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Lunar (series)

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"Lunar series" redirects here. For the coin collection, see Lunar Series (British coin).
Lunar
Genre(s)Role-playing
Developer(s)
Platform(s)
First releaseLunar: The Silver Star
June 23, 1992
Latest releaseLunar Remastered Collection
Spring 2025

Lunar[a] is a role-playing video game franchise created by Game Arts and Studio Alex. The series takes place on the titular moon, which orbits an uninhabitable planet known as "The Blue Star".

The series began with Lunar: The Silver Star, first released in 1992 for the Sega CD, and was followed by Lunar: Eternal Blue in 1994. Both titles received critical and commercial acclaim, later becoming the first and second-highest selling games on the platform in Japan respectively.[1][2] Both games were later remade for the Sega Saturn and PlayStation as Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete. Further remakes of the first game were released for the Game Boy Advance and PlayStation Portable.

Spin-offs were also released, including Lunar: Sanposuru Gakuen and Lunar: Dragon Song.

Plot

The Lunar stories take place on an inhabitable moon called Lunar, or "The Silver Star", that orbits a planet known as "The Blue Star". Thousands of years ago, the Blue Star was infected with evil by a dark god named Zophar. His evil corrupted the hearts of people, turning some into monsters to do his bidding. The survivors cried out to the patron-deity of the Blue Star, a Goddess named Althena, for help. She confronted Zophar in an epic battle, and was only able to stop him by using her powers of creation to seal him in another dimension, destroying nearly all life on the planet in the process.

Unable to restore the planet until several millennia had passed, Althena instead chose to transform the planet's moon into an earthlike world, and transported the survivors there. These included not only humans but also a race of "beast-men", and another race of elf-like beings skilled in wielding magic. The only elf-like being depicted in Lunar is Ghaleon, who is a confirmed member of the Vile Tribe in "Lunar: Vane Hikuusen Monogatari", which is mysteriously classified here as a "fourth race", despite there being only three. There was also a fourth race of people who would later come to be known as "The Vile Tribe" after they rejected Althena's teachings. She was forced to banish them to an area of Lunar called "The Frontier", a barren wasteland where even Althena's magical power could not reach. They became enemies of Althena and her followers for thousands of years.

To protect Lunar, Althena created four intelligent Dragons – a white one, a red one, a blue one, and a black one – that each shared a part of her divine power. There are only four Dragons at any given time, though they are replaced over time with younger ones. Strangely, during their infancy, these dragons resemble talking, winged cats, until they claim the power of their predecessor and ascend to adulthood. The Dragons spend most of their time sleeping underground until they are needed.

Althena also decreed that there would be a champion called The Dragonmaster to lead Lunar's heroes. This person would be anyone who managed to make their way to the hidden lairs of the Four Dragons, and pass their harrowing trials. There have been many Dragonmasters across the centuries, and many on Lunar have striven to achieve that title. The people of Lunar became very devoted to Althena, though many remember Lunar's origins as only an old legend. The various Lunar games and manga cover different events in Lunar's history.

Games

Release timeline
1992Lunar: The Silver Star
1993
1994Lunar: Eternal Blue
1995
1996Lunar: Sanposuru Gakuen
Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete
1997Maho Gakuen Lunar!
1998 Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete
1999All the Lunar: Hyper Applications
2000–2001
2002Lunar Legend
2003–2004
2005Lunar: Dragon Song
2006–2008
2009Lunar: Silver Star Harmony
2010–2024
2025Lunar Remastered Collection

Main series

The Silver Star

Main article: Lunar: The Silver Star

Lunar: The Silver Star was first released on June 26, 1992, in Japan for the Sega CD. The game follows Alex, a young boy from a small town who dreams of one day becoming a great hero like his idol, Dragonmaster Dyne. Making use of the CD-ROM format, the game features CD-quality music, full motion video and voice acting.

Working Designs handled the English localization, releasing the game in December 1993 in North America. It was a critical and commercial success, becoming the best selling title on the platform in Japan, and second highest-selling overall.[1][2]

Eternal Blue

Main article: Lunar: Eternal Blue

Lunar: Eternal Blue was first released on December 22, 1994, in Japan for the Sega CD. Taking place a thousand years after the events of the first game, it follows Hiro, a young adventurer, and Lucia, a girl from the far-away planet Blue Star, as they try to stop an evil, all-powerful being from destroying the world.

