Lunar is a role-playing video game series developed by Game Arts and Studio Alex. The story is set on the moon called "Lunar," which orbits a planet named "The Blue Star." This planet is not suitable for human life. The first two games in the series, Lunar: The Silver Star (1992) and Lunar: Eternal Blue (1994), were released for the Sega CD and form the basis of the series.

Both The Silver Star and Eternal Blue were praised by critics and sold well, becoming the two best-selling games on the Sega CD platform in Japan. Over the years, remakes of these original games have been released on multiple platforms, including Silver Star Story Complete, Eternal Blue Complete, Lunar Legend, Silver Star Harmony, and Remastered Collection. Three spin-off games have also been created.

Plot

The Lunar stories are set on a livable moon called Lunar, also known as "The Silver Star," which orbits a planet named "The Blue Star." Long ago, the Blue Star was taken over by a dark god named Zophar. His evil made people's hearts bad, turning some into monsters. The survivors asked for help from the planet's patron deity, Goddess Althena. She fought Zophar in a big battle and stopped him by using her power to trap him in another place, which almost destroyed all life on the planet.

Althena could not fix the planet for many thousands of years, so she changed the moon into a world like Earth and moved the survivors there. The survivors included humans, beast-men, and elf-like beings who could use magic. The only elf-like being shown in Lunar is Ghaleon, who is part of the Vile Tribe in "Lunar: Vane Hikuusen Monogatari," but here he is called a "fourth race" even though there are only three races. Later, a fourth group of people, who became known as the Vile Tribe after rejecting Althena's teachings, were banished by her to a place on Lunar called "The Frontier." This area was a dry wasteland where even Althena's magic could not reach. The Vile Tribe became enemies of Althena and her followers for thousands of

Games

• Lunar: The Silver Star was first released on June 26, 1992, in Japan for the Sega CD. The game follows Alex, a young boy from a small town who dreams of becoming a great hero like his idol, Dragonmaster Dyne. The game uses the CD-ROM format to include high-quality music, moving videos, and voice acting. Working Designs translated the game into English, releasing it in North America in December 1993. It was a critical and commercial success, becoming the best-selling title on the platform in Japan and the second-highest-selling overall.

• Lunar: Eternal Blue was first released on December 22, 1994, in Japan for the Sega CD. Set a thousand years after the events of the first game, it follows Hiro, a young adventurer, and Lucia, a girl from the distant planet Blue Star, as they work to stop an evil being from destroying the world. Compared to its predecessor, Eternal Blue has twice as much text and over four times as much original animation. Working Designs translated the game into English again, releasing it in North America in September 1995. While the game was well received, it sold fewer copies than The Silver Star, partly because it was released later for the platform.

• Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete was first released on October 25, 1996, in Japan for the Sega Saturn. A version with better video quality using a Video CD card add-on was released a year later. This game is a remake of The Silver Star with an expanded story, improved graphics, and sound. The original Sega CD version included about ten minutes of animation, while the remake features fifty minutes of new, fully animated cutscenes by Studio Gonzo. The game was later released for the PlayStation on May 28, 1998, with an English version by Working Designs arriving a year later. A Windows version was released for Japanese and Korean markets, but a North American release was canceled. It received generally positive reviews. Versions for iOS and Android were released in 2012 and 2024, respectively, as Lunar: Silver Star Story Touch.

• Lunar: Eternal Blue Complete was first released on July 23, 1998, in Japan for the Sega Saturn. This game is a remake of Eternal Blue with an expanded story, improved graphics, and sound, similar to Silver Star Story Complete. A PlayStation version followed on May 27, 1999, with an English release by Working Designs arriving a year later, on December 15, 2000. It received generally positive reviews.

• Lunar Legend was first released on April 12, 2002, in Japan for the Game Boy Advance. This game is a remake of The Silver Star, based largely on Silver Star Story Complete, with some changes. Ubisoft translated the game into English, releasing it in North America on December 10, 2002. Due to the limitations of the cartridge format, features like voice acting and full-motion video were not included. Instead, the developers used real-time cutscenes with detailed character sprites to tell the story. Still images from Silver Star Story Complete appear at certain points to give the game a more cinematic feel. It received generally positive reviews.

