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LUNAR: ETERNAL BLUE
review | MEGA-CD
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Publisher: Working Designs.
Developer: Game Arts. Released: September 1995 (US); December 1994 (JP). Genre: JRPG. Other versions: PS; SAT. Posted 23rd May 2026. By Tom Clare © 2026 |
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The Mega-CD’s best RPG, Lunar: The Silver Star, was a perky adventure that made up for its unremarkable visuals with a story told with energy and humour, strong combat, and a gorgeous CD soundtrack. Its sequel, Eternal Blue, continues in much the same vein, with a new hero (appropriately named Hiro) and one or two familiar faces and locations. European Mega-CD owners would again need to look to the import market for a copy, with an English-language translation releasing in North America in 1995.
Hiro is busy adventuring with his young dragon accomplice Ruby when he stumbles across a mysterious young lady, Lucia, whose mission is to save the world, though the Goddess Althena’s cult believes she has been sent as a destroyer. Along the way, Hiro discovers Ronfar, a deadbeat gambler; Jean, a green-haired dancer (and proto-Feena from Game Arts’ Grandia); and Lemina, an enterprising Sorceress trying to rebuild the magician’s city of Vane back to its former glories. You know the score: battling through dungeons, exploring the world and having a chin-wag with the inhabitants of the various cities.
Eternal Blue enjoys a graphical boost through improved environments, dynamic video sequences and some unusual bosses
At its core is a quality game, even if there’s perhaps a slight regression in facets such as the story, characters, and dialogue, chiefly because it feels like a retreading of the first game’s ideas. In terms of quality, though, the two are much of a muchness. Where the sequel takes positive strides is in its presentation. Whereas the original was endearing but could look a little crude around the edges, Eternal Blue adds a splash of colour and pays greater attention to the finer details, with both towns and dungeons looking far better. Game Arts went to town on the cinematics, creating some of the Mega-CD’s finest video sequences. These anime-style segments, particularly towards the end of the game, are really impressive. Just like the original, Eternal Blue features a fantastic soundtrack, with ominous, doomy dungeon laments, dreamy harp strings, and an absolute earworm of a battle anthem.
Many of the towns you visit are great. The perpetually snowy Zulan is enchanting, whilst revisiting the merchant metropolis Meribia, and the magic bastion Vane from the first game proves a nice touch. Pentagulia is superb; its strident gothic strings and oppressive architecture hint at the trouble brewing in the intimidating seat of the Althena cult’s power and influence. Elsewhere, the Haunted House proves a highlight, challenging players to decipher riddles as to how to exploit weaknesses in the manor’s tricky phantom denizens. Many of the dungeons are overly busy, however, with little to do besides wading through battles and trying to avoid dead ends.
Many of the towns you visit are great. The perpetually snowy Zulan is enchanting, whilst revisiting the merchant metropolis Meribia, and the magic bastion Vane from the first game proves a nice touch. Pentagulia is superb; its strident gothic strings and oppressive architecture hint at the trouble brewing in the intimidating seat of the Althena cult’s power and influence. Elsewhere, the Haunted House proves a highlight, challenging players to decipher riddles as to how to exploit weaknesses in the manor’s tricky phantom denizens. Many of the dungeons are overly busy, however, with little to do besides wading through battles and trying to avoid dead ends.
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Working Designs’ script for the American market will once again divide opinion, purely because of how much it deviates from the source material. Personally, I enjoyed The Silver Star’s irreverence, not taking things too seriously and using pop culture references to create a fun, unusually oddball atmosphere for a JRPG. By and large, this is retained in Eternal Blue, albeit the jokes and randomness feel a fraction forced on occasion. Moments referencing characters and locations from The Silver Star also fall a little flat, as the story makes little meaningful attempt to interweave past events involving Nall, or Ramus (or the previous Ramus: though they look the same, little effort has gone into establishing who the ‘current’ item merchant actually is), or significant locations such as Vane. They evoke a small pang of familiarity, but nothing more.
