Lunar: The Silver Star, Silver Star Story, Silver Star Story Complete, Lunar Legend, and now, Silver Star Harmony…

As you can probably guess from that list, the first game in the Lunar saga has a bit of a convoluted history, with more remakes and rereleases than you can shake a stick at. There’s alot of argument among fans about which version is the best, and non-veterans of the series generally have no clue where to begin as a result. Despite all this, Lunar’s popularity these days is still quite a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps it is even because of that thriving fanbase that we’re about to get yet another installment in the series: Lunar: Silver Star Harmony.

For those unfamiliar with the story of Lunar: Silver Star, it centers around a young man named Alex Noa, who has always dreamed of becoming a Dragonmaster; Sworn protector of the Goddess Althena. By his side in their aptly-named hometown of Burg, is his sister-esque lifelong friend/lover, Luna. (Yeah, that’s always been weird to me, too. Here’s a girl that your parents took in and raised from when you were little, making her practically your sister, and… you’re in love with her. Huh.) Debauchery aside, you can probably surmise that within short time, young Alex gets his wish for an adventure, heads off to the big city with his best friend and girlfriend-sister, and alot of shit goes down. Don’t you dare complain to me about spoilers; Wouldn’t be much of an RPG if that weren’t the case, not to mention the fact that the game is well over a decade old.

Now, you’re probably thinking, “Oh, well Christina, that sounds like standard RPG fare for any game made back in the 90s, so why shouldn’t I just go play Final Fantasy instead?” Well, to that I would slap you upside the head. Then, I would advise that you educate yourself on the greatness that is Lunar. Let’s break down the greatness in a point-by-point list that’s a bit heavy on alliteration, shall we?

Awesome Anime: At the time, these were a pretty big deal, and if I may be so bold, I say that these cutscenes are STILL pretty amazing-looking even by today’s standards. I just downloaded the Lunar: Silver Star Harmony demo off the Playstation Network to the PSP a few nights ago, and the cutscenes have DEFINITELY benefitted from the superior hardware. Even though it’s got the same animated cutscenes as the old Playstation version (Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete, for those trying to learn), they look crisp and clean and shiny, just like a brand new car! (Excuse the cheese, please.)

Stellar Soundtracks: All of the Lunar: Silver Star Whatever games have had amazing soundtracks, composed by the talented Noriyuki Iwadare (and, in some cases, along with some of his comrades), but the audio is a bit of a hot-button issue that I’ve noticed from browsing different forums. I’m personally of the opinion that they’ve all been wonderful, but many argue that the original, Lunar: The Silver Star (for Sega CD) had the best music. You can be the judge for yourself, the soundtracks are relatively easy to find, but here’s a sample of my hands-down favorite instrumental Silver Star Story Complete:

If you’re paying attention, you’ll notice that I said that was my favorite INSTRUMENTAL… which leads me to my next point…

Very Vocal!: The thing I love about Lunar, (and Lunar:SSH, even though I have only played the demo), is that it’s one of the earliest games I can remember playing that had an English dubbed vocal theme song at the beginning, and voice acting throughout. This is, again, a touchy subject, since some people prefer the old games’ theme song, and some people hate what they’ve heard from the upcoming game, but I strongly believe that 1) The Lunar:TSS and Lunar:SSSC dubs were fantastic for their time, whether they’ve aged well or not, and 2) The new Lunar:SSH dub isan excellent take on the characters and should not be written off by people who are wearing Nostalgia-Goggles(tm). If you’ll browse over to the official Lunar: Silver Star Harmony website, you can hear the new version of the theme song, as well as check out small voice clips of each character to see what I mean.

Perfect Plot: I don’t want to get into too much detail for those that haven’t played it yet, but please, don’t rush to write this off as just another “a young boy saves the world” JRPG. It’s so much more than that, because that’s barely scratching the surface of the story. There’s character depth and development, expansive backstory through NPCs and such, and plot twists like you wouldn’t believe!

