"You ladies can relax now. Dekar has come to the rescue!"

Today's review is the second of two, focusing on Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals for SNES.

Anyone who has ever played this game probably just came upon seeing this image.

Lufia II was developed by Neverland and published in Japan by Taito, in North America by Natsume, and in Europe by Nintendo. It was released in 1995 in Japan and 1996 in North America and PAL territories. Lufia II was a prequel to the first game, and featured vastly different (and WAY more fun) gameplay. Let's jump in and see just why this game is so much better than the first.

Story: 10/10

Lufia II, as mentioned, was a prequel to Lufia I. The game follows Maxim, the ancestor of the hero from Lufia I, in his quest to destroy the evil Sinistrals. One of my favorite parts of the story is that instead of Maxim being just some random guy who turns into a hero, he knows he's the strongest guy in his town and a likely hero right from the very beginning.

If you've previously played the first game, you'll notice a lot of references to events that happened (rather, will happen) in Lufia. There are numerous times the story is weaved together very tightly.

The best part is that even though Lufia I opens with the ending of Lufia II, there are still a lot of surprises to be found. I'll just say that the full ending wasn't given away in Lufia I. The other best part is the addition of the character Dekar, the single best character in--yes, this is true--any video game ever.

This game features the standard betrayal, intrigue, triumphs, and sadness that any RPG will have. However, there's also a lot more to it. There's a love story in this game as well as a mid-game 'pre-ending', both of which are amazingly well done. The story will make you feel for the characters and laugh along with them (or at them, in Dekar's case) and cry when they hit their lowest points. It's a beautifully crafted story. I'll stop discussing it now, lest I give something away. This game is worth playing spoiler free.

Graphics: 9/10

Lufia II took a major step forward graphically from its predecessor. Enemies have more detail, colors are more vivid, and the characters' spells, attacks, and even the characters themselves look 10x better than they did in Lufia 1.

Edges are a little rough, but it's MUCH better than Lufia I.

The only minor downside is that a lot of the environments look a lot alike. Dungeons especially are prone to looking very similar to each other. They look nice, but it would've been nicer to have varying environments rather than just towns, mountains, towers, shrines, and dungeons.


Gameplay: 9/10

Lufia II was pretty different from the first in gameplay. Instead of a standard RPG, this one plays more like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and similar titles. You do the same thing as the first one, going from town to town, dungeon to dungeon, fighting battles and gaining gold for better equipment and EXP for better stats. However, dungeons work much differently, as do random encounters.

In dungeons, this game focuses very heavily on puzzles. You have different tools you acquire throughout the game to help you complete the puzzles like a sword, bombs, a bow and arrows, and a hookshot. The puzzles aren't usually too difficult, but there are some that will give you a pleasant challenge. There are also some that will make you smash your face against the wall, they're so hard.



Enemies are also dispersed throughout the dungeons. They're visible on screen before you fight them, and if you're good, you can avoid almost all of them. For every move you make (whether actually moving or just swinging your sword), the enemies also make one move.

Another new addition is capsule monsters. These little buggers are super useful. They work sort of like Pokemon. You find them at set points in game. They fight alongside you in battle; though you're unable to directly control them, they all have a specific set of moves they use whenever it's most appropriate. If you feed them certain pieces of equipment (they'll tell you what they're hungry for), they'll gain EXP and eventually 'evolve' through their several forms.

Foomy, the first capsule monster you find.

Yet another addition is the idea of IP skills. IP stands for Ikari Points, roughly translated to Anger Points. Basically, certain weapons and equip will have specific IP skills attached to them. As you get damaged, your IP will go up. When you have enough IP for a skill, you can use it in battle. This makes things much more strategic; you need to decide a lot between upgrading to more powerful equip with worse IP skills or keeping your old equip with better IP skills.

The best new addition is the Ancient Cave. I'll detail that more under 'Replay Value', as that's really where it belongs.

Sound: 10/10

The soundtrack in Lufia II is AMAZING. Seriously, it almost rivals anything Uematsu has done for the Final Fantasy series. Of course, this is quite subjective, but the soundtrack really stands out to me as being waaaaaay above average. Words can't do it justice. Here's a few tracks, starting with the boss battle theme.



That song lends itself PERFECTLY to any number of metal remixes. Here's another great one, the epic Island in the Void.



Last one, here's a more mellow track, The Earth. This is the world map music.