Compared to its predecessor, Eternal Blue features twice the text and over four times the amount of original animation.[3] Working Designs handled the English localization once more, releasing the game in September 1995 in North America. While the game was well received, it sold less copies than The Silver Star, which was mostly attributed to it being a late release for the platform.[4]

Silver Star Story Complete

Main article: Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete

Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete was first released on October 25, 1996, in Japan for the Sega Saturn. A version with higher-quality video via the Video CD card add-on was released a year later. The game is a remake of The Silver Star with an expanded scenario and improved graphics and sound. While the original Sega CD version included roughly ten minutes of animation, the remake features fifty minutes of new, fully animated cutscenes by Studio Gonzo.[5]

The game was ported to the PlayStation on May 28, 1998, with an English release by Working Designs arriving a year later. A Windows version was released for the Japanese and Korean markets, with a North American release eventually scrapped.[6] It received generally positive reviews.[7]

Versions for iOS and Android were released in 2012 and 2024 respectively, as Lunar: Silver Star Story Touch.

Eternal Blue Complete

Main article: Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete

Lunar: Eternal Blue Complete was first released on July 23, 1998, in Japan for the Sega Saturn. The game is a remake of Eternal Blue with an expanded scenario and improved graphics and sound, much like Silver Star Story Complete before it. A PlayStation version followed on May 27, 1999, with an English release by Working Designs arriving a year later, on December 15, 2000. It received generally positive reviews.[8]

Legend

Main article: Lunar Legend

Lunar Legend was first released on April 12, 2002, in Japan for the Game Boy Advance. The game is a remake of The Silver Star, largely based on Silver Star Story Complete, with some alterations. The English localization was handled by Ubisoft, with the game releasing on December 10, 2002, in North America.

Due to limitations of the cartridge format, many features standard to the series such as voice acting and FMV were omitted, with the developers instead utilizing real-time cutscenes using larger, more detailed character sprites to tell the story. Still images taken directly from Silver Star Story Complete's cutscenes appear at certain points during the game to give it a more cinematic feel.[9] It received generally positive reviews.[10]

Silver Star Harmony

Main article: Lunar: Silver Star Harmony

Lunar: Silver Star Harmony was first released on November 12, 2009, in Japan for the PlayStation Portable. The game is a remake of The Silver Star. While it retains the animated cutscenes from Silver Star Story Complete, it features a new playable prologue, a more talkative main character, a remixed soundtrack, and newly recorded voice acting and English localization by Xseed Games. It received generally positive reviews.[11]

Remastered Collection

Main article: Lunar Remastered Collection

Lunar Remastered Collection is an upcoming two-game remastered compilation which was announced on September 24, 2024 that is currently set for release during Spring 2025. This collection contains Silver Star Story Complete and Eternal Blue Complete. It is set for release on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S,[12] which will be produced by GungHo Online Entertainment.

Spin-offs

Sanposuru Gakuen

Main article: Lunar: Sanposuru Gakuen

Lunar: Sanposuru Gakuen was first released on January 12, 1996, in Japan for the Game Gear. The game follows a young girl named Ellie and her best friend, Lena, as they leave their quiet lives in the town of Burg to enroll in a newly established magic school located on an island called Ien. A remake titled Mahō Gakuen Lunar! was released a year later for the Sega Saturn.

While neither has received an official English release, a fan-translation patch for the Game Gear version was released in 2009.[13]

All the Lunar

All the Lunar: Hyper Applications was first released in July 1999, in Japan for Windows. Rather than being a traditional game, the CD-ROM contains a variety of software for Windows-based operational systems, as well as wallpapers, art galleries and a digital daifugō card game with characters from Silver Star Story and Eternal Blue.[14]

Dragon Song

Main article: Lunar: Dragon Song

Lunar: Dragon Song, known in Japan and Europe as Lunar Genesis, was first released on August 25, 2005, in Japan for the Nintendo DS. Taking place a thousand years before the events of The Silver Star, the game follows Jian Campbell, a young delivery boy and adventurer who must save the world from the rising menace of the Vile Tribe. Notably, it was the first game in the series to be released in Europe. It received mixed reviews[15]

Reception

Promotion of Lunar: Silver Star Harmony at TGS 2009.

The Lunar series has spawned a variety of other works in the setting, including a manga series, two artbooks, as well as novelizations of The Silver Star, Magic School Lunar! and Eternal Blue. The console titles have generally been received very positively; the two PlayStation versions generally place well in considerations of the best games available for the system.[16] The original two games, and their remakes, have reviewed very well, averaging between 82% and 91%,[17] and with Eternal Blue generally agreed to be the highest-reviewed Sega CD title in the history of the platform.[18] Lunar Dragon Song, however, was panned critically, with an aggregate rating of 58% on GameRankings.[19]

Sales

The series has sold over one million copies, placing it among the best-selling Japanese role-playing game franchises.

