A standout series from a time in the video game scene where Japanese RPGs and aggressively anime-styled games weren't consistently brought over in English, the Lunar line carved out a historic niche for itself. That legacy can make it easy to initially fixate on what this Lunar Remastered Collection doesn't collect. The original Sega CD versions of Lunar: The Silver Star and Lunar: Eternal Blue are not present, to say nothing of the numerous latter-day ports and remasters of the first game. And forget about lesser-known sequels like the versions of Lunar: Walking School or the maligned Lunar: Dragon Song. GungHo Online Entertainment's focus with this collection is narrowed to the "Complete" PlayStation 1 remakes of both original games, ostensibly a preservation of the most well-recognized and remembered iteration of Lunar's legacy.

Once you have settled into that scope, you're left with what is at least the most accessible way of experiencing this pair of RPGs, if necessarily uneven on account of when they date to. It's also uneven on account of the choices made in preserving those parts of the era. An effort was made to present the remasters of the Lunar games as effectively as they could, but hamstrung by the resources they had to do so. The results are a mixed bag, if one that's interesting to sift through, and ultimately still earnestly recommendable as an experience.

As this is meant as the modern way to experience these classics, it's probably worth going over what the Lunar games are for newcomers. The pair represents a duology of classic fantasy role-playing games in a model that had been well codified by this point in console history. The first game, Lunar: Silver Star Story starts by sticking strongly to the framework of adventurous youths leaving a small village on a quest following in the footsteps of a legendary hero. There are twists involving both the history of the world and those that saved it once before, which prompts a new round of world-saving escalations. It's enhanced by being loaded up with party members, supporting cast members, and an extremely memorable villain, all filled with character—bar the somewhat staid lead Alex. And Nash, Nash still sucks.

The sequel, Lunar 2: Eternal Blue takes the first game's worldbuilding and leaps a thousand years into the future, building on what came before in a way that the characters starring in it aren't aware of at first. It's a somewhat twistier narrative, with hero Hiro having a more pronounced, lovably lunkheaded personality, alongside some impressive growth for the character Lucia communicated through gameplay just as well as story beats. It also sports a truly delightful supporting cast, including a strong arc for the white knight character of Leo. Notably, the second game can easily be enjoyed on its own without having played the first, but seeing how one builds upon the other echoes across both to make their timeline feel that much richer.

As solidly structured as those storylines are, the defining feature of Lunar's narrative, especially in its time, is the games' use of 2D anime cutscenes throughout their stories. They lend a connection of character designs to the sprite work alongside the in-game character portraits and occasional voice work for dialogue. These scenes form effective little entertaining treats throughout the narrative, giving the games the majority of their personality. They also reflect an evolution across the duology, as Silver Star Story largely uses the cutscenes for straight character introductions, while Eternal Blue pushes things more towards the cinematic. This art interwoven with the fantasy stories is what drove Lunar's notoriety with the budding weebs of the late 90s, making the games truly feel like anime that you play.

How that anime is played necessarily forms the other component of the Lunar experience. It's a distilled RPG system, traveling between towns by way of dungeons and encountering enemies in turn-based battles. Notably, these versions of the games eschew random encounters for on-field enemies that can potentially be avoided. Gauging and deciding how eager you are to take on a battle plays into the resource management side of things, as precious MP can start running dry. Battles are taken in turns where you select actions and watch them play out between your party members and enemies, with Lunar's unique twist being that characters can move about on the battlefield. Paying attention to enemy animations to decide when best to reposition and defend becomes key, alongside using attacks that can optimally affect clusters of enemies with elemental weaknesses.

It's all an extension of the turn-based battles that powered so many games of the era, and can occasionally get repetitive as you encounter the same sets of enemy arrangements through dungeons. But the broader resource management aspects, plus the variety of dungeon styles, help keep things engaging. In particular, Lunar is not afraid to let players engage in battles with limited or remixed party setups for story purposes. There are in-game tournament battles and dramatic one-on-one duels, peppered with in-fight voice acting to keep up the lively anime atmosphere. The Remastered Collection also adds some quality-of-life improvements, letting players choose to use The Silver Star's original somewhat tricky character-based item system, or a more streamlined inventory pool, as well as adding fast-forward options for battles in both games.

Now, with all that bringing newcomers up to speed on the world of Lunar and reminding dedicated fans why they loved it in the first place, how does this Remastered Collection rearrange all of that? It is probably most prudent to start with what it doesn't do, especially concerning gameplay. The English versions of the Lunar games, as brought over by Working Designs all those decades ago, actually "rebalanced" them to drive up the play hours, tinkering with stats to necessitate more grinding. The games were always perfectly manageable with a little commitment to leveling, but as an invention of that era-specific adaptation, those changes are not present in these remasters. The result is a Lunar experience that will likely be significantly more brisk and breezy than oldheads might remember. To wit: I was able to beat the first boss of Eternal Blue, the infamous Guardian, on my first try, no grinding required!

