I wish Lunar had a port...

[Rune Lai]

Considering how crazy Lunar got with all its versions of Lunar: The Silver Star (the original Sega CD, the greatly expanded Saturn/PS1 versions, then GBA and PSP with new scenes in them) it's kinda weird that all that has stopped, and in an era when collections of old games are all over the place, Lunar hasn't had one. Grandia had an HD collection released a couple years ago, so it's not like Game Arts hasn't regurgitated old IP for present day money. I can understand such a collection could have issues coming to the US based on which version was chosen for inclusion (since the translation would belong to either a defunct Working Designs, Ubisoft, or Xseed), but there isn't even one in Japan.

This is sort of me wishing there was a Switch port so I could take Lunar on the go with me. And if they made one, I'd probably want either the original Sega CD version or the PSP one since it added a little more lore about the Four Heroes to be the included version for Silver Star.

[skylark]

I was just thinking that, but...

With Another Eden having a Chrono Cross collaboration and Echoes of Mana just released, I fear the only thing left they can do is a mobile gatcha-based game.

[Solana]

I'd love a portable version of Eternal Blue. Don't get me wrong, the PS version is one of my absolute favorite games ever made, but portables are wonderful for travel or when needing to lie down on a really bad pain day.

[Ambrienne]

As long as we're dreaming here, I'd like to add Magic School to the wishlist. Because, why not? Also the opening theme song has been living 'rent-free' as they say in my head ever since the day I got rid of my Saturn. I could still sing it word for word even though I haven't heard it in what seems like forever. ^^;

But yeah, I've been missing Eternal Blue especially because it hasn't got as much remake love as SS.

[Rune Lai]

There's a part of me the suspects Game Arts would have liked to do Eternal Blue remakes, but when they did the GBA Silver Star remake it didn't sell well enough to warrant it, and when they tried again on PSP, it was the same thing. (I wonder how bad sales were in Japan. Since both were localized in English they must have gotten some extra money out of it form the licensing fees.) They've also been fantastically bad at supporting the series post-Saturn/PS1 era.

Like Dragon Song was an awful game. Not just from a storytelling standpoint, which felt like a rehash of previous Lunar plotlines, but the actual mechanics of the game were terrible, so if you weren't a diehard Lunar fan there was no reason to make that your first introduction to the series. The gameplay was about 10 years old and lacked quality of life features that were no longer new at the time of release. I don't remember all of them (since I unsurprisingly have not replayed that game), but the one that really sticks with me is enemy retargeting. In most JRPGs from the late 16-bit era on, if an enemy dies after you've set your party's commands, the character will then attack an alternate target if one is available. But Dragon Song does not. It's a whiffed attack. So you have to estimate how much life an enemy has left (when they have no visible health bars) and plan your attacks accordingly. Since battles were fairly simple and did not require much in the way of tactics, this was annoying, since the only "strategy" was trying to not whiff attacks so you could keep going.

Anyway, if we're dreaming, it would be nice to have a "complete" collection, sort of like Disney's Classic Games collection, where they have every version of the Lion King and Aladdin games. So we'd have all four Silver Stars, the two Eternal Blues, Magic and Strolling School, and even that Dragon Song stinker. And the ability to play them in either English or Japanese. It would be a licensing nightmare on the English side, but I'd buy it.

[Solana]

I would, too. I'd just ignore 'Dragon Song', as I can honestly say that it's one of the very worst games I've ever played. I fought on until getting to the Red Dragon Cave just because it was a Lunar game, but then gave up. Kind of like the 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' fans ignoring the live action movie.

[Rune Lai]

For a completely unrelated reason I needed to dig back into my early career and went to Moby Games (which is like IMDB for video game staff). One thing led to another and I found this thread: www.neogaf.com/threads/lttp-lunar-silver-star-story-complete.506006/page-2

Victor Ireland said "Game Arts made that provision a part of the deal to buy back the LUNAR English rights."

Which means that any future compilation deal wouldn't need to go through Working Designs. Game Arts owns the script. There are other interesting things in that thread too. Like the XSEED translation is the same one that WD used, but with some changes here and there. I actually wouldn't have known because I never played SSS in English. I played it on Saturn back when my brother couldn't wait and imported it, and since I disliked how hard the battles were, I never bothered to play this particular version again in English when it came out on Playstation. (Admitedly it's part of why the Saturn/PS1 version is my least favorite.)

Probably the biggest thing though is a comment from Vic that Studio Alex was a large part of what made Lunar special, and they were bankrupted following a lawsuit with Game Arts (I was wondering why I didn't seem them in the credits anymore). If Studio Alex was say, the creative heart of Lunar, that may be why we've gotton nothing but remakes since. Studio Alex did the first three games; the ones on Sega CD and Game Gear. This also might be why Lunar has repeatedly been the lesser cousin to Grandia. Game Arts may own the rights to Lunar, but it isn't their baby in the same way that Grandia is.

And the last thing I think worth mentioning from that thread is that Vic said he was going to try getting the PS1 versions of the game up on Playstation Network, but since it's been a decade and that never happened, I think it's safe to say it didn't work out.