue shows what’s most important about a great RPG and it isn’t flashy graphics. It’s creating a strong bond between the player and the characters, and Lunar 2 excels at this.

In the end for $60 Lunar 2 is not only worth every penny as a gaming experience, but all of the extras are a great addition to an already outstanding game. Taking a trip back to memory lane with Lunar 2 felt great and it makes me realize just how much I miss the more challenging RPGs of yester-years. Lunar 2 is well worth a try, especially those who enjoy playing 16-bit RPGs, its got a great story, strategic battle system that indeed requires thinking, inspired soundtrack, voice acting and good anime cutscenes. If you are a common RPG gamer who has been with the genre ever since the SNES (or earlier) days, I highly recommend a purchase of Lunar 2, before Working Designs halts production of the game like they did with the first in January 2000.

This is exactly what the PlayStation needs. The problem with many RPGs these days is that they take themselves way too seriously. Why does the world have to seem like such a dark place in so many games? Lunar 2 has a reversed mentality from exactly that. Instead of hiding behind a cloak of seriousness, it extracts qualities from simple themes that redeem it as a charming, fun game. So what if it was made years ago and it looks like crap now? It has many incentives for you to pick it up. In addition to the long, entertaining game, you get a music CD and a "Making of Lunar 2" CD. The game, itself, should be reason enough to run out and buy, buy, buy.

I really admire Working Designs’ dedication to the craft of video games. I don’t think there is a company out there that cares more about its games or puts as much heart and soul into each of its releases. Sure, you can dock them for eclectic choices, but each of the games has style. Lunar 2: Eternal Blue is yet another example of putting everything the company has into a single product. In this case, the game technology is obviously outdated, but like Lucas with his Special Edition Star Wars releases, there is definitely some new shine on them. However, you can’t change what you started with, so unless you are a true die-hard RPGer, this game will go way above your head, as it's one of the more challenging RPGs out there. Since I have played this one before on Sega CD, it was hard for me to get into it again, but Working Designs fans certainly won’t be disappointed.

So why does this game that I'm gushing love for only garner a 7.5? Simply put, Silver Star Story was the better of the two Lunars for Sega CD, and the same holds true for the PlayStation counterparts. Those who played the first will definitely want a piece of this action, but those who began with Eternal Blue might not make the trip back.

Lunar 2: Eternal Blue is the second in the Lunar series of RPGs, and it's also the second of Working Designs' repackaging of the two classic games. Both Lunar games premiered on the Sega CD and then were remade in the mid-'90s for the Japanese Saturn. Working Designs owes a lot of its fan base to the Lunar games, and so it took to porting these Saturn remakes to the PlayStation for an American release. After a lot of ballyhoo and a lot of delays, Lunar: Silver Star Story came out in 1998, wrapped in the extravagant packaging and production that Working Designs is known for. After similar delay, the company has finally given us Eternal Blue, and it's every bit as lavishly produced as its predecessor.

Lunar 2 fait partie de ces jeux sur lesquels on hésite... Les amateurs de jeux de rôles japonais de la première heure s'étonneront de voir leur PlayStation transformée en SNES ou Megadrive, et apprécieront peut-être de replonger dans un jeu typique de l'époque où ces consoles étaient reines. Les autres seront peut-être rebutés par la réalisation indigne de la PlayStation, malgré le scénario long et amusant, les cinématiques superbes et la qualité de la traduction américaine. Mais après tout, seuls les premiers iront acheter un RPG de ce genre en import, non ?