Lunar 30th – Lunar: Walking School / Magical School – Carpe Ludum – Eidolon's Inn

This part of the series never appeared in the West, but was released exclusively for Sega’s Game Gear and Saturn in Japan. Developed by the original Studio Alex ‘dream team’ (albeit without Kei Shigema), it is still an important part of the series and is now available in English thanks to fan translations.

The story is set about 300 years before LTSS and follows the experiences of Ellie, Lena and Senia. They are candidates for the magical guild of Ien, a flying city similar to Vane in LTSS. The concept is a kind of Harry Potter in the lunar universe – but unfortunately much less profound than J.K. Rowling’s work. The strange choice of platform – the Sega Game Gear – also meant that the usual gameplay had to be cut back considerably. This only changed with the remake for Sega Saturn, which once again clearly bears the hallmarks of the Lunar series.

Nevertheless, these two episodes marked the beginning of the series’ decline: Because the story only loosely followed on from LTSS and LEB, rather than building on them, it could not keep up with the main series in terms of quality. In addition, during the development period, which overlapped with the development of the ‘full’ remakes of LTSS and LEB, there were considerable disruptions and costly delays, resulting in a legal dispute between Studio Alex and Game Arts. Studio Alex first sued Game Arts for unpaid royalties on the ‘complete’ remakes of LTSS and LEB. Game Arts then sued Studio Alex for compensation for delays in the development of Magical School for Saturn. In 2003, the lawsuit was settled in Game Arts’ favour; as a result of the penalty payments, Studio Alex went bankrupt and had to close its doors. Since then, Studio Alex’s original Lunar development dream team has sadly never reunited. Walking/Magical School thus became the first nail in the coffin for the entire Lunar series.