Lunar Threads

Lunar: Eternal Blue was released for the Sega CD in the US.

I was 15. When my father came home from work he pretended that he had forgotten to buy it. I screamed at him (still do, jk). I remember taking it with me to school the next day to show off to my friends...

Wow. I was acquainted with TSS by then, but it was another four years before I learned of EB's existence, courtesy the Working Designs site. Never did have the experience of talking (and playing) games with classmates since I was in college when I started playing them.

Did the case survive being in a backpack? =)

I was almost 10 and didn't know that these games existed. That would have to wait another three or four years.

It's awesome that your dad bought it for you opening day.

Never did have the experience of talking (and playing) games with classmates since I was in college when I started playing them.

I hardly was able to talk about Lunar with my classmates. I recall one of my sister's exes was playing through it, and once on an overnight field trip I discovered that another student had brought a (possibly pirated) copy of SSSC. It looked like it was burned to a CD with a Lunar-themed CD cover in white and... blue? Green? Can't quite remember.

let's see 20 years ago I was almost three.....I was almost three

Did it look like this, by any chance? That's a bootleg of SSSC (English) someone made to play on PAL machines. That piece of art, though, comes from the Japanese PlayStation release (it's the cover art for that as well) and for some reason isn't in anything else that I can recall seeing except a promo poster for that release. (Though I might just be forgetting something.)

Let’s see in 1995 I was only 6 years-old and at the time I had no idea what Lunar was. My sister and I had only just gotten our first gaming system around then from my mom’s friend’s son. It was the Nintendo and we got 18+ games with it back then so we were pretty excited about it.

I didn’t discover Lunar till 2000 though when I spotted EBC through the glass at a store (It was Wal-Mart). I just loved the character design and layout really and everytime we would go I would just go look at it. Mom said no, so I begged Dad. (Begging Dad always got me good games)

Alun, maybe, though I wrote out a reply before I doubted myself saying that they used the standard case art. I really can't recall at this point. Mainly, the discs themselves had different art on them. I've never been able to find an image online. I suspect it wasn't in wide circulation.

The discs in that case pictured above do have different art but it's not anything special, IIRC. I'll look later. Do you remember if the discs were black on the underside? (This is just idle curiosity, if that's not clear; I just like identifying vague memories.)

They were like CD-Rs on the underside. Clear, not black.

Ah, these were the halcyon days that I recall so fondly of my youth when a local Blockbuster with it's blue sign standing tall and proud on the winds would be a beacon for games such as this. It only took one play through to try and convince myself this was the game for me, but alas, it fell into mystery. It was an oddity that I grew unfamiliar with for several years until browsing a bin of discounted old games and finding it within. Along with it, it's brother. These were happy times as I took both cases back with me and learned the majesty of Lunar on the Sega CD. After that, I learned of the remakes, the voice acting, the splendor of fully realized animated cut scenes from an EGM.

To this day my Sega CD games are all but lost somewhere, but my PlayStation remakes sit proudly upon my shelf where they will hopefully stay forever.

Ardent Fox wrote:Ah, these were the halcyon days that I recall so fondly of my youth when a local Blockbuster with it's blue sign standing tall and proud on the winds would be a beacon for games such as this. It only took one play through to try and convince myself this was the game for me, but alas, it fell into mystery. It was an oddity that I grew unfamiliar with for several years until browsing a bin of discounted old games and finding it within. Along with it, it's brother. These were happy times as I took both cases back with me and learned the majesty of Lunar on the Sega CD. After that, I learned of the remakes, the voice acting, the splendor of fully realized animated cut scenes from an EGM.

To this day my Sega CD games are all but lost somewhere, but my PlayStation remakes sit proudly upon my shelf where they will hopefully stay forever.

20 years ago I was 5.. But this sounds exactly like my first spotting of EBC. It was in the corner rack (up front) at a TOYS'R'US, the only store I knew of to get video games at the time (I must've been 12-14..). I remember a male and a female figure on either posterboard or some cylindrical casing (maybe :/), an orange cape (maybe, the mind is funny..), and carrying out a big box that carried what I thought looked like the coolest video game in the store. I can still picture the location I found it though.. I could pinpoint it in that store to this day! Give or take 3-4 feet ;P. I remember it being unusually expensive, and enjoying the unpackaging with all the little pop-up characters that I've since lost... And even Lucia's Pendant.

