Background:

Lunar was developed by a Japanese company known as Game Arts (also well known for such masterpieces as Grandia and Silpheed). Under the imagination of Yohichi Mijaji, the first creation of Lunar, Lunar the Silver Star was launch in Japan in 1992 for the Mega CD. It told the story of a young boy name Alex and his adventures in Lunar to become a dragonmaster and to save his childhood friend Luna. It became an instant classic and was consider one of the best RPG's at its time. It had all the qualities of a great RPG, a great storyline, beautiful character design and environment, enjoyable battle system, and even voice acting and cut-scene animation.

It soon gained the attention of Victor Ireland, president of Working Designs, who decided to publish Lunar in America for the Sega CD. With well-done translation and above average voice acting, Lunar finally arrive on US shelfs in 1993. It became the best-selling RPG for the Sega CD and recieve good reviews from game critic.

In 1994, Game Arts released Lunar 2 Eternal Blue for the Sega CD and it proved to be just as good as the original. It takes place 1000 years after the original and tells the story of Lucia, a girl from the Blue Shire, on a quest to find Althena and her adventures with Hiro, an adventurer who is trying to unlock the past and find the future of Lunar. It had better graphic, a much longer story-line, more charater depth and improve animation, which played a much bigger role in story-telling and presenting the world of Lunar. It was eventually release in America by Working Designs in 1995 for the Sega CD.

In 1996, Game Arts released Lunar the Silver Star Story for the Sega Saturn. It was a remake of the orignal Lunar, but this time Game Arts was able to include everything they wanted to put into the original Sega CD version but couldn't due to hardware limitation and release dead-line. Such addition included a longer storyline, additional characters and more in-depth characters, such as the relationship between Alex and Luna. The graphics were also highly enchanted to take advantage of the Saturn's hardware and almost every single dungeon and town were redesigned. Also they included loads of cut-scene animation that even used in some part computer graphic. Another verison of this remake was later released in 1997, entited Lunar The Silver Star Story Complete, which took advantage of the Saturn's MPEG card, meaning that the cut-scenes were larger and in better quality.

Lunar 2 Eternal Blue later also recieve a remake on the Sega Saturn in 1998, carrying the same name, alhough it wasn't redesigned as much as the first one, since the creators were already satified with the Sega CD version. It did include better anime cut-scene, taking more advantage of CG this time and enchanted graphic. The story-line though remained much the same.

Due to conflicts between Sega and Working Designs, the 2 remakes of Lunar were never released in the US for the Sega Saturn.

Eventually Game Arts decided to re-release the remakes of Lunar for the Sony Playstation in Japan. Having turn sides to Sony, Working Designs decided to pick up the two remakes and publish them in America for the Playstation. Despite long, and I mean long delays, Lunar Silver Star Story Complete was released in the US on June of 1999. Released in a special edition package, it included a making of the game CD, a soundtrack CD, a cloth with a map of Lunar, a hard cover instruction manual and of course the game itself on 2 cd's. The making of the game CD also had a hidden pong-like game in it featuring almost every Lunar characters. After January 1, 2000, Working Designs stopped production of the PSX version of Lunar in the hope to make it more of a limited item, thus adding to its special edition label.

The long awaited sequel was also finally released in late 2000, entitled Lunar 2 Eternal Blue Complete. It also included a special package. It included the a making of the game CD, a soundtrack CD, 3 cd's for the game itself, a hard-cover instruction manual, a full-size Lucia pendant, several Lunar standees, and a paper map and poster of Lunar. Also for those who preordered Lunar 2, they were also given a free Ghaleon punching doll.

Also there was another Lunar game release in Japan called Lunar Magic School for the Sega Saturn, which had no relationship story-wise with any game in the Lunar series, besides the title. It was also later release on the Sega Game Gear.

......Lunar 3......Playstation 2......200x......no remake......