Lunar: a game that's been hyped for years and waited for even longer. A game that's probably as old as I am relative to its original Japan release date. A game that had the audacity to be made as a remake for a Sega-CD game, possibly the worst system ever created, and put on the Playstation. Was it worth the wait? Goddamn right.

Graphics--82%

Something most hardened FF7 players might notice when they pop their brand spanking new copy of Lunar into their Playstation is that the graphics really aren't up to par with current 3D visuals. Graphics could be this game's only, small in my opinion, flaw. Note the "could be". Personally, them cute little SD (Super Deformed for you philistines out there) dudes always give me a smile and a hearty chuckle. Which is a good thing coming form me, but it is more than likely a turn off for the graphic hungry audiences of America.

However, Lunar does have a saving grace. The Anime type cut scenes. There is one word for these babies, and that is an emphatic WOW. Nobody, and I mean nobody, could possibly look down their nose at these. Beautiful. 3D obsessed or not, these amazing, albeit few, cut scenes will knock your socks off.

The backgrounds, though still lacking any sort of 3D connection, are very nice. They all seem kind of like paintings than anything else. Very colorful and pretty.

Music--95%

Now, before I start ranting, it should be noted that I am NOT a fan of game music. Given the choice between listening to the FF7 soundtrack and slamming my head against a chalkboard, I'd probably go for the latter. But this game might change me. The music is great. All tunes seem to fit, all notes seem well placed, and even the singing (Disney like singing, for christsake) is great. It's almost impossible to explain how good this music is. Phenomenal.

Sadly, if one desired to listen to this fantastic music without playing the game, they'd have to go on the CD hunt from hell trying to find one of the scarce, and rather pricey, soundtracks, right? Wrong! The good people at Working Designs foresaw my need and packaged the soundtrack right along with the game! Swell!

Story--100%!

Giving anything 100% is hard for me. I, like a few other sadists out there, actually enjoy giving things low scores (terror upon my classmates who ask me to correct their work, mwahaha) and rarely give anything a 100%, unless given no choice. And here, Lunar DID give me no choice. This game has got to have the best story one could ever possibly imagine. It's that good.

Actually, now that I think about it, it isn't really the story. Let me give you the synopsis. 1) Boy has big dreams bout his hero. 2) Boy gets chance to achieve said dream. 3) Boy is forced to save his old lady from evil man and save world. Now, I'll admit, I left out just about everything in the game, but that back there is the meat of Lunar. It is most definitely not why I gave it 100%. The reason why was the dialog. I mean, damn, it's astonishing how good it is in comparison to any other translated console RPG. Any one line from Lunar, any one mind you, can top any other game's entire script. I'm exaggerating here, of course, but I think the point is made. Characters talk like people in this game, not like robots, almost on par with the dialog of good movies and novels, and maybe even better in a few cases. Working Designs (now known as WD because my hands hurt) gets muchos kudos for this.

Game Play--87%

Lunar's game play is nothing special, but it is most definitely solid. Standard RPG brouhaha, if you veteran game players know what I mean. It uses the same menu based inventory and turn based combat that RPGs have relied on since well before my time (not that that's a bad thing, mind you). I'd prefer to have an old reliable system of playing then a new one that looks good on the outside, but on the inside has more bugs in it than a beehive, but that's just how I think.

There are, of course, a few minor game enhancements. The most noticeable is that all random battles have been done away with. No longer do mysterious bad guys leap from no where to do battle with your party. If you're gonna fight, you know it's coming. All enemies are represented by little gray figures that stalk about the game's dungeons lookin' to have a tumble with you. Every time one sees you, he'll probably let out a monster like roar, and then come running. Also, it should be noted, all world map battles are eliminated. I mean totally. And this is a good thing. As an RPG player, I always prefer to move along the story far more than I like to fight battles, and this helps a lot. Traveling is faster AND more enjoyable.

Control--72%

Though basically standard to most RPGs, Lunar's control frankly irritated me a bit. I always found myself sliding off walls, (you slide along walls in Lunar instead of stopping when you hit one), and trying to get into the game menu by pressing the save button. I saved far more times in Lunar than I have before in any other game, but not because I wanted to. All this was pretty irritating, but beyond that it was extremely reliable, which goes a long way for me.

And it should be noted that the good people at WD had the inspiration to put the IDIOTIC AI (AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, or in Lunar's case, Artificial Idiocy) button as default for whenever you restart the game. Many, many, many times I found myself using the Super Death Dragon Spell, or some such thing, on a wimpy little monster because I accidentally hit the AI button after starting the game over. Blah.

Overall--95%

Thought the average score of all the above rating is quite a bit lower than 95%, I'm giving Lunar this generous score anyway. Why? Cause it was fun. Despite Lunar: SSSCs flaws, it was still a blast to play. The music, dialog, and Anime all made this game add up to a wonderful experience that you can rarely find in console RPGs nowadays. And it had the Bromides. Huba huba.