Secret of the Silver Blades

And for the first time this year i have the satisfaction of casting a game from my Hall of Shame: Goodbye Lunar: the Silver Star!

 Original image located here. Accessed 17th May 2019

When I was a kid I wanted a Mega CD. I didn't know of it's failings at the time (and had I known, I would've thought twice about having one) but it was the idea that appealed to me. Having this big thing to plonk in front of my lounge room TV that had all this power behind it.
However in the decades since, I have come to regard the Mega CD as an anomaly. On one hand history has written it off as a failure being too expensive, too unwieldy, plagued with shoddy FMV games and being a major misstep that signaled the beginning of the end of Sega. But on the other hand, it was something of a pioneer for CD-based consoles and, as it's defenders maintain, there are decent games if one is prepared to look. After all, there is a reason why said games go for hundreds of dollars on eBay.

And in my research, the Lunar games tend to appear at the top of the heap.

It is interesting to view this game twenty six years on and without any nostalgia goggles. The first thing that strikes me is that this game does indeed have some perosnality behind it. The art direction is impressive and the use of anime-esque cutscenes are equally superb. The famous translation from Working Designs works a treat and, even if it is well-removed from the original script, has some genuinely laugh-out loud moments. The music is also great - unsurprisingly for a Mega CD game - with the first Overworld theme and the final dungeon themes being particular favorites.
It's just as well that this game does have that personality because I found this game to be quite short. I'm used to playing long RPGs, both on the console and the computer, so Lunar, by comparison comes across as being a rather short game. Which then brings me to the next problem this game has: the encounter rate is ridiculous. Often i would be fighting one battle immediately after another. Oh sure a high encounter rate would be handy to build up money and XP, but eventually, my party so so powerful that the random battles became flat out annoying. Also problematic was the economy in this game: The best weapons are monstrously expensive and it takes a lot of grinding to get anywhere near the money required of them. Matters aren't helped with the money drop rate being low and the selling of previous powerful weapons yielding diminishing returns.
It is likely that the high encounter rate and the economy were both to compensate for a short game but who can tell for sure.

Still, I did find a lot to like about this game - after all, if it got revamped for the PS1, Saturn and GBA among others then it must've done something right. And, for a game on a system with a notorious reputation of housing some stinkers, this is indeed a diamond in the rough.
Now about the sequel.....