Pros: Light-hearted, old-school role-playing goodness on a system seriously lacking RPGs.
Cons: GBC instead of GBA... graphics could be a lot better. Generated dungeons instead of puzzles.
The Bottom Line: Natsume steps up again and serves up some old-school gaming goodness. While the heavy puzzle solving element is gone, I do dig generated dungeons.
rader6795's Full Review: Lufia: The Legend Returns for Game Boy Color
Prologue
The Super Nintendo was known for many things. Sure, one of the things the system was known for was slowdown worse than Quake III on a 133Mhz Pentium One. But, the one good thing it was known for was the revolution of roleplaying games.
Most people will remember this as the last system that Square published games for before becoming a mediocre game developer. Say what you will to defend Square, but you can't tell me that Legend of Mana was better than Secret of Mana. I still play Final Fantasy II and Chrono Trigger while Final Fantasy VIII and Xenogears were not only shelved quickly but traded in at FuncoLand for better gaming experiences such as Mortal Kombat: Special Forces and Simpsons Wrestling. Okay, okay... that was a harsh exaggeration, but Square was great back in the days of the SNES. They were where RPGs were at.
But there is life beyond Square, folks.
And, back in the day, RPGs were abundant. You could find your Breath of Fire, your Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen, your Shadowrun on the Super Nintendo. Hell, Harvest Moon even started here.
But one of the least known roleplaying series, and one of the most underrated, was Lufia. The first game was one of the first, if not the first, roleplaying games on the SNES. The sequel, Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals is arguably the greatest SNES RPG ever. I only gave the game a short mention on my review of the SNES (found in the synopsis of Shadowrun) mainly because I hadn't spent much time with it. I had only rented it in the past but now I own it. And, let me tell you, it's a gem if you can find it.
Now, Natsume, the developer of Lufia II and Harvest Moon, among other niche games, brings a sequel to its SNES cult classic to the Gameboy Color. That game is none other than Lufia: The Legend Returns.
(Before I go any further, I must point out Natsume published this game, not Crave Entertainment, as Epinions states.)
Let us start.
Lufia: The Legend Returns is a direct follow-up to Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals. Taking place 100 years after the end of the last war, the game picks up in a rather nonchalantly as a teenage girl named Seena takes a boat ride from another land to Patos Village (Which I mistook for Potos Village, the first village in Secret of Mana.). Once there, she stops a townsperson passing by and asks if he's a swordsman. When he replies that he is, she "flashes" him. (I should state now that the "Flash" spell is the game's equivalent to "Bolt" or "Lightning" in most other RPGs. This game is rated "E" for everyone so there's nothing in here to get the parents out there in an uproar.) Luckily, he avoids the flash and has a short conversation with Seena. It turns out she was just testing his power and then goes on to call him stupid which, it turns out, is an ongoing theme throughout the game. But, it's at this point the boy goes about his business and you finally get put in control of the boy, Wain.
At this point, you can go around the town (Which is so close-knit that it's actually inbred. With the exception of two or three people you'll find in the town, the rest have names like "sister" and "mother." It also explains why our hero is considered stupid. But, it could be worse... he could live in West Virginia.) You can cruise the town all you want, but the thing you need to do is get out of the town for a bit and practice your great hero skills by hacking away all the innocent animals that only attack out of self-defense.
Brief pause in the review for a small rant.
I don't know if you've noticed this or not, but your average role-playing heros and heroines really have something against nature. Sure, they'll fight the occasion enemy soldier, but a majority of a role-playing hero's time is spent beating the tar out of any nearby animal. I killed so many dogs and birds in Final Fantasy VI that I had animal rights activists sending me hate mail. At least in Final Fantasy IV I could smack around those freaky looking little imp dudes.
Just imagine being a slime in the Dragon Warrior universe. You're just sloshing along, trying to mind your own business, when some freaky armored teenager rambling incessantly about how he's the son of the great Ortega, accomapanied by three equally freaky friends, approaches you with his bamboo stick drawn and starts swinging that thing around like he's Donatello and you're some lowly foot soldier. Worse yet, since he's got these uncontrollable sexual urges, you have to worry more about him defiling your carcass than you do that he's going to kill your family.
So, the next time you see some kid in your neighborhood torturing small animals, don't worry. He's bound to save the world.
We now return you to the regularly scheduled review.