Replay Value: 10/10

This game should get more than 10/10 for replay value, truly. First, there's the 'Retry' mode that becomes available after you finish the game once. This lets you play through, getting 4x the EXP and 4x the gold you'd normally get. After you beat the game in Retry mode, 'Gift' mode is unlocked. Gift mode is related to the Ancient Cave, and the Ancient Cave is the number 1 reason to replay this game. Normally, in the Ancient Cave, you can't pick your characters. You can only take whatever party members you happen to have when you're in Gruberik. In gift mode, though, you can ONLY do the Ancient Cave, but you can pick whatever characters you want to take into the cave.

Basically, in the city of Gruberik, there's a 99 floor cave that you can either choose to explore or completely skip, with the uberboss Master Jelly at the end. When you enter the cave, you start with 0 EXP at level 1 with none of your equipment or spells. Don't worry, when you leave, you get all of those things back. Now, as you go through the cave, there are red chests and blue chests. Red chests are items and spells you only have for that particular run through the cave. Blue chests contain spells and items that you retain for the next time you go into the cave. The idea is to go through and get a few blue chests and then exit, getting deeper and deeper every time because you have better equip (blue chest items) at the start. After floor 20 or so, there's an item called Providence that's specific to the Ancient Cave. Using it will return you to the surface, keeping all of your blue chest items.

Every time you enter the cave, it's different. Every floor is randomly generated. This lends it ENORMOUS replayability. There's also these things called Isis Treasures. They can be found randomly in red chests, though they have a low chance of appearing. Sometimes, you can find one every run through the cave, and sometimes, you won't find one for 100 runs through. Finding all of the treasures will keep you coming back to the cave over and over again.





tl;dr
PLAY THIS GAME! I can't say enough how truly fucking awesome it is. It's subjective, sure, but for me, this is one of the best RPGs I've ever had the pleasure of playing. Make sure to try out the Ancient Cave, too. And enjoy all the scenes with Dekar; he's one of the best characters ever put into an RPG.

"They called the evil ones 'Sinistrals'..."

Today's review will be the first of two on the Lufia series for SNES.

Save files?!? Get RIGHT out of town!!!

Lufia & The Fortress of Doom was the first game in the Lufia (Estpolis) series. It was developed by a company called Neverland and published by Taito. It was released in 1993 in Japan and America. Lufia was a pretty straight-forward RPG, and not even a great one compared to a lot of other SNES RPGs. The story for it, though, is amazing, and it's necessary to discuss this game alongside its sequel, since both had one of the best storylines in video game history, in my humble opinion.

Story: 9/10

The story in this one is very interesting. The sequel, Lufia II, is actually a chronological prequel. Lufia I begins with you taking control of the characters during (parts of) the ending of Lufia II.

One day, a flying island with an enormous castle on it (the Fortress of Doom) appeared in the sky. The Fortress acted as a base of operations for an evil (and incredibly powerful) group of four beings known as Sinistrals. Their goal was essentially to force the world into obedience.

Four heroes were sent to fight this new evil, and eventually, they succeeded, though at great cost. 99 years passed, and peace reigned supreme. However, as so often happens, evil reared its ugly head again. The Sinistrals were back! Four more heroes would need to go and vanquish this terrible evil once and for all.

Graphics: 7/10


The graphics in Lufia I are pretty hit-or-miss. There are some scenes that just look beautiful, as well as some of the spells (Sunder looks AWESOME). Most of the bosses are also very well done and full of detail.

I don't know what the hell that thing is, but it looks pretty badass.

However, a lot of the scenery is very lackluster. The enemies have no real animation (although they do have a decent amount of detail). Some of the spells also have incredibly mundane animations, although that's forgivable since I'm used to seeing so many lame spell animations even in newer games. It's always the spells like Osmose and Sap and Leech that end up having the most boring visual effects.

Overall, the graphics could be a lot worse (like Secret of the Stars) but they could also be a lot better (like Lufia II).

Gameplay: 7/10

Lufia's a straightforward RPG: you go from town to town, talking to NPCs to discover clues about where to go next and what to do. There are random battles that give you EXP, gold, and items when you win. Bosses come up every now and then, being much more powerful than the average random enemy. You can equip different weapons and armor, getting stronger as the game goes on. There are also a large number of magical spells that can be cast for various effects, from buffs to damage to healing. Here's a short video showing how the battle system works on a very early boss battle.



There are a few things that stop this game from being as good as the average RPG, though. Random battles happen WAY too often. It almost seems to be every 2 or 3 steps. This is bearable for about half of the game, and then it just starts getting frustrating.

