Written in 2021
Back in the early 90s, games released on CDs were the hot new stuff that everyone was looking forward too. Sega released the Mega CD / Sega CD addon for the Mega Drive / Genesis console, and the first games were released using that platform. Many games were updates of cartridge games with better sounds, other games added an animated opening or outro. And some games were just plain boring videos where you had to press the correct button at the correct time. And then there was Lunar.
Lunar: The Silver Star was a fully fledged RPG with some voice acting, a great soundtrack and some video cutscenes. It was beloved by many and spawned several rereleases and remakes on other consoles. It soon got a successor titles Lunar: Eternal Blue and spinoff games like Lunar: Walking School or Magic School. But ever since the very early 2000s, the series lied dormant. Developer Game Arts focused their game development on the new Grandia series of games.
A whole new entry in the Lunar series was in discussion as early as 1996. You can see some rumors on the Lunar-Net section, but it never happened. First, players thought that Magic School was Lunar 3, and then later that decade, rumors came up about a completely new Lunar game which turned out to be Dragon Song, a very, very mediocre game.
Developer Game Arts was purchased by Gung Ho Entertainment, and western localization studio Working Designs went bankrupt around the same time. The Legend of Lunar did not die, though, as new re-releases of Silver Star were released ever so often: Legend, Silver Star Harmony, Silver Star Touch.
I, for myself, already thought that the franchise was dead, and that even Eternal Blue won't see any new release anymore (even if Eternal Blue is the superior game of the two regular Lunar games in my opinion). But then, I got an email from a project that wants to allow Lunar 3 to be developed. The team members even got in touch with Kei Shigmea and Noriyuki Iwadare, if they would be interested in working on a new game in the series.
Now the team tries to get the rights of the series from Game Arts and publish a new Lunar game independently. They set up a new website where they try to collect all the information how their project is going, but sadly, at some point it changed to be a scammy site with no content.
How would be a good time, as the hype of rereleasing old games is going strong with games like Eiyuden Chronicle. Personally, I wish the Lunar-3 team all the best!
And afterwards... (2022)
Eventually, the team ceased their social media activities and gave up their site, with eventually was taken over by a shady company that advertised strange things on that now dead domain.
You are here: Main Page / Coverage / Game Series Resurrection / Lunar 3
1999 - 2024 Florian Auer. Contents written by me CC-BY-SA 4.0. Details: Copyright / Impressum. Version 13.3
