The Time to Grow and Be It

What the hell. I was just browsing Giant Bomb, and I discovered a listing for Lunar: Harmony of Silver Star for the PSP, another remake of Lunar: The Silver Star.

L:TSS compelled me to buy a Sega CD, idiot child that I was. It had the cheesiest intro song, to which I would sing along:


After that, Game Arts made a Saturn version, which never hit U.S. shores. Which is lucky, because I probably would've bought a Saturn if it had. The next re-release was on the Playstation, and it came to America courtesy of Working Designs. Awesome remake, lots of fun, and it had for-the-time magnificent voice acting. Even though its intro lacked the disco cheesiness of the original, I still downloaded it (in the days of dialup!) and watched it a good fiftysomething times.

Alright, so Lunar got re-remade on the GBA as Lunar Legend. Maybe it was good, maybe bad, but Working Designs was out of the picture, so I didn't play it.

All told, the PSP port of Lunar will be the 4th remake of L:TSS. Enough. Game Arts hasn't produced an original Lunar game since 2005's Lunar: Dragon Song, which by all accounts was slightly horrid. Before that, the freshest Lunar game is 1995's Lunar: Walking School for the Game Gear. Has Game Arts simply conceded that they can't make a Lunar game anymore, and resigned the series to endless remakes devoid of reinvention?

It's pointless to take offense at the actions of corporations who have in no way wronged me. I'm no stockholder. While Lunar isn't the best game I've ever played, it's definitely my favorite. It was my first RPG love, and it feels weird to see it reappear over and over, Dark Force style.