Wain returns to Patos Village just in time to rush into a burning building and save a local girl. He returns her and has Seena heal the girl and then passes out abruptly from smoke inhalation. Wuss.
The scene fades out and then back in to show that Seena had taken care of Wain the whole time casting "Strong," Lufia's health restoration spell, on him. She then passes out and he tends to her. When they're both healthy again they discuss what happens and that the house caught fire due to something coming from the "Tower of Death," a nearby structure.
One more short rant break
I'm all about getting cheap real estate. If there was an offer to get some nice land near Chernobyl, I'd probably invest in it. But if there was anything with the words "of Death" after it built near where I live, I think I'd be trying to move away as soon as possible. Hmm... "Water Treatment Center of Death," you say? No thanks... I think I'll move over to "Safe Town of Ill-Fortune" instead.
We're back.
So, it turns out that Seena was in Patos Village because she's recent dreams of hers have been coming true. After so many dreams proved clairvoyant, she decides to follow another dream that had her meet up with a swordsman from Patos for a "great adventure." Interesting sidenote, this girl's a fortune teller... now the clairvoyance makes sense, doesn't it? Screw Miss Cleo... I'm all about Seena. At least she doesn't fake a stupid accent and feed off the ignorant who only accept something if it's stereotyped. I say this as an Asian who plays video games and loves computers and rice. Go figure.
And, well, the two decide to join forces and investigate. And that's where things start.
Okay, okay... so there's not much in the way of plot but the game does have a light-hearted feel to it that I haven't seen in an RPG since Chrono Trigger. After playing for a few hours, the plot thickens nicely as it's revealed that the Sinistrals have been resurrected (which you can read on the back cover of the game's box) and it's your party's job to fight to save mankind again.
Kick, punch! Turn and pose!
The combat system of a role-playing game can make and break the game. Regardless of what you say, I'll take the bare bones storyline of Tales of Destiny with its terrific battle system over the story-driven Final Fantasy VIII and its atrocious battle system. Depth of battle systems is a good thing... but if you dig a hole too deep, you're not getting out. That was ultimately Final Fantasy VIII's problem but we all know I hated that damn game.
Luckily, Lufia: The Legend Returns doesn't go too deep in its battle system. As a matter of fact, this game sports a turn-based battle system much in the vein of Dragon Warrior III with a few innovations and extras.
All characters have the ability to learn special techniques known as "Infuriating Point Skills" (I.P. Skill) that are often based on their best attributes or traits. The speedy thief has the ability to learn a technique that does damage based on his speed attribute while the women, in a sexist move, will be the only ones who can learn how to cook. (Players familiar with Quina's cook attack in Final Fantasy IX will know exactly what that does.)
Each I.P. Skill can be learned only once characters in the party have raised their Spiritual Force attribute high enough and been positioned properly in the 3x3 battle matrix to effect the other characters. Spiritual Force can be raised by spending Learning Points (LP) that you earn in battle to raise the attribute. For those of you who've played Shadowrun on SNES, you'll find that LP works a lot like Karma.
Learning Points can be spent in one of two ways. You can either raise you Spiritual Force attribute or you can learn new magic at any church. So, you must choose to spend your LP on learning magic or gaining SF to learn new IP Skills from "Ancient Text." Ancient Texts can be found in most dungeons often through breakaway walls and other "hidden" paths, though occasionally in normal treasure chests.
The only other thing I need to cover is the previously mentioned 3x3 battle matrix. This is the only real complexity of the battle engine but it's a deep one.
There can be up to nine party members entering battle at one time placed within the 3x3 battle matrix. Of those nine characters, only 3 can attack per turn, each from a seperate column. Characters in the front row are most susceptible to damage but can inflict the most while the characters in the rear rows are more able to defend while not being all that great for physical attacking. Characters in the middle row are pretty well protected and can attack pretty well to boot. So, it'd make sense to put all the magic users in the rear row since they can fire off magic with no ill effects and be protected, right?
Wrong... oh so wrong. You see, you can also be attacked from the side and from the rear. If you're attacked from the rear, your back row characters are thrown to the front and vice versa. So your weak little magic-weilders get snuffed early on and you can continue on through the fight with your others, right?
Again... this is wrong. You see, whenever the frontline characters are defeated, your game is over. Regardless of what three characters are downed, you're through if they're killed. So, really, you have to choose wisely where you want characters to go in your battle matrix.