But I remember the magic I felt with the playthrough! That's what really hooked me. I might've been lured in by all the regular ways, but it was an immediate link to something inside of me that wanted to hold on. great description of how old "blockbusters" used to be portrayed at stores though - haha.. I can totally relate.

Ηiro wrote: great description of how old "blockbusters" used to be portrayed at stores though - haha.. I can totally relate.

?

I was talking about Blockbuster video stores. They were like Hollywood video if you had those instead.

Ardent Fox wrote:

Ηiro wrote: great description of how old "blockbusters" used to be portrayed at stores though - haha.. I can totally relate.

?

I was talking about Blockbuster video stores. They were like Hollywood video if you had those instead.

Yikes, that's hilarious - I know the video store, but I thought you were referring to Lunar as a blockbuster. Also, the way you described the store coincidentally enough fit the description of the booth that held the Lunar game when I was younger. However, it was just a booth in a toy store! Hahaha all in all this made my day..

I first heard of Eternal Blue (and Lunar for that matter) from Game Players magazine. Working Designs ran ads in several issues and I remember reading both a preview and a review. The review had kind of an odd tone. It was mostly positive, but the reviewer felt that the game was better than the original Lunar but in the process some of the "magic" had been lost. At the time I think I thought the game looked somewhat neat but, not having a Sega CD or even a Genesis, I didn't end up getting it. I more or less forgot about the series until several years later when a friend introduced me to the PlayStation remakes.

Back in those days the internet wasn't nearly as big as it is now and I certainly don't remember there being much in the way of professional gaming sites. I would get most of my gaming info from magazines. I remember eagerly awaiting new issues every month and hoping they'd have coverage of games I was excited about. I remember in particular being wowed by every screenshot I saw of Final Fantasy VII and devouring every bit of coverage I could find about it. Nowadays it's so much easier to find information on upcoming games.

Imperial Knight wrote:The review had kind of an odd tone. It was mostly positive, but the reviewer felt that the game was better than the original Lunar but in the process some of the "magic" had been lost.

That's pretty much how I feel. I think EB's gameplay is the best in the series, but it does have a very different affect (not effect) from TSS. Despite Hiro's youthful optimism and such, the world in general feels...cynical is the word that comes to mind, even though individual personalities aren't cynical themselves. TSS just felt more like discovery to me, even if some of what was being discovered was bad. Maybe it's just that EB is a sequel, so people who played the first already know the structure of the world -- and everything that's different from what they knew from TSS is changed for the worse. And heck, the most obvious indicator of magic in TSS, the floating city of Vane, has definitely lost magic.

Ardent Fox wrote:

Ηiro wrote: great description of how old "blockbusters" used to be portrayed at stores though - haha.. I can totally relate.

I was talking about Blockbuster video stores. They were like Hollywood video if you had those instead.

What's a video? Is that like a Blu-Ray? Why didn't they just use Netflix back then?

...ok ok seriously though.

I first played Lunar: TSS sometime in 1995 via rental (it wasn't a Blockbuster... it was some tiny chain) -- I rented it twice in a row, and then the third time just bought it, at which time I saw both TSS and the sequel EB were already out. So, the same day I finished TSS, I immediately started up EB.

Oh that was an amazing week {^^}. I think I played it for hours a day for the next month solid. The joy of experiencing the story for the first time, coupled with the fact that since I was a kid there wasn't much else I had to do back then. KF

I pre-ordered Eternal Blue from the video game store I ended up working at not long after (Microplay). After the delays I was excited to finally have it. I think it was originally supposed to release in July or August.

At the very least it would have been nice to have a better remake than the crappy version on PlayStation. I still prefer the original better on Sega CD for many reasons.

Hell, Shenmue 3 is being made after all this time and we can't even get a proper Lunar 3.

Silver Phoenix wrote:Hell, Shenmue 3 is being made after all this time and we can't even get a proper Lunar 3.

Ar, lad, that be like comparin' a sloop to a frigate. Shenmue 3 be crowdsourced and th' properties held onto like a sword in its scabbard. Lunar's property be scattered to th' winds. There be as much chance o' crowdsourced Lunar as in findin' th' fountain of youth. KF

I remember flipping through old EGM's or GameFans or whatever else and seeing these captivating ads with the sweet art style and knew I had to have it.

And it's still my favorite game of all time. <3 Eternal Blue.