The game can still deliver a compelling story after all these years.
Quality voice acting
Visual pleasing Anime-like cutscenes
Good English dialogue
Cons:
Roaming monsters can become bothersome
Battles can rely too heavily on Alex
"Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete" for the Playstation One is a remake of "Lunar: The Silver Star" for the Sega CD. The PSX version isn't a direct port but instead it's a complete rebuild of the original game; updated graphics, voice overs, and cutscenes. The game falls into the Role Playing Game (RPG) category, meaning that you take turns delivering damage when battling against monsters and bosses. Though there are a lot of gamers would aren't fond of these types of genres, those who are appreciate it for its Chess like qualities, planning out each move, developing strategies to outduel the bosses who get in your way and the overall enjoyment of the storytelling that RPGs are best known for. And for all you romantics out there, you should have no problem getting into the "gushy" side of the story.
In this story the main character is Alex, a boy who dreams of one day becoming a Dragonmaster, a title earned by someone whose purpose is to protect and aid the Goddess Althena. Alex, along with his friends Luna and Ramus, embark on a quest to retrieve a dragon diamond from a Dragon Cave located near their home. Though it started out as a simple feat, little did Alex know that this would be the first step in his path to becoming a Dragonmaster and uncovering a dangerous plot that would threaten the entire world. You'll meet a colorful cast of characters along your journey and some will even join your party and aid you in battle. Each character offers their own attributes in battle, whether it's purely magic based (fire, ice), brute strength, or some sort of support role such as healing or increasing defense or attack power.
Speaking of the characters, L:SSSC has some very comedic interaction between each character, through both the dialogue and the voice overs. Despite its age (the remake was released in '99) the dialogue and voice overs holds up well and better than most other gaming dialogue during its time The characters are constantly butting heads over leadership decisions or taking offense to some of the crude humor that can be found in the game.
Instead of using computer graphics during cutscenes like a lot of the game were using during the time, L:SSSC instead opted to use Anime style 2D animation. Fans of the style will enjoy the cutscenes and those who are new to it should be able to enjoy them nonetheless.
The battles at times rely too much on Alex to do most of the heavy lifting while everyone else takes a backseat, the magic attacks could be tweaked to deal a bit more damage and the other physical attackers could be beefed up a bit more. The monsters you encounter are actually roaming on screen instead of random encounters (walk a few steps, random battle, repeat), but if you get too close they end up chasing you. This can become problematic because you could end up being chased by a hoard of monsters and forced to fight them consecutively if you're caught.
As stated before this is a RPG, those not accustomed to the style might have a hard time getting into the game. The mechanics are simple; you and the enemy take turns during the course of the battle, you can give out orders to your party members to attack, defend, use magic, and among other choices. This is where the strategic part of RPGs comes into play, as you must think one step ahead, especially during boss battles, when it comes to planning your next move. This is redundant for those who are already familiar with this genre, just consider this a refresher course.
If you're looking for another RPG to sink your teeth into, or even if you're just starting out in your RPG career, "Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete" should be near the top of your list.