Lufia Series Thoughts

Lufia and the Fortress of Doom: As much as I like the game, the original Lufia game has a lot of flat out bad design elements from early NES-era RPG's that frankly, don't get implemented any more for good reason. Your characters attacking and missing targets since they're already dead and they can't target a new monster is flat-out stupid. Overworld map is painfully slow, which was to simulate crossing great distances but is still painful. The game is also rather grind-heavy. With that being said, even on its own it incorporates a lot of design elements. The fact that the game starts you in the Fortress of Doom and not in Alekia, giving weight through player control to events that are heavily referred to throughout the game was and still is incredibly unique. Gades obliterating the hero early on (which gets done to death later, but still) remains unique, and well, the story's great and still holds up. Lufia and the Fortress of Doom is a good game, that in my mind is in desperate need of a remake with modern game design sensibilities.

Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals: Outside of an inconsistent translation (I remain convinced that the dialogue translators and the monster/equipment translators were toally different teams), and some obvious rushing at the end... this game is a masterpiece. There isn't much to talk about here. Moving on...

Lufia: The Legend Returns: Okay. So, I understand that the cartridge limitations mean that the randomized dungeons were necessary to keep the game as varied as it is, with an overworld comparable to Lufia 2. But... a lot of this game feels like they saw what worked in Lufia II, and tried to escalate it further. Unfortunately, a lot of this winds up backfiring and it feels more of a chore than ever before. A slew of “unwinnable” battles and NPC deaths only serve to add fake tension, and while I don't mind a new, innovative ending, the way that the game ends is possibly the most pants-shittingly retarded thing that I've seen in any game ever. In the end, this is a great portable game, but this falls just a bit short. If you've never played this game, it's DEFINITELY worth a playthrough, since it has enough Lufia 2 feels to still be a fun time, but just understand that the developers tried too hard and had limited hardware to work with.

Lufia: Ruins of Lore: This game is crap. As far as I'm concerned, it's an objectively terrible gaiden game that not even Dekar could save... and he's the greatest character in gaming history. The job system is pointless and makes it irritating, the art style is lackluster at best, and it's weird that the characters are in a totally different world just 20 years after the events of Lufia 2.... despite this taking place on the same continent. What happened to everywhere? Did they just tear everything down after the fall of Doom Island only to rebuild everything from scratch? When you're returning to a world, Ruins of Lore is a textbook example on how NOT to do things.

Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals: Okay. This game gets a LOT of hate from the Lufia community, most of it is undeserved. From a mechanical standpoint, it isn't super well constructed since there's so many sequence breakers and route changes that are easily made. And yes, it's no longer an RPG, but more of a Zelda/Devil May Cry lite formula... not that it is in and of itself a bad thing. Curse of the Sinistrals succeeds in being a competent portable 3rd person action RPG. Let's just talk about what the game does right. Adding voice acting was in general, pretty good (Lexis's Doc Brown expy being the worst of the bunch). The puzzles aren't overly complicated, but there's still a few in there that will make you sit down for a while to figure it out, which is nice. I don't mind the overkill mechanic, but it is a take it or leave it, and a lot of the boss fights are sufficiently epic (The Shadow of the Colossus expy fight and the Tank fight come to mind). Giving a real, genuine explanation for New Game + Mode, along with altered dialogue is also a major plus (I'll discuss the New Game + Ending after this). And the music, which samples the best tracks from all the previous Lufia games, is a great move. On the other hand, the simplification of the mechanics, and the Ruins of Lore carryover with each character having a unique movement trait is bad. Mostly because anything that reminds me of Ruins of Lore is disturbing. Removing Dekar halfway through (Who's likely your crutch character) is stupid, especially in a game that's not designed with an arbitrary character limit. I'm not a fan of the steampunk makeover for the game, and the simplification of the world map takes away a lot of the immersiveness of the game. End of the day, it's still a Lufia game that's tightly written enough to keep the narrative going and with enough throwbacks to Lufia 2 to keep long time fans engaged. It isn't Lufia 2. It was never meant to be. But, if this was the first Lufia game that was ever made, I think this game would be easily considered a hidden gem on the Nintendo DS and it doesn't get nearly the love it deserves since it's unfairly compared to Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals.

Now then, with the New Game + Ending... the ending for Lufia 2 is one of the most iconic RPG moments in my opinion. I understand that a downer ending doesn't sit particularly well with modern audiences, but it's one of the things that defines the series. Changing that aspect of the game is a very nice change of pace, but I hope to everything holy that it isn't a canonical ending. I like the idea behind the altered ending, and it makes for a heartwarming “What-if” scenario, but that's about all I can say for it. On the other hand, I think the commercial failure of Curse of the Sinistrals precludes any speculation on this topic, so it's likely moot.

If you're coming here from pastebin, I am a speedrunner of Lufia 2, and I can be found at www.twitch.tv/dangodofthunder.