Japanese Cover The early days of the CD-ROM marked an exciting time for role-playing games, especially on consoles. While they sought to tell ambitious stories, they were often constrained by ROM space, which was often so tight it even affected the size of the script. What’s more, while many Japanese games were heavily influenced by anime, there was only so much they could replicate with tiny figures spouting lines of text. With the extra space offered by a CD, several orders of magnitude beyond a typical 16-bit cartridge, the limiters could be taken off, with much larger worlds, offering animated cutscenes with real voices, along with more elaborate soundtracks. Lunar: Silver Star Harmony is a PSP enhanced remake of the game Lunar: The Silver Star which was originally released for Sega CD. The game features new graphics, remastered sound, and new story events. Quark is one of the characters from Lunar The Silver Star, Lunar Silver Star Story, Lunar Silver Star Story Complete and Lunar Legend. Lunar Legend Part 2 by NessSuccess. After taking the White Dragon's Trial, Alex sets off on his adventure with his friends Movie 3,251 Views (Ages 13). Lunar Silver Star Story Complete video walkthrough by TheGreatFighterdoken. 37 videos on playlist. Lunar Silver Star Story Complete video walkthrough guide. Tutorials, hints, lets plays, walkthroughs, guides, and more. The Lunar series was at the forefront of this movement, having being released in mid-1992 in Japan, then at the end of 1993 in North America. It wasn’t the first of its type, of course – in Japan, the first big multimedia RPG was Tengai Makyou Ziria for the PC Engine CD, released three years prior, plus there were other lesser quality efforts like the dreadful Mega CD launch title Funky Horror Band. But Lunar was still one of the most ambitious and most well-loved of these efforts, especially in the United States, where its earlier competitors were never released. Sega CD The Lunar series began as a joint project between two companies: Studio Alex and Game Arts. Studio Alex was a production company started by Kazunari Tomi, a developer who’d previously created the Mugen no Shinzou PC RPG series in the mid-80s when working at Xtalsoft, before moving onto a brief stint at Falcom to work on. Game Arts was previously known mostly for PC titles like the mecha action game Thexder and the technically impressive space shoot-em-up Silpheed, but had begun to dabble in console development with the NES RPG and the Genesis action game. For English speakers, Lunar also marked a particular rarity – it had a decent localization. During this time, English translations were typically poor, to the point where Final Fantasy II‘s slapdash English writing was accepted as a professional product. And while native releases of Japanese games in CD format gathered experienced talent known for anime voiceovers, English releases often had no budget and had to stick with whoever they had hanging around the office that day. Best free chemical drawing software. Instead, Lunar was translated by Working Designs, a company that had previously localized the TurboGrafx-16 CD title Cosmic Fantasy 2, and put far more effort in making the game feel less like a shoddy foreign product. They went through proper steps to edit the script so it sounded like natural English, and hired local drama actors to fill in the vocal rolesnot quite the respected voice professionals of the Japanese releases, but still a marked improvement over other early CD-ROM games. There are two Lunar titles for the Sega CD, and both of them, along with Konami’s, stand as some of the best localizations of the 16-bit era. There are actually four completely different versions of the first Lunar: the Sega CD original ( The Silver Star), the 32-bit remake ( Silver Star Story), the portable GBA version ( Lunar Legend) and then another portable version for the PSP ( Silver Star Harmony). There’s also a sequel, Lunar 2: Eternal Blue, also originally for the Sega CD, with a 32-bit remake, plus two prequels – Magical School/Strolling School for the Saturn/Game Gear, and Dragon Song/Genesis for the DS. Despite these numerous remakes and spinoffs, the main series is stuck in the 16-bit era, as it was never able to count to three. A large part of this may have had to do with the dissolution of Studio Alex after the release of the 32-bit games, leaving the games to flounder without the influence of the original designers. The games focused on a planet named (as the title implies) Lunar. A long time ago, humanity lived on a lush, blue planet similar to Earth. However, a cataclysmic event caused it to become inhabitable, leaving the populace to flee to the moon. While initially barren, it was terraformed and became hospitable thanks to the magic of the Goddess Althena. Fast forward several centuries, and the old moon may as well be the same as Earth, or any other RPG world. The story of Lunar: The Silver Star, the initial entry on the Sega CD, focuses on a young boy named Alex, bored of his life in the backwater town named Burg. The one thing that keeps him excited in his otherwise typical life is his fascination with the Four Heroes, a quartet of warriors from about forty years prior who fought against great evil. Alex worships one of them, the Dragonmaster Dyne, since he was also from Burg, though unfortunately has since passed away. Characters Alex Noa / Ares A young boy from the rural village of Burg, who dreams of being like his hero, Dragonmaster Dyne. He plays a harp in the Sega CD version, and an ocarina in all subsequent versions. Mostly a silent protagonist in the Sega CD one, but given a little more (but not much) personality in the later ones. Luna Noa Alex’s adopted sister, who’s renowned throughout the village for her gorgeous singing voice. Her role is greatly expanded in the remakes. She is rather weak in combat, but can use her singing for various magical purposes. Nall Nall resembles a flying, talking cat, but he eventually learns he’s a baby White Dragon. Snide and sarcastic, but Alex’s best friend through thick and thin. Ramus One of Alex’s buddies in Burg, Ramus is a burgeoning capitalist who has his dreams set farther than their rinky dink hometown. He abandons the party pretty early on to follow his own business pursuits, but his quest to find a Dragon Diamond is what sets off Alex’s adventure. Nash Rumack A brash magic student attending school on the floating island of Vane.
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