There's another point to the battle matrix, too. You see, characters within another character's column and row will effect the first character's total Spiritual Force. Each character has one of four colors and any characters related to the same column or row will feed off of each other's power making them stronger.
So, say you take Wain, who has a red Spiritual Force of four in the same row as Dei (a thief) with a green Spiritual Force of three and Seena with a blue Spiritual Force of two, Wain's total Spiritual Force will be four red, three green and two blue. Then, if you have Aima, a female karate master, in the same column under Wain with a yellow Spiritual Force of ten, Wain would then have a total Spiritual Force of four red, three green, ten yellow and two blue. Sounds complicated, and it is, but you'll get the hang of it after a while. If you play with the matrix, you'll be able to find ways to get your characters to learn the IP Skills you want. But, if you change the matrix afterwards, these IP Skills may cost more to use since you're no longer meeting the Spiritual Force requirements. This is more a problem early in the game than it is in the later parts.
Other than that, combat itself is your verse, chorus, verse old-school standard of turn-based combat. The position you and the enemies attack in is all based off of your agility statistic. Pretty standard fare, really, but it's nice and old-school which is good for this old gamer.
That's all good... but I'm a new-school gamer!
For all you newer gamers, you'll probably find a lot to be disappointed. The graphics are decent at best while the sound is nothing to be amazed by. Many of the tiles look like they were taken straight from the Gameboy Color update of Dragon Warrior III. Of course, the battle animations aren't nearly as good. The enemies do move when attacking, but animate stiffly. Well, actually, the enemy sprites don't so much animate as they do rotate. It's ugly but more effective than the old-school flashing before an attack.
The sounds, as I mentioned, are nothing to be amazed by. The sound effects are pretty standard fare while the music is surprisingly good for a Gameboy Color game.
Well, how do you play?
Jesus, patzer, are you one of those idiots from an infomercial or something? You put the freaking game into the system and turn it on. Everything else is elementary.
The controls are all simple. When in dungeons, you can chop down small bushes and take out with a sword swipe via the A button. Hold down the A Button instead and you'll let loose a power wave that will take out any bushes, vines or other destroyable object that stands in its path. Also, if there's an enemy in the way of the power wave, they'll be frozen by it and unable to move. The B button allows you to dash in towns and dungeons a la Final Fantasy Chronicles' Final Fantasy IV. The start button brings up your standard menu system while the select button brings up the map. Simple controls that are actually very responsive.
Battles when walking the overworld map are at random. But, new-school gamers, don't fret as you can see your enemies when scouring caves and other types of dungeons. Also, as I mentioned, you can stop them in their tracks with the power wave. And, to make things easier, the enemies will only move when you move. Of course, this makes things difficult when you're trying to get into a fight as the enemies will often walk in strange patterns that make it difficult to force the fight. This way can be both a blessing and a curse as it's really difficult to read the enemies.
So It's All Good?
Well, nope. I do have three qualms with the game, really, and two of which are really minor.
First and foremost, the game is a Lufia game by the story, but it's not so much a Lufia game by the gameplay. You see, while the battle system is basically unchanged, the dungeons are different. Every single section of every single dungeon is randomly generated. So, instead of the puzzle-heavy dungeons of the past games, you're faced with dungeons that are always different. In essence, the game's more brawn over brains and isn't quite as true to the originals as I want.
The other problems I have with the game is just the simple fact that you can't change your text speed. This leads me to my last problem.
The text is light-hearted, indeed, but very simple, too. There's just not much in the ways of compelling dialogue, though it is often funny. The translation is found with little quirks such as spelling "villain" as "villan" and occasionally dropped a letter to form words such as "complaind." Little textual errors are forgivable, though, so long as you don't end up with text like "I got a good feeling!"
In Conclusion
Overall, though, the game is great. While I don't think this game will appeal to many of the new-school gamers who probably complain about Gameboy Advanced graphics, this Gameboy Color game is still a treat for those of us who grew up with the 8-bit and 16-bit eras.
Natsume claims that their goal is to provide serious fun and you'll find just that in Lufia: The Legend Returns. In a world where dark role-playing games with grim storylines featuring pratfall after pratfall rule supreme, it's good to see an RPG with a light-hearted feel to it. Some people will say this is a kiddie game because of it but they can bite me. Bite me hard and bite me long, jerky.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2010 Shopping.com, Inc.