What I love most about RPGs is how they make you feel—the wonder, the whimsy and magic, but also the weight of the world. Having tackled a lot of the space in this space, I rarely feel like I’m seeing something new. Visiting LUNAR Remastered Collection, a pair of games I’ve admittedly missed, I’m left wondering why it took me so damn long to get to them. And why don’t people make games like this anymore?

LUNAR Remastered Collection is a duology, containing both LUNAR: Silver Story Complete and LUNAR 2: Eternal Blue Complete, two turn-based adventures that are highly underrated but loved by those in the know. The connective tissue between the two of them? The protagonist comes with a little cat-dragon hybrid, and there’s high narrative emphasis on a mysterious support character with blue hair.

The first game, Silver Story, follows a hero named Alex, who hears a tale about a series of legendary figures called the Dragonmasters. Inspired to become one of them, he sets out on a quest with his friends to gather the required power and knowledge to get the job done. In the process, he inevitably must save the world and stop godly threats, keeping those he holds dearest close. Meanwhile, the sequel is set on the same planet of Lunar, a thousand years later and follows Hiro, a young scrapper who has a chance encounter with a blue-haired ethereal figure named Lucia, feels compelled to save her and helps her go on the run from a galactic knight and his army. With the first being more traditional, grounded fantasy and the latter an ambitious fusion of steampunk and sci-fi, the pair are timeless and wonderful RPGs, remaining largely untouched for modern audiences. Frankly, you couldn’t ask for a better pair of games with whimsy and ambitious worldbuilding set across a millennium.

Though the stories aren’t revolutionary, they’re comfort gaming, thanks to a wonderful sense of place that is prevalent in both experiences. You’re a transient, travelling town to town and exploring the vast unknown. Swamps with a man who is the commander of a giant frog, riverside towns where you run into gamblers and drunkards, and cathedrals where science fiction and gothic architecture collide. A simple and beautiful world.

The company you’re keeping is quality too; Nash is an uppity yet charming guy from a mage’s guild, Ronfar is a schemer and gambler with a heart of gold and your furry companions Nall (in Silver Story) and Ruby (in Eternal Blue) are there for banter. Luna, the blue-haired sister of Alex in Silver Story, is a sweet individual, a healer with the voice of angels, often found singing lullabies in and out of combat. Lucia, despite effectively not being human, is the embodiment of all that is good in the world, and you’re compelled to help her, much like Hiro. All things said, a damn good cast of characters in both games.

LUNAR Remastered Collection reminds me of the recent HD remasters of Suikoden I & II in that the first game is a grounded, though somewhat ambitious adventure that doesn’t quite nail all its ideas, but fully realises them in the sequel. Little tidbit additions like being able to sprint in the overworld appear in follow-up Eternal Blue, but not Silver Story. The turn-based combat is largely minimalist in both, depicting characters on a 2D plane taking on enemies with spells, abilities and attacks, though the menu navigation and quality of life features are more apparent in Eternal Blue. Thankfully, auto battle and 3x combat speed make the games’ slow parts of grinding and wandering about the open world pass by in a flash.

These two adventures are also very much products of their time. A lot of the friction that came from that era is as present as ever here: boss fights can be slow health sponges that take a little too long to take down, and sudden difficulty spikes can be a pain point that’ll have you stuck for periods. Meanwhile, level design leaves a bit to be desired at times, as it’s easy to be disoriented in a dungeon when exiting north into another room, since the entryway will sometimes decide to just spit you out at the top of the room rather than the expected south. Undoubtedly not huge deterrents for JRPG veterans, but bothersome for the less patient.

Despite all of this, LUNAR is effortlessly charming due to the thing it’s probably most known for: its full motion video cutscenes that look ripped from ’80s and ’90s anime. Each time a prolific character is introduced, there’ll be a new cutscene where the aspect ratio cuts to 4:3 and you get a crunchy, low-resolution anime-esque greeting where they are animated over the top, saying little more than a “hello” before the game cuts back to its traditional pixel art style. Silver Story was originally on the Sega CD, and it shows in these cutscenes. Absolute anime cheese that’ll endlessly endear you.

It’s no secret that more could’ve been done to modernise the LUNAR games via this remastered collection, though I’m also a stickler for not messing with games history all that much and preserving things as they were. What’s most important is that RPGs and creative ventures like these aren’t lost to time. There may be a slew of the genre this year alone, including incredibly well-received ones, but if you’re a nutter like I and are desperately always after more JRPGs to sink your teeth into, especially those that are part of history, then it should be your next buy.