Of greater detriment is the gameplay rebalancing, which at times is little short of butchery. Whilst it wasn’t unusual for games to see their difficulty ramped up for western translations, a lot of the changes actively hamper the player’s enjoyment. Players are charged magical experience points to save which, though never prohibitively expensive, has the effect of cultivating an overly conservative approach to recording your progress. On three or four occasions, I lost a chunk of progress because the game froze at the end of a battle.
Of greater detriment is the gameplay rebalancing, which at times is little short of butchery. Whilst it wasn’t unusual for games to see their difficulty ramped up for western translations, a lot of the changes actively hamper the player’s enjoyment. Players are charged magical experience points to save which, though never prohibitively expensive, has the effect of cultivating an overly conservative approach to recording your progress. On three or four occasions, I lost a chunk of progress because the game froze at the end of a battle.
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Dungeons are excessively attritional, with uncomfortably long gaps between restorative Althena statues, and a random encounters rate that is often suffocating in its frequency. The labyrinthine design comes to feel fatiguing and needlessly circuitous, a matter made more difficult by lengthy battles. The stress is further compounded late on by an inexplicable decision not to let players use dragonfly wings to teleport back to the entrance of certain difficult caves. For a majority of the game, there’s no option to revive party members, either through items or magic, and good luck beating a boss if they land a pre-emptive hit and take down Hiro, because the other party members, for all the variety of skills at their disposal, amount to relatively little strength in combat. The awarding of experience points is absolutely all over the place, too. You’ll curse parts of the world map for their lack of rewards, whilst puzzling how a forest can reward 1000+ points per battle, only for the next area to dial it back to just a few hundred.
Thus, when you eventually beat the game after around thirty hours of play and sit back to enjoy the stirring epilogue, it’s with as much a sense of relief as it is satisfaction. Several hours of this total are reserved exclusively for grinding: there’s one last parting slap courtesy of the final boss, and one last difficulty spike to negotiate. You’ll need to have stocked a fortune’s worth of magic replenishers for the last dungeon, because once you’ve entered the final stages, there’s no going back. Unusually for an RPG of the time, Eternal Blue offers a playable epilogue that allows you to travel the world exploring new dialogue and events, additional dungeons with a raft of new items, and a more complete ending. Provided all the battles haven’t fatigued your interest, this is a brilliant addition.
Thus, when you eventually beat the game after around thirty hours of play and sit back to enjoy the stirring epilogue, it’s with as much a sense of relief as it is satisfaction. Several hours of this total are reserved exclusively for grinding: there’s one last parting slap courtesy of the final boss, and one last difficulty spike to negotiate. You’ll need to have stocked a fortune’s worth of magic replenishers for the last dungeon, because once you’ve entered the final stages, there’s no going back. Unusually for an RPG of the time, Eternal Blue offers a playable epilogue that allows you to travel the world exploring new dialogue and events, additional dungeons with a raft of new items, and a more complete ending. Provided all the battles haven’t fatigued your interest, this is a brilliant addition.
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For much of the game, you'll be unable to revive during battle. Lose Hiro, and his relatively weak comrades will struggle.
Lunar: Eternal Blue released in the wake of Final Fantasy VI’s arrival in the US, and whilst its adventuring rarely threatens the sky-scraping quality of Squaresoft’s Super Nintendo classic, the Mega-CD could still claim a very solid alternative. It’s a really good RPG, and one that showcases its developer’s skill and heart, even if its biggest steps forward are on the presentation side. Exploration and combat remain largely unchanged from the first game, with Game Arts evidently following the classic rule: ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ If only Working Designs had heeded the same maxim, the localisation might have been better still.
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VERDICT
"A sequel that sports improved visuals, impressive cinematics, a nice line in humour, and another beautiful soundtrack. However, a shoddy localisation means Eternal Blue is sometimes more of a grind than is necessary." OVERALL: 7/10 |
OTHER GAME ARTS JRPGs REVIEWED
Lunar: The Silver Star (1993, Mega-CD)
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Grandia (2000, PlayStation)
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