Lunar: Silver Star Harmony Reviews

When it comes to RPG's, all I know is I've had my fill. In the late 90's with the PlayStation in full swing, it almost seemed like every other game coming out was an RPG, much like how every other game today is a first person shooter. As mindless as the later appears to be anymore, genres have their time and place, and time has taught me what I once considered a goldmine was no different. Memories fade, reality crashes the party yet fanboys continue to place games on pedestals.

It's those pedestals that I want to talk about. No, I'm not going to go on an anti-FF7, Xenogears rant here, but rather a Lunar rant. Lunar might have been hot in 1992 on the Sega CD - a system that practically no one had/has - but by the time it reached the PS1 in Silver Star Story Complete in 1999, I had no idea what the fuss was about. Sure, the game was loaded for bear with superficial extras - a cloth map, hardback manual, soundtrack CD and new full motion videos - but game was stuck in the past. Really, what was so magical about this game? What did others see that I couldn't? Ten plus years later, picking up a copy of Lunar: Silver Star Harmony at a local game store, I asked myself that question again.

Before we get into what Harmony brings to the table, let's talk a bit about classics. The back of the case tells me this is one of the "best adventures of all time." Well, that statement is full of itself much like a Rhapsody of Fire press release. Now, I would be much more apt to believe this if it said this was "one of the best adventures of it's time" which, if we just cut through all the crap, means that it's probably more of a "personal classic" to those who played it in 1992 than anything else, much like how Wild Arms became one of my "personal classics" back in 1997. Still, do I go around billing Wild Arms as one of the "greatest adventures of all time"? No, and, quite simply I don't because it isn't true. I loved Wild Arms, and I still do, but I also like to keep things in perspective, which is something advertising can rarely do.

So beyond the above, how does Wild Arms factor in to what Harmony has to offer? Well, in a nutshell, Lunar: Silver Star Harmony is what Alter code:F could have, should have been to the original Wild Arms. In Alter code:F, Media Vision disregarded a lot of what the original version of it's product offered when it "upgraded" (yeah, "upgraded," that's charitable; more like "retrofit") the game play to what was introduced in the tiresome Wild Arms 3. Harmony, on the other hand, retains what works and ditches what didn't. Those wretched dungeon designs? Gone. That archaic inventory system? Goodbye. The extremely low sampled soundtrack? Fixed. The only real problem I ran into was the game allowing me to invest an infinite amount of time in a battle that could not be won. Seriously, just make the boss smite me into the ground like in Silver Star Story Complete so we can get on with it.

Still, as impressive as this version is in comparison to the previous two (outside the voice acting), at the end of the day, this is still Lunar, and all the problems that accompany Lunar's narrative still exist. Actually, thanks to the new prologue, many of Lunar's worst kept secrets are now out in the open even more than before, and that's saying something. The game's dialogue is still extremely well written (outside the whole "we're on an adventure - yay!" thing) but is limited by personalities that don't exactly pop off the screen - at least at first. While the game seems a bit brisker this time around, a bit too much time is wasted in battle announcing attacks (the quicker the battles are in a game such as this the better) and there's some balance issues surrounding the new arts attacks (Luna's is godly) but the game is much better off with them than without.

Despite the fact the PSP is already port/remake city, Lunar: Silver Star Harmony is one of the better efforts out there despite how limited its game play can be. While I can't say I've discovered what makes it so special in the eyes of some, I can say I'm closer to the answer than I was before. Still, despite the fact it's incredibly easy to tear down anything Lunar tries to boast about, this probably is the definitive version of this "personal classic," and if you haven't played it there is no better time than now.