izigame.me

What what you see is what you get: Two great, old school JRPGs that are still fun despite what some might consider antiquated mechanics. The LUNAR games are largely considered to be classics, and even "must plays," by hardcore fans of the genre. This is my overall reasoning for the positive review. To me, LUNAR remains one of the most definitive non-Final Fantasy JRPGs of the 1990s era and this remaster doesn't fundamentally change that. If you enjoy 1990s JPRGs, you will likely enjoy LUNAR.
The big question, however: Is if this is worth picking up for $50 USD (the price as of this review)? That ultimately depends. Objectively, this remaster doesn't differ much from the PS1 releases and can easily be seen as a low-effort, nostalgia-driven cash grab on the part of the publisher.
If you do not currently have access to the PS1 versions, this release is now the easiest way to legally play these games. You're also getting LUNAR 1 & 2 together, which means it's really $25 per game. If you're interested in playing these games for the first time, or are longtime fan but want to replay them without having to drag out old hardware? This may be overall worth it.
If you're the type that doesn't mind dragging out old hardware to replay the classics, then this remaster is likely to seem far less compelling. The lack of fundamental changes to the games means that nothing really gets screwed up or broken, it also means that it's harder to justify a repurchase. These are, again, basically just the PS1 releases with minor tweaks. Some good, some bad. There's not really any new content to speak of that you'd be missing out on by skipping this.
As far as what HAS changed?
The CONS:
Some of this may be personal preference, but this remaster repeats a lot of the "sins" that re-releases of retro games are often guilty of. I honestly don't care for the "upscaling" applied to the anime cut scenes, character portraits, and other graphical elements. It's not detrimental, or anything, but to me it just looks like a cheap effort to make things seem "HD" in a way that ends up contrasting with the pixel sprite aesthetic. Aside from this upscaling, zero effort was made to truly modernize the UI. The new menu font also kind of sucks.
The PROS:
The load times are nearly instant compared to the PS1 versions. Most importantly, the ability to speed up combat makes the game feel significantly less grindy. This amounts to a non-trivial QoL update which makes replaying through the game far easier and, in my opinion, is the biggest reason to pick the remaster for veteran LUNAR players. As an added bonus, you can also switch between the English language voice track (which has been completely re-recorded with new voice actors) and the original Japanese voice track, which was a feature not available in the Working Designs releases.
THE CONTROVERSIAL:
The new English track, in and of itself, is fine from my perspective. Aside from John Truitt's portrayal of Ghaleon, and the songs, I never really found the voice acting in the Working Designs releases to be all that amazing. On the other hand, the ability to listen to the Japanese track is nice for 1990s anime fans since it features many A-listers of the day.
This leads me to my biggest overall disappointment with the remaster. When it was announced that there was going to be an all new English voice track, I incorrectly assumed that this was also going to come alongside a new English language translation. Those familiar with the history of Working Designs may be aware that they tended to take controversial liberties with their localizations. Most notably, they enjoyed injecting corny pop culture humor into everything. This may have elicited a chuckle from players back then, but much of it hasn't aged well. I'm not necessarily trying to trash the WD releases, but I was personally hoping for new translations that were more faithful to the original scripts. At least for Western audiences, it would have served as a significant differentiating factor from the PS1 releases we already have.
Once I started playing, I was very surprised to discover that this remaster largely still uses the Working Designs translations. There seem to be some minor changes, but overall it's the same script with plenty of the cheesy humor still intact. I cannot say if this decision was made because the publisher didn't want to put the effort into a new translation, or if they legitimately felt Western players would prefer it this way. (I also acknowledge I may be in the minority for wanting a new translation.)
OVERALL:
I consider LUNAR to be an all-time classic, and the increased battle speed is a very nice quality-of-life improvement. At the same time, this otherwise feels middling as a "remaster." There's no new content or other significant changes over the PS1 versions, which may make some people balk at the price even though it is two games. Waiting for a sale is understandable in this case.
(I do also admit that I want the remaster to do well enough to where Game Arts might consider revisiting the series in a more substantial way, though this is more wishful thinking than anything else.)