Lunar Remastered Collection review: A pair of excellent RPGs revived for modern audiences

The Lunar Remastered Collection is hand-made for people like me — older people who miss the classic RPGs from the 1990s. While yes, I think newcomers can and will enjoy these two games, I cannot tell you how many people I’ve met over the years whose eyes light up the moment I mention “Lunar”. The stories are simple, but they still manage to invoke real, powerful emotions in me, to this day.

From the music to the charming characters to the challenging combat, there’s so much to love about the Lunar Remastered Collection. The first two Lunar games, available in this collection, are, as far as I go, masterpieces. Were they perfect? Absolutely not. Frustrating at times? You bet! That’s all part of the charm, though.

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Lunar Remastered Collection brings both “Silver Star Story Complete” and “Eternal Blue Complete” to life again

The Lunar Remastered Collection brings back a pair of RPGs from the 1990s - Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete. Set in the same timeline, a thousand years apart, these games tell relatively simple stories about a boy simply wanting to be a hero or adventurer.

Alex's journey begins with two good friends and a flying cat (Image via GungHo Online)

Set on an inhabitable moon known as Lunar, the Goddess Althena transformed it into a livable place, since The Blue Star (humanity’s previous world) could no longer inhabit it, thanks to the power of the dark god Zophar and the clash between him and the Goddess Althena. The Lunar Remastered Collection tells the first two stories in the series and does it faithfully.

Lunar: Silver Star Story tells the story of Alex, who idolizes a legendary hero, Dragonmaster Dyne. Desperate to stand in the footsteps of his hero, he constantly explores and pushes himself to be a man like Dyne. Like many fantasy stories, the young boy who wants to be a hero winds up caught in a great adventure, making his way into the world to prove himself.

A thousand years later, Hiro gets caught up in a fight for survival for his very planet (Image via GungHo Online)

A thousand years later, Lunar 2: Eternal Blue focuses on Hiro, an adventurer, who stumbles upon a mysterious blue-haired girl named Lucia, who is actually from the Blue Star. A massive, memorable adventure, it featured improvements from the original game, especially in mechanics and UI, alongside even more animated cutscenes and voice work.

While neither game is massive, they’re incredible adventures with memorable characters, challenging combat, and worlds that wouldn’t be out of place in anime or manga. The “boy becomes a hero” trope doesn’t always work for me, but I was just as emotionally invested now as I was back then.

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Lunar Remastered Collection features a few noteworthy quality-of-life features but is also missing one

Sometimes, you just want to go a bit faster when leveling grinding. But be careful! (Image via GungHo Online)

The turn-based gameplay of Lunar Remastered Collection is solid, but I have to say, it can be remarkably slow. Thankfully, one of the features added to the game is a Battle Speed Toggle (up to 3x faster). It’s such a blessing because the Lunar games are very grindy. Even when using the AI/Auto Battle, it’s still very slow.

The game also has updated graphics, a new English voiceover, wide-screen support, and remastered visuals — all of which you might expect in a remaster. However, I also like the Improved Strategy Settings, so you can better customize what your party members do in battle.

If you want a more classic experience, you can play the Classic versions of both games, which have the original resolution, graphics, and everything. You don’t have to start over, either!

This is just one example of the graphical differences (Image via GungHo Online)

You can load the game into whichever version you want. If for some reason, you just miss the way it was and want to play the original without purchasing a PSX copy (which can run between $140-180), this is the most cost-effective way to do that.

However, it is missing a feature — if I could have anything added to the game, it’d definitely be Autosave! I can’t tell you how many times I died and lost anywhere from 10 minutes to almost a full hour of gameplay because I was entirely too confident and forgot that autosave wasn’t a thing back then. Be careful, and save often!

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The gameplay of Lunar Remastered Collection feels exactly how it did in the ‘90s

There's no "easy" difficulty, no quest markers. You just have to pay attention, or do some reading (Image via GungHo Online)

Whether it’s navigating a map or engaging in turn-based battles against swarms of opponents, it’s exactly how I remember it being. The enemy groups were often entirely too large, the MP costs were exorbitantly high, and the damage was low for the early going of both games.

I liked that, though! It was a challenge. Lunar Remastered Collection is still just as challenging as the original games were — no boosts or anything like that. You have to spend your time grinding, running back to town to grab a full heal or something from the Goddess Althena statues, and get back in there.

The Lunar games could also be cryptic, which was common at the time. You really had to pay attention and talk to people. Of course, these games are decades old, so there’s plenty of information out there if you choose to use it. That’s entirely up to you. If you’re new to the series and looking for a challenging RPG, then look no further than these two.

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The remastered graphics, cutscenes, and voice acting are all brilliant in the Lunar Remastered Collection

"Wind" intensifies (Image via GungHo Online)

I could immediately see the differences between the two games, that’s for sure. The visuals are bright, the character portraits and pixel sprites are all gorgeous. The voice acting is solid as well, and it all really takes me back in time, only with much better visual and audio parity.

I also love the brand-new song composed for the title screen, Terra, by the original composer, the legendary Noriyuki Iwadare. It’s a beautiful piece of music, but I still get emotional anytime I hear Wings on the title screen of Silver Star Story or Luna singing Wind’s Nocturne — the song she sings on the boat early in the game. The remaster holds to the visual and musical style of the original and only enhances them.

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Final thoughts

The Lunar Remastered Collection is everything I hoped it would be (Image via GungHo Online)

The Lunar Remastered Collection is 100% a must-play. I know far too many people who “meant to play Lunar but never did” because of any number of reasons. The time is now, though! The games are reasonably priced, give plenty of content, and are, frankly, a joy to play. While we talk about Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy as noteworthy franchises, I think that Lunar is often overlooked. Hopefully, this remaster fixes that.

Playing through the Lunar games made me remember just how much DNA it has in common with the Lufia/Estpolis series. I don’t want to go into details for spoiler reasons, but the more I think about it, the more they felt similar — but in a good way, a positive way. If you’re looking for some RPGs that won’t outstay their welcome but will challenge you, you need to pick these up. They’re two beautiful stories that you won’t soon forget.

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Lunar Remastered Collection

Alex and Hiro's adventures have never been more accessible - or enjoyable (Image via GungHo Online & Sportskeeda)

• Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PC
• Reviewed On: PlayStation 5 (Code provided by GungHo Online)
• Developer: ASHIBI Co, Game Arts
• Published by: GungHo Online Entertainment America
• Release date: April 18, 2025