Some might miss the familiarity with those balance changes (and no selection for difficulty otherwise), but it makes for an accessible experience that's faithful to the originally intended Japanese version of the game. That's ironic in the face of the other adaptational side of the games: their English translation. The English-dubbed voice acting for the game has been completely redone with new actors, which will likely be a blow to the nostalgia of those returning. The new cast avail themselves well enough (arguably better in places, if simply not as familiar), but it's still natural to miss the specific tones of some characters.

I'm unsure how available the original English recordings were, with the change being further notable because the English script for the Lunar games is, in fact, virtually unchanged here. Surprisingly, Working Designs' English translation, liberally embellished with jokes and pop-culture references as it (in)famously is, represents the English versions of the games in this collection. It's jarring, not just because alleged negotiations for the use of these English versions were one of the elements that kept the games out of previous collections and rereleases, but because so much else about Remastered Collection seems dedicated to undoing what Working Designs previously did. You can switch to the original Japanese voice acting, but this English script remains as your adapted reading option. Keeping the original Japanese gameplay balance makes sense, but recording an all-new English dub without updating the script feels like a half-measure that hardly pleases anybody.

If you're an older player whose nostalgia for Lunar is specifically tied to these scripts, that's something, but there's no denying that now, and for newcomers, they can feel like relics of their time. Passage of eras might ease some of these issues, as one wonders how many kids these days even recall the "Milk, it does a body good" campaign, rendering references like these as mere non-sequiturs. The Eternal Blue translation on balance feels a little more chill, comparatively, but even that sometimes feels like it's lulling you into a false sense of security before busting out a reference to Chris Farley's "Motivational Speaker" Saturday Night Live sketch. At least there's no Clinton joke in this version.

To be sure, these are still competently written scripts that properly follow the games' stories, and do hit on the more dramatic and serious parts of the plots when called on. They're still telling the stories people fell in love with all those years ago. And notably, this isn't 100% identical to the original English script; dialogue during cutscenes has noticeably been tweaked, possibly to allow the new voice actors to match lip flaps better, and a few battle quotes have been updated. Particularly, Jean no longer spouts an outdated (and frankly out-of-place) slur in some of her calls.

All of this unevenly applied audio and textual presentation comes alongside the visual remastering that is the focal feature of this release. Those results are equally mixed. GungHo Online Entertainment wisely hasn't altered the base sprites and backgrounds of the original games—no redrawing or filters as in the older mobile port. The most noticeable flourish is a blurring effect at the top and bottom of the screen, but that can be turned off. The backgrounds have been blown up to fill the full modern 16:9 aspect ratio, which does result in some odd stretching and splicing visible in places. In general, it becomes clear that some of these backgrounds were never meant to be seen at this resolution, but even with colors brightened up compared to the original, it still generally looks right.

On the other hand, the anime assets of the game—the character portraits, the bromides, and those all-important animated cutscenes—have been brought wholesale into the HD era, seemingly through some degree of upscaling technology. I can't knowingly speak to how much generative tech was used to achieve this, and it certainly looks better than some other recent examples. Still, there's telltale smearing and uneven, blurry borders in places, to say nothing of some details getting oddly interpreted, like the little protruding bit on Lucia's hat. The character portraits suffer the most from the inconsistencies brought on by this process. Interestingly, the cutscenes in Silver Star Story come off looking a bit better than the ones in Eternal Blue. Here I'd hazard a guess that it's because those were around in higher base resolution from the last time they were used in Lunar: Silver Star Harmony for the PSP, or the aforementioned mobile version, speaking to the idea that GungHo was using whatever the best materials they had were.

Now, these visual issues could be a major caveat, possibly even a dealbreaker to some, if not for the key point that GungHo also included the ability to play both games in "Classic" mode: shrinking the aspect ratio back down and rendering all the assets, including the cutscenes, in all their original crunchy glory. It's not a complete 1:1 conversion, as it brings along the quality-of-life features and still has that new voice cast. But it looks faithful compared to the stretched unevenness of the remaster, with multiple options for CRT-style filters to help smooth over some of the rougher raw pixels. It even carries your save files between both versions, allowing you to freely change between the iterations if you so wish. The interface for doing so is a bit clumsy, requiring players to use a separate launcher to choose each version of either game as different applications. Regardless, it's an effective show of goodwill, even as the aforementioned script and voice acting leave the nostalgic efforts feeling confused.

With all that though, it codifies this version of the PS1 Lunar games as the most accessible way to experience these classics. The balance and quality of life features make it ideal for newcomers just checking it out, though they might still be thrown by that English script. For those nostalgic fans, this set is mildly frustrating in how almost there it is. I'm glad it sidesteps the issues of other "remasters" that make blown-up, upscaled assets the only option. Still, the dub/script situation is such an odd mishmash of decisions that it has to be recommended more as a curiosity than something truly definitive. A strong curiosity that's still worth playing through, especially if it's been a while since you last did so, or never have.