Working Designs is BACK and they're here to shoehorn in jokes about Bill Clinton into your JRPGs that will horribly date them immediately!
Or maybe that happens in Lunar: Eternal Blue... Look, I can barely keep these games straight when it comes to characters and humor since they seem to follow the general Working Designs outline for localization. Characters are reduced down to their most basic elements, which are then played up to the point of being a caricature. Toss in loads of (then) current pop culture references and sexism and you've got yourself a game.
They're also known for making alterations to how their games play, though yet again I could not tell you what they changed mechanically with this one. Lunar: The Silver Star is a very barebones RPG, in any case. It's the sort of game where you can rely upon one or two attacks per character and sweep most encounters, whether they're random battles or end game boss fights. There's not much to this one outside of its cutscenes, which are well rendered on the Sega CD. It's anime, 90s anime, the sort of shit everyone eats up now but totally would've gotten you shoved into a locker back in the day. Enduring repeated swirlies is the price you pay for enjoying Lunar: The Silver Star in 1992. In 2022 the price is about 129$ for a used copy. Misery all around.
Compared to its sequel, the story is pretty scaled back and fairly one-note. I do have to wonder if a lot of the nuance was stripped away in localization, but I'm still a sucker for Working Design's scorched Earth policy when it comes to doing right by these things. I'm sure very little of the identity of Lunar remains, but there's still some fun stuff here, and (from what I can remember) nobody says any slurs in this one, which is a marked improvement over PopFul Mail and Albert Odyssey. That said, Eternal Blue does tell a more emotionally engaging and complex narrative, and The Silver Star is a bit of a prerequisite given how much it expands upon the characters, story, and world that Silver Star establishes. To put it another way: I enjoyed The Silver Star while I was playing it, but after completing Eternal Blue I really don't care to ever go back.
There's better JRPGs that are more worth your time, even on the Sega CD, and Working Designs isn't for everyone. Personally, I found the gameplay to be a little boring and the story a little too simplistic, but it's not bereft of charm.
Or maybe that happens in Lunar: Eternal Blue... Look, I can barely keep these games straight when it comes to characters and humor since they seem to follow the general Working Designs outline for localization. Characters are reduced down to their most basic elements, which are then played up to the point of being a caricature. Toss in loads of (then) current pop culture references and sexism and you've got yourself a game.
They're also known for making alterations to how their games play, though yet again I could not tell you what they changed mechanically with this one. Lunar: The Silver Star is a very barebones RPG, in any case. It's the sort of game where you can rely upon one or two attacks per character and sweep most encounters, whether they're random battles or end game boss fights. There's not much to this one outside of its cutscenes, which are well rendered on the Sega CD. It's anime, 90s anime, the sort of shit everyone eats up now but totally would've gotten you shoved into a locker back in the day. Enduring repeated swirlies is the price you pay for enjoying Lunar: The Silver Star in 1992. In 2022 the price is about 129$ for a used copy. Misery all around.
Compared to its sequel, the story is pretty scaled back and fairly one-note. I do have to wonder if a lot of the nuance was stripped away in localization, but I'm still a sucker for Working Design's scorched Earth policy when it comes to doing right by these things. I'm sure very little of the identity of Lunar remains, but there's still some fun stuff here, and (from what I can remember) nobody says any slurs in this one, which is a marked improvement over PopFul Mail and Albert Odyssey. That said, Eternal Blue does tell a more emotionally engaging and complex narrative, and The Silver Star is a bit of a prerequisite given how much it expands upon the characters, story, and world that Silver Star establishes. To put it another way: I enjoyed The Silver Star while I was playing it, but after completing Eternal Blue I really don't care to ever go back.
There's better JRPGs that are more worth your time, even on the Sega CD, and Working Designs isn't for everyone. Personally, I found the gameplay to be a little boring and the story a little too simplistic, but it's not bereft of charm.
MegaDriver69
1 year ago