izigame.me

This review is -much- harder to write than you think.

For reference, I own Lunar: The Silver Star and Lunar 2: Eternal blue for the original Sega CD, they are my all time favorite JRPGs. I purchased and loved the first remakes as well and love them to this day. If there ever was an expert on these games, I would probably criticize him heavily from the audience for mispronouncing Ronfar's name.

My TL;DR is that these aren't remasters in the slightest. They had the equivalent of a patch update and replaced all the voices with new voice actors.

If you aren't willing to emulate the PS1 games, this is worth getting (sort of, see below).


First, this review isn't for the games themselves, this is on the changes that Gungho made for said games.

Gameplay Changes:
The item system got a decent revamp (ultimately it makes the game much easier, so those who desire sweat will be disappointed.)

The screen resolution was updated to allow for wide screens (this actually kinda hurts the game in a weird way, you can see more of the dungeon and where things are, making exploration easier and faster.)

Time Compression options for 2x and 3x during combat only. (The downside to this is that the total game play time shrinks dramatically. I didn't even realize how much of the game was spent in combat until I could make each combat go by in a wink.)

'classic mode' which just changes the screen resolution and has zero mechanical elements changed.

Things that were NOT in this, but should have been: The Original Sega CD experience for both games, The Peter Ireland voice overs.

Beyond that, there isn't that much of a difference. Some animation were remade, though it's not really something that stands out.

That's all of the crunch, lets talk about the fluff.

Every voice over was redone, including combat VO's. The script was changed to better reflect the original script, removing the Working Designs version of localization.

And boy, OH boy, I never thought I would miss the Working Designs script and original voices.

First, let me be clear: The original Voice Acting was awful 80% of the time, but the other 20% made up for it (as did all voice acting in that era of video gaming, remember this was the Sega CD era, where VO's were beyond novel). While Lunar 1 didn't really have the foundation in voice acting that Lunar 2 did, certain moments solidified not just the story, but the whole series.
For those who know, Lunar 1 (focusing on Silver Star Story here), had Three voices that were actually important: Luna, Nall and Ghaleon. Everyone else were generic "young man, young woman" voices with very little to have them stand out.

Luna's voice was important because it was the one we listened to when it came to singing in the game, Nall was always the chatty (and insanely annoying due to it's high pitched nature) one, and Ghaleon was the smug villain. Their roles captured the world fantastically.

In the Remaster of 1, Gungho managed to get it -almost- right. They managed to fix the voices of Alex, Nall, Kyle, Jessica and Mia to make them significantly better, but Nash and Ghaleon were awful. Nash had a fantastic, smooth and confident voice, especially in combat and was just irritating in this version. Nall was a win because he actually sounded like a boy.

Ghaleon was a MASSIVE disappointment, removing all of the fantastic 80's cartoon villain elements for a quiet, smug and disinterested voice. Sadly, this disappointment spread into the second game. Without that perfect voice, the very story and feel of the Lunar story changed to something... different.


In Lunar 2, things just... kinda got bland. The best voices really were Hiro (because he didn't change that much), Borgan (again, because he didn't change that much),Lemina (didn't change much) Mauri (same), Ruby (same thing), and that is about it. All of the other voices simply were inferior to their prior rendition in the following ways:

Zophar: Absolutely none of the "grand, evil, overwhelming god of destruction," that we got out of the prior version. Instead, we got Temu-quality Kefka with none of the character or depth. Ultimately it made fighting him a chore because there was nothing about the voice that matched with the character.

Lucia: Not as bad as it could have been but the audio effects on her voice made her seem far too human. The echo actually did a lot to make Lucia more alien, and while the new actress actually made Lucia sound strong and her own person, it fell flat when it came time for her to sing and cast spells in combat.

Leo: The greatest disappointment of them all. The new voice is insanely generic and captured NOTHING of what Leo was. His voice for this game is what Ghaleon was for the first. Without the bold, strong voice of White Knight Leo, everything he did was simply bland and boring. Even Mysterie wasn't half as entertaining as it was before.

Jean: Somehow they made Jean bland and boring. The emotion was drained out and she just feels like a NPC.

Nall: After fixing him in the first game, they ruin him in the second. Somehow they make his voice sound like a girl when he is an adult. They should have just gotten a male actor to reprise the role instead of having the same woman do both.

Lunn: Without chewing gravel for ten years, the voice of Lunn just isn't the same.

Ronfar: In the start of the game the voice actor managed to grasp the character, but by the end, you could tell he simply didn't care anymore. The character bled dry slowly over the course of the game.

Gwynn: This is personal but the old one screaming "TAKE THAT YOU HELLISH FREAK!" is too good to ever be replaced.


All of these voices have a major effect on the story, which is told through the characters. As a result, the game is an overall blander experience than it was with the original voice actors. Peter Ireland did it better, and that's a tragedy.

If this is your first foray into this series... you really should just emulate the old PS1 games FIRST before playing this. I hope modders can get the old voices in so we can enjoy the quality of life improvements