Total sales of Lunar franchise – 1,052,011:

Abandoned sequel

Since the release of the enhanced remakes of Lunar: Silver Star Story and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue, rumors have come and gone concerning the development of a game known only as Lunar 3. In a 1998 interview, Victor Ireland, president of Working Designs, stated that Lunar 3 was in the design phase.[23] However, no such game was ever revealed by Game Arts or Entertainment Software Publishing, the Japanese publisher of the series. At the time Ireland, as part of a feud with Sega of America, repeatedly brought up during interviews that Working Designs held the American publication rights to the Lunar series and would only publish the games for non-Sega consoles, even threatening to port the games to competing consoles themselves if they were released exclusively for Sega consoles in Japan.[23][24]

Notes

  1. ^ Japanese: ルナ, Hepburn: Runa

References

  1. ^ a b c Arnold, J. Douglas & Meston, Zach (1993). Lunar: The Silver Star - The Official Strategy Guide. Sandwich Island Publishing. p. 12. ISBN 1-884364-00-4.
  2. ^ a b Pettus, Sam (2004). "Sega CD: A Console too Soon". Sega-16. Archived from the original on 2010-01-14. Retrieved 2009-12-17.
  3. ^ Working Designs (1995). Lunar: Eternal Blue instruction manual. Working Designs. p. 37. T-127045.
  4. ^ J. Douglas Arnold & Zach Meston (1995). Lunar: Eternal Blue – The Official Strategy Guide. Sandwich Islands Publishing. p. 200. ISBN 1-884364-07-1.
  5. ^ Working Designs (1999). Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete Official Strategy Guide. Working Designs. p. 154. ISBN 0-9662993-1-0.
  6. ^ Long, Andrew (2002-01-08). "Lunar PC Bites the Dust; New PSone Disc Art Revealed to Compensate". RPGamer. Archived from the original on 2013-01-30. Retrieved 2007-10-15.
  7. ^ "Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete for PlayStation Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 2018-11-27.
  8. ^ "Lunar 2: Eternal Blue for PlayStation Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 2024-09-25.
  9. ^ Editors of Nintendo Power (March 2003). Nintendo Power (issue 165). Future US. p. 138.
  10. ^ "Lunar Legend for Game Boy Advance Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on 2018-12-01. Retrieved 2018-11-27.
  11. ^ "Lunar: Silver Star Harmony Critic Reviews for PSP". Metacritic. Fandom. Archived from the original on October 1, 2022. Retrieved August 10, 2023.
  12. ^ Sal Romano (September 14, 2024). "LUNAR Remastered Collection announced for PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC". Gematsu.
  13. ^ "LUNAR Walking School". Aeon Genesis. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
  14. ^ LunarNET
  15. ^ "Lunar: Dragon Song for DS Reviews". Metacritic. Fandom. Archived from the original on 2023-07-01. Retrieved 2023-08-13.
  16. ^ IGN (January 22, 2002). "IGN: Top 25 PS1 Games of All Time". ign.com. Retrieved 2009-05-10.
  17. ^ GameRankings (May 10, 2009). "GameRankings: Review Data for Lunar Series". gamerankings.com. Retrieved 2009-05-10.
  18. ^ GameRankings (May 10, 2009). "GameRankings: Review Data for Lunar Eternal Blue". gamerankings.com. Retrieved 2009-05-10.
  19. ^ GameRankings (May 10, 2009). "GameRankings: Review Data for Lunar Dragon Song". gamerankings.com. Retrieved 2009-05-10.
  20. ^ a b c d e f g h i Famitsu sales (in Italian and English), accessed on October 23, 2019
  21. ^ Sales by series (in Italian and English), accessed on October 23, 2019
  22. ^ "U.S. Platinum Videogame Chart". The Magic Box. Archived from the original on 2004-06-05. Retrieved 2008-07-01.
  23. ^ a b Webber and Rudo. "Interviews - Victor Ireland (Interview 1)". LunarNET. May 1998. Last accessed on 17 October 2005.
  24. ^ "Working Designs to End Publishing for Sega". Electronic Gaming Monthly. No. 98. Ziff Davis. September 1997. p. 73.
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