There is, of course, so much more to the Lunar: Silver Star games than I’ve talked about, but I can only ramble on about its greatness for so long. I wouldn’t want to bore you!

So why am I posting this now? Is it significant or relevant at all? Well, yes! As a matter of fact, one month from now (that’s March 2nd, for you, er, intelligent folk..) XSEED is releasing Lunar: Silver Star Harmony for the PSP handheld system. It aims to be the “definitive” version of the Lunar: Silver Star saga, and honestly, if the demo I played is any indication, it may just succeed at that! I preordered the Limited Edition bundle off Amazon.com so I could get the soundtrack and “bromide” cards (basically postcard-size trading cards with pretty artwork of the girls from the game), so if you’re die-hard about these sorts of things like I am, you’ll probably want to do the same at some point soon.

Alot of people I see on the internet are whining about this re-release, because they “liked the old one way better-er” and are always wearing Nostalgia-Goggles(tm). Well, I think that’s pretty silly. If you like the old game, then play the old game. Don’t yell and cry that the new game isn’t identical to it in every way. It’s supposed to be a reinventing, not a direct port. Would you really rather keep the game away from new audiences, just so you can keep your memories exactly the way they are, and not make any new ones? Come on. In case you’re wondering what people are complaining about, here are the primary things I’ve seen:

“The theme song has different words, they’re awful! It’s supposed to be about love, not adventure!” – Uhh, hate to burst your collective bubbles, but actually the old song was originally about adventure, not love, in the original Japanese lyrics. The old translation, while good, was far from accurate. The new version is nearly a literal translation, and still fits the melody perfectly… as someone who’s worked with translating music before, I can say that THAT is a feat rarely accomplished!

“Nall doesn’t sound like a squeaky little girly cat anymore!” – Nall was always supposed to sound like a little boy. Listen to his original Japanese voice! Not to knock the original English voice actress of him, because at the time she sounded great, but I much prefer him to sound like a young male creature. (I will miss “Come on, get back on your feet!” immensely, though. *tear*) The same pretty much goes for complaints about any other new voices, too… Except maybe Ghaleon. His old voice was so perfect, but I’m sure I will learn to love New Ghaleon as well. His voice is totally different, but it seems… hmm… creamier?

“There’s some new bad guys and I don’t like that!” – Well, I admit I haven’t really looked into this, since I’m trying to avoid spoiling it for myself, and from the couple of sentences I’ve read by accident, it seems very spoiler-ish, so I can’t really say with a certainty if this is good or bad. However, I can’t stress enough that this is not intended to be a direct port. Change for the sake of change, if it affects the story too drastically, is a bad thing, but from most of the less-ragey reactions I’ve seen to whatever this may be, it sounds like it barely affects anything. So, try to keep an open mind, everyone. If you feel that strongly that you just want to play one of the older ones, then simply go play the older version of your choice.

In conclusion, I strongly encourage you to check out the Lunar series if you haven’t ever done so. If you’ve got a PSP, you should absolutely download the Lunar: Silver Star Harmony demo on the PSN, and pick up the game when it comes out on March 2nd. I don’t normally promote the hell out of games like this (Geez, you’d think I was getting paid or something! ((I’m not.)) (((Though I kinda wish I was.))) ), but having played the demo, heard the new voices and seen the new artwork, and read the website, and the XSEED blog, and discussed the game on the Facebook page… I can just tell that a TON of heart and soul have gone into making this game (both on the GAME ARTS designing side of things, and the SEED localization side), and the people who have worked on it genuinely care about the series they are handling, and the fans (new and old!) and on doing things RIGHT. If I may say so, it is VERY uncommon nowadays in the land of huge faceless corporations and making the biggest bucks, for companies to treat things with as much respect as I see this game getting. So for that, if nothing else I’ve said here convinces you… Please give it your support at least for the sake of the folks who made it!

[This article has been guest-written by Christina! We're working on getting me a Mii to correspond to my posts like Joe's, so thanks for your patience! I appreciate your feedback!]