Review #198: Lunar - Silver Star Harmony

 In your dreams, all things are real unless you dream they are not!

 I like the Lunar franchise as a whole, but my favorite entry is definitely Lunar 2. That doesn't seem to be the case with the developers, Lunar School? Never even got a PSOne remake. Lunar 2? Was remade once on the Saturn and PSOne. Lunar 1? It had a PSOne/Saturn remake, a GBA remake and now, finally, a PSP remake. Now then, the Lunar and Lunar 2 I'm familiar with are the PSOne versions, I loved Lunar 2 and went on to finish it more than a couple of times, while Lunar 1... I started it from scratch quite a number of times, but never got too far, it just never managed to get a firm grip on me, unlike Lunar 2. Which means, I will be comparing this remake to what little I remember about the first one.

 The story puts you in the role of Alex, a town boy who dreams of adventures alongside his talking,winged cat-pet named Nall. In particular, Alex worships Dyne, the old DragonMaster and one of the Four Heroes that saved the world in the past. In the world of Lunar they worship the Goddess Althena, giver of life and protector of the people. I could delve a bit deeper, but I would spoil some things... not that this remake cares. New to this port is a Prologue in which you get to play as the legendary 'Four Heroes' who banished the great evil that threatened Althena and the world.... and also gives away a couple of plot twists and devices. If this is the first time you go through the game, you probably won't mind, but as someone who played the older version.... I think the way the plot developed was better on the older version, plus, unlike the rest of the game, this prologue has a very cheesy dialogue, it was pretty bad. The rest of the game however, feels more in tune with Working Designs original translation, with less pop culture jokes, which is pretty alright. While the plot revolves around saving the world, as 99% of RPGs do, the central theme of the game, nay, the franchise is love, and it's kinda charming, without getting too corny, to this day.

 So, where to start.... The game is a fairly straightforward RPG, go from town to town, through dungeons, while battling baddies and bosses. Encounters can be seen as single enemies on the dungeons, touching them will engage in combat. The combat system has been slightly tweaked from the PSOne version. Just as before, formations are important, as some enemy attacks my go in straight lines or attack areas, so it's a good idea to keep your five characters spread out. You can still order them to move around by defending, but the 'battle grounds' are much smaller. The rest is pretty much the same, you have your normal attack, spells, items or even let the CPU order your characters around. There's a new feature in the form of limit-break like attacks; receiving damage will make a yellow gauge increase, fill it and it allows you to use a very powerful attack; these are pretty over powered, but they take a while to fill, so you don't get to abuse them much.

 One common complaint I've heard is that the game is easier. And it's true, it is easier... for the right reasons: They trimmed off the fat. Lunar and Lunar 2, as much as I liked them, required grinding, for money and for levels. You don't need to grind anymore, gaining money and experience points is much faster, and bosses aren't as cheap, dungeons have also been redesigned to be less maze-like, which is a good thing. Making a game hard because you need more levels is stupid, that's not a real challenge. That said... bosses used to have different animations while you picked your move, which were hints as to which attack they would use next, sometimes your only chance of survival was to use 'Defend' when the big attacks where gonna happen... not anymore. They kept the different animations on the bosses and enemies depending on how they were gonna attack, but the overall damage was decreased so much that you don't really need to defend... which is a shame, as every boss battle and encounter became very automatic, I just kept repeating the same strategies over and over and over again, forcing the player to defend or move aside to evade strong attacks would've added some variety and challenge to the battles.

 Another little thing that bothered me a little was the enemy AI. Y'see, you can see the encounters on the dungeons, and they are always the same enemies. The same group of enemies(Say... 6 fish-monsters) would ALWAYS act the same, every time I engaged the battle. Targeting the same exact party members, which made some fights play out in the same way over and over again. And while the game is rather easy, not once did I see the Game Over screen, sometimes enemies love to gang up on one of your party members.

 Lunar: Silver Star Harmony's presentation is stellar. Graphics have been redrawn from the ground up, and they look gorgeous. Animation is very smooth, and these characters had never looked so detailed before. Still, and I fully admit I'm probably blinded by nostalgia, I miss the old sprites, they were so small, cute and charming! So, yes, technically, these sprites are superior in every way, but the kid in me misses the old ones. Music... man, Lunar's OST is phenomenal, and every song is here, intact... no, remastered, now they sound even better. Two songs have been retranslated, sung by the same singer, and they sound pretty neat.... but I loved the older Opening so much, I didn't quite like this one as much... the other song(The one Luna sings in the boat) sounds much better though. There's new voice actors! And they are better in every way, not surprisingly as Working Designs had to work with friends or relatives... still, I felt as if there was less voice acting than on the PSOne? I might be wrong, but there were very few voiced scenes this time around.

 Quite probably, this is the best way to experience Lunar: Silver Star right now. With the older versions now been so expensive, this is the way to go. It helps that the entirety of the script was kept intact, although I could've done without the new prologue scene. They also got rid of all the mindless grinding that it required, which is always a plus. That said, people that experienced the older versions, like me, might find themselves longing them, but this one is, probably, the better game, just that the older one was so charming that it's hard to let go! For first timers, it's a no brainer, get the PSP remake and never look back.
 8.5 out of 10.