Lunar: Silver Star

Streex brought up Lunar and I am in a particular situation where I can shed some light
on why this game is a surprisingly AMAZING find. A look at The
Tower of Power V.2.0:

This bad boy is an
electricity LEECH. lol In any case, the Sega CD was a tad early stepping
into the marketplace, and it wasn't marketed well to boot. Tragic,
really. Because a studio as DIY as you could get, Working Designs,
almost exclusively supported the console in its beginning (and
subsequent end). Working Designs was/is just an amazing company. Read
any one of their jackets, manuals, and it is obvious that these people
really care about bringing you good gaming experiences. Enter Lunar: The
Silver Star, our star for the evening-


Where to begin with
such an amazing game? Let's start with some specs it utilized:
CD-quality audio was finally available here in 1992, and Noriyuki
Iwadare (the Grandia series) took full advantage of that with his
award-winning game music. More emotion and energy could finally be
translated through via music!!!


Another milestone in gaming, we
were now capable of watching video! Game Arts (who published the game in
Japan) gave us truly awesome (well, this is 1992 remember) scenes to
gaze upon, and with Working Designs stellar translation, we also
received a video game first in VOICED CUT SCENES. The voices were
carefully chosen, some were innocently bad, and it all worked
fantastically well to bring home the inclusion of the player in the
game.

The story is also full of grace and style: Alex has big
dreams. Dreams of becoming a dragonmaster. Lofty ambitions, to be sure!
After he and a friend stumble upon what can only be described as a
ancient dragon, Alex is entrusted with actually BECOMING the next
Dragonmaster (that's right, from now on I capitolize the "d"). Think
Never-Ending Story type of thing. It is exciting and a breath of fresh
air for people tired of amnesia, love triangles, etc.



The gameplay is also
pretty cool. You walk around the world map in real time, with your
party following you. Random battles occur, and in turn-based fashion you
face off against each other. Depending on each characters speed rate
decided which would attack first. None of it is revolutionary but it is
solid and with the unique color-choices the screens are a nice touch.
You have magic, a retreat option (one for running out of battle, one for
running to the corner), attacks, and all the other typical rpg shtuff.
You learn new techniques as you level up.



This game is one of many that
saw re-release (or were re-releases themselves!) on the Playstation
(albeit in 1998) in the form of Lunar: The Silver Star Complete. This
is, by a fan's standpoint, the better version by comparison (as it had
mountains of bonus content, including a cloth map that was 10"x10"), but
my point in this review is to state that the Sega CD was far
underrated. I will be reviewing more Sega CD games in the future!!!

That thing is a beast! I bet it eats small children. Whenever you powered it on did the lights flicker?