Lunar is a role-playing game series developed by Game Arts and Studio Alex. The story is set on the moon named "Lunar," which orbits a planet called "The Blue Star," a planet that cannot support 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 received praise and sold well, becoming the most popular games on that platform in Japan. Over the years, remakes of the original games have been released for many platforms, including Silver Star Story Complete, Eternal Blue Complete, Lunar Legend, Silver Star Harmony, and Remastered Collection. Three additional games based on the series have also been created.

Plot

The Lunar stories take place on a habitable moon called Lunar, or "The Silver Star," that orbits a planet named "The Blue Star." Long ago, the Blue Star was infected with evil by a dark god named Zophar. His evil made people's hearts corrupt, turning some into monsters who followed him. The survivors called out to the patron-deity of the Blue Star, a goddess named Althena, for help. She fought Zophar in a great battle and stopped him by using her power of creation to trap him in another dimension. This action nearly destroyed all life on the planet.

Althena could not restore the planet until many thousands of years had passed. Instead, she changed the planet's moon into a world similar to Earth and moved the survivors there. These survivors included humans, a group of "beast-men," and another group of 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." This group is listed here as a "fourth race," even though only three races are described. A fourth group of people later became known as "The Vile Tribe" after they refused to follow Althena's teachings. Althena had to send them to a place on Lunar called "The Frontier," a dry, empty wasteland where even her magic could not reach. They became enemies of Althena and her followers for thousands of years.

To protect Lunar, Althena created four intelligent dragons—a white, red, blue, and black one—each holding part of her divine power. Only four dragons exist at any time, but they are replaced over time with younger ones. Interestingly, when the dragons are young, they look like talking, winged cats until they take the power of their predecessor and grow into adults. The dragons mostly sleep underground until they are needed.

Althena also declared that there would be a champion called The Dragonmaster to lead Lunar's heroes. This person would be anyone who reached the hidden lairs of the Four Dragons and passed their difficult trials. Many Dragonmasters have existed over the centuries, and many people on Lunar have tried to earn this title. The people of Lunar became very devoted to Althena, though many remember Lunar's origins as just an old legend. The various Lunar games and manga cover different events in Lunar's history.

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, which includes high-quality music, moving video clips, and voice acting. Working Designs translated the game into English, and it was released in North America in December 1993. It was very successful in sales and received good reviews, 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. The story takes place a thousand years after the first game and follows Hiro, a young adventurer, and Lucia, a girl from the planet Blue Star, as they work to stop an evil being from destroying the world. Compared to the first game, Eternal Blue has twice as much text and over four times as much original animation. Working Designs translated the game into English again, and it was released in North America in September 1995. The game was well received but sold fewer copies than The Silver Star, partly because it was released late 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 more story details, improved graphics, and better sound. While the original Sega CD version had about ten minutes of animation, the remake includes fifty minutes of new, fully animated scenes made 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. The game 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 more story details, improved graphics, and better sound. A PlayStation version was released on May 27, 1999, with an English version by Working Designs arriving a year later on December 15, 2000. The game 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 on Silver Star Story Complete, with some changes. Ubisoft translated the game into English, and it was released in North America on December 10, 2002. Due to the limitations of the Game Boy Advance’s cartridge format, features like voice acting and full-motion video were not included. Instead, the developers used real-time cutscenes with detailed character images to tell the story. Still images from Silver Star Story Complete’s cutscenes were used at certain points to create a more cinematic feel. The game 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 includes the animated cutscenes from Silver Star Story Complete but adds a new playable prologue, a more talkative main character, a remixed soundtrack, and newly recorded voice acting and English translation by Xseed Games. The game 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 friend Lena as they leave their quiet town of Burg to attend a new magic school on an island called Ien. A remake titled Mahō Gakuen Lunar! was released a year later for the Sega Saturn. Neither version has an official English release, but a fan-made 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. The story takes place a thousand years before The Silver Star and follows Jian Campbell, a young delivery boy and adventurer who must save the world from the Vile Tribe. This was the first game in the series released in Europe. It received mixed reviews.

Reception

The Lunar series has led to the creation of other works, including a manga series, two artbooks, and novelizations of The Silver Star, Magic School Lunar!, and Eternal Blue. The console versions of the games have received mostly positive reviews. The two PlayStation versions are often ranked among the best games available for the system. The original two games and their remakes have received high scores, averaging between 82% and 91%. Eternal Blue is widely considered the highest-rated Sega CD game in the platform's history. However, Lunar Dragon Song received mostly negative reviews, with a combined score of 58% on GameRankings.

The series has sold over one million copies, placing it among 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 the release of improved versions of Lunar: Silver Star Story and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue, rumors about the creation of a game called Lunar 3 have appeared and disappeared over time. In a 1998 interview, Victor Ireland, president of Working Designs, said that Lunar 3 was in the planning stage. However, neither Game Arts nor Entertainment Software Publishing, the Japanese company that published the Lunar series, ever officially announced the game. At the time, Ireland, who was involved in a disagreement with Sega of America, often mentioned in interviews that Working Designs had the rights to publish the Lunar series in the United States. He stated that the company would only release the games on consoles that were not made by Sega. Ireland also warned that Working Designs might move the games to competing consoles if they were only released on Sega consoles in Japan.