The first two Lunar games remain cases of RPG clichés done unimpeachably right. They button up every little part of the genre that grew old during the early 1990s, but they do it all with exceptional artwork, grand music, likeable characters, and cinematic aplomb (oh, and goofball Working Designs localizations that I still find irresistible). That’s especially true of the second game,
Lunar II: Eternal Blue. In fact, in the whole skein of RPGs where plucky young heroes meet mysterious, blue-haired women,
Lunar II is
the best damn RPG where a plucky young hero meets a mysterious, blue-haired woman. And you can quote me on the box.
The original
Lunar: The Silver Star gets most of the attention when it comes to remakes, but you’ll find that Softbank’s Lunar artbook, source of
early production art and
other things, grants a touch more space to
Lunar II. For example, the second game gets this comic strip by artist Akari Funato. In it we see
Eternal Blue protagonists Hiro and Lucia visiting their makers at the Game Arts offices.
It’s easy to follow if you have even a minor understanding of Japanese and game-development gags, but here’s a rough translation anyway.