That kind of leads into another huge problem. Lufia I required far too much level grinding. The enemies aren't usually too difficult, but they never give out a ton of EXP. The bosses, though, require you to be pretty strong most of the time. As a result, you end up having to spend hours plowing through these weakling random encounters who give next to no EXP just to get strong enough to finish off the boss.

Another big issue is the battle system. During battle, you can't attack any one specific enemy...you instead attack a particular ROW of enemies. Your attack will randomly hit one of them. This can get SUPER frustrating as you try to kill one enemy at a time and end up having 4 enemies with a little bit of damage, all still attacking you, when you could be down to 2 or 1 enemies.

Don't let these faults discourage you from playing this game, though. It's well worth it just to see the story, and also to prepare for the badassery that is Lufia II.

Sound: x/10

The sound effects in Lufia I are largely forgettable. It's mostly standard RPG fare. You have your hacking and slashing noises, your sparkly magic casting noises, your basic explosion kind of noises.

The music was pretty decent in Lufia. It was completely enjoyable, but nothing too memorable. A few tracks really stand out as being very well composed. Most sort of blend together, though. One of my favorite songs in the soundtrack was the final duel music (which is weird, since it didn't quite capture the mood of a final battle). Here's the last duel track.



Here's the normal battle music. This is another one of the better songs, and good thing, too, since you'll be hearing it A LOT if you play this game.



Replay Value: 7/10

Lufia, on the surface, doesn't have a ton of incentive to go back and beat it again. It's a pretty straight-forward RPG. It does, however, have 'Try Again' mode. When you beat the game for the first time, you have the option to start over, this time gaining 4 times the exp. and gold. This is super useful for playing a really quick run through the game to pick up on any plot points you may have missed. It's also nice so that if you do ever want to go back to this game, it'll only take you a quarter as long to finish.





All in all, Lufia's not a bad game, per se, it's just not a great game. It's altogether average. However, to really understand the story between this game and Lufia 2, it's super handy to play this one first. The overall story is pants-shittingly awesome, better than any Final Fantasy story ever was, in my humble opinion, and I loved most of the Final Fantasy games.

Join me next time for a review of the sequel, Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals.

You wait and wait, and when it happens, you feel sad.

Pic COMPLETELY unrelated.

My apologies on the epic lack of postings. New reviews will be posted soon. I'm working on a two-part review for Lufia and Lufia II for SNES, one of which is one of the best RPGs of all time and both of which have the best RPG story of all time (opinion, of course). The first one will be posted sometime tomorrow, and the second soon after.

But not quite yet. I've been completely preoccupied with the metric dickton of homework I've been assigned as well as studying for the few midterm exams I've had. On the bright side, all that hard work has paid off. I have a 101% in my C++ course, a 100% in my probability/stats course, ~95% in my literary analysis course, and probably around 85% in my micro-architecture course. I'm a little dissatisfied with my micro grade, but hopefully it'll pop back up into the A range by the time this semester is over.

I'm really happy I came to this university. I've learned a lot of really cool stuff, especially in the world of programming/computer science in general. I've also enjoyed a lot of the 'required' liberal arts-type courses, as most I've taken have focused on literature. It's afforded me the opportunity to learn a few programming languages as well as check out some phenomenal books I'd otherwise never read like Ragtime, The Things They Carried, and The Road.

It's not often I write about my own personal life, but it gives me a chance to find out more about my followers in turn. I'm curious, if any of you are going to college/were in college, what did you major/minor in? What were the most valuable things you learned? How long did you go for? Leave a comment and let me know.

Super Mario Redeux

Today's post will be yet another short one. I apologize for the lack of reviews, but as my university's midterms loom ever nearer, my amount of free time shrinks every day. I'm at work even as I write this. I thought I'd share this, though, in lieu of having a review.

(Plus, it let me leave up Megan's awesome review of Portal for a few days longer than usual!)

This is a game I found awhile back that I still play from time to time. It's called Super Mario Bros. Crossover. Basically, it's Super Mario Bros. in its entirety, only you can play as several other classic Nintendo characters like Link, Samus Aran, Simon Belmont, Mega Man, Bill from Contra, and Ryu Hayabusa from Ninja Gaiden. It's a hell of a fun game, and has support for external controllers, so you can even hook up your old NES controller if you have the right adapters.

Check it out and have fun with it. An actual review should be coming by no later than Wednesday (midterms finish on Wednesday).

Super Mario Bros. Crossover -- Try it out!