• Lunar: Silver Star Harmony was first released on November 12, 2009, in Japan for the PlayStation Portable. This game is a remake of The Silver Star. It retains the animated cutscenes from Silver Star Story Complete but includes a new playable prologue, a more talkative main character, a remixed soundtrack, and newly recorded voice acting and English translation by Xseed Games. It received generally positive reviews.

• Lunar Remastered Collection was released worldwide on April 18, 2025, for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One. This collection includes remastered versions of Silver Star Story Complete and Eternal Blue Complete with widescreen support, improved visuals, additional language options, and quality-of-life features. It was developed by Ashibi Co. and published by GungHo Online Entertainment.

• Lunar: Sanposuru Gakuen was first released on January 12, 1996, in Japan for the Game Gear. The game follows Ellie and her best friend, Lena, as they leave their quiet lives in the town of Burg to attend a newly established magic school on the island of Ien. A remake titled Mahō Gakuen Lunar! was released a year later for the Sega Saturn. Neither version has an official English release, though a fan-translation patch for the Game Gear version was released in 2009.

• All the Lunar: Hyper Applications was first released in July 1999, in Japan for Windows. This is not a traditional game but a collection of software for Windows-based systems, including wallpapers, art galleries, and a digital daifugō card game featuring characters from Silver Star Story and Eternal Blue.

• Lunar: Dragon Song, known in Japan and Europe as Lunar Genesis, was first released on August 25, 2005, in Japan for the Nintendo DS. Set a thousand years before the events of The Silver Star, the game follows Jian Campbell, a young delivery boy and adventurer who must save the world from the rising threat of the Vile Tribe. It was the first game in the series to be released in Europe. It received mixed reviews.

Reception

The Lunar series has led to the creation of many other works in the same setting, including a manga series, two artbooks, and novelizations of The Silver Star, Magic School Lunar!, and Eternal Blue. The console versions of the games usually received good reviews. The two PlayStation versions were often ranked among the best games available for those systems. The original two games and their remakes were highly praised, with average scores between 82% and 91%. Eternal Blue is generally considered the best-reviewed Sega CD title in the platform's history. However, Lunar Dragon Song received poor reviews, with an average score of 58% on GameRankings.

The series has sold over one million copies, making it one of the best-selling Japanese role-playing game franchises.

Total sales of the Lunar franchise: 1,052,011

• Lunar: The Silver Star (Sega CD) – 100,000 (Japan)
• Lunar: Eternal Blue (Sega CD) – 89,480 (Japan)
• Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete (Sega Saturn) – 200,035 (original release) in Japan; 8,346 (MPEG Version) in Japan
• Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete (Sega Saturn) – 90,837 (Japan)
• Mahō Gakuen Lunar! (Sega Saturn) – 15,999 (Japan)
• Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete (PlayStation) – 44,802 (Japan)
• Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete (PlayStation) – 53,983 (Japan)
• PlayStation releases – 393,000 (US)
• Lunar Legend (Game Boy Advance) – 13,506 (Japan)
• Lunar Genesis (Nintendo DS) – 24,673 (Japan)
• Lunar: Silver Star Harmony (PSP) – 17,350 (Japan)

Abandoned sequel

After improved versions of Lunar: Silver Star Story and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue were released, people have often talked about the possibility of a game called Lunar 3. In a 1998 interview, Victor Ireland, who was the president of Working Designs, said that Lunar 3 was being planned. However, neither Game Arts nor Entertainment Software Publishing, the Japanese company that published the Lunar series, ever officially announced such a game. At the time, Ireland was involved in a disagreement with Sega of America. He often mentioned in interviews that Working Designs had the rights to publish the Lunar series in the United States and would only release the games on consoles that were not made by Sega. He even warned that Working Designs might move the games to other consoles if they were released only on Sega consoles in Japan.