This exciting new chapter in the Lufia saga follows the adventures of Eldin, Torma, and Rami, a group of friends and would-be hunters as they set out in search of treasure, only to discover that fate has much more in store for them! Will they be able to solve the mysteries of the ancient ruins and stop the power-hungry leader Ragule from resurrecting the ancient beast, or will Ragules ambitions be realized at the expense of mankind? Prepare for the Adventure of a Lifetime!
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My God, what a game. I can see the elements of what they're trying for in this, and even find some parts very charming and fun in their own way (such as being able to mix skill classes/jobs and the moving puzzle element to enemies) but the game overall is such a confusing mess. Perhaps part of that falls on me because I've never played the other games and only played this because my coworkers were passing it around (we never really do grow up, do we?), so I have no idea the lore of this game and how any of this connects.
The story that I did gather was fairly simple, and the game play was very easy once finally getting the hang of it. But every new section you explore was so quick and short, it felt like it only took 15 minutes out of Eldin's day. The portraits in this game have to be the ugliest I've ever seen, too, with the colors completely bleeding over the lines like a 3 year old's first coloring book. The most infuriating thing for me though was the lack of visibility in important parts of continuing the story, I mean, just take a look at this photo. Can you even tell I'm supposed to climb that wall in order to get to the next part?! I walked around in circles for 15 minutes before giving up and looking at a guide to realize those TINY white dots are supposed to be a LADDER... You're supposed to recognize these tiny white dots as a mandatory ladder you must take... while white tiny white dots are flying all over the screen from the snow in this level... brilliant.
I got to Meadow Road, which seems to be about half-way, before throwing in the towel. I appreciate my growing ability to feel less guilt in abandoning a game I am not enjoying at least, hehe, and I hope the cartridge has fun sitting at the bottom of my coworkers bookbag for the foreseeable future.
1.5/5
The story that I did gather was fairly simple, and the game play was very easy once finally getting the hang of it. But every new section you explore was so quick and short, it felt like it only took 15 minutes out of Eldin's day. The portraits in this game have to be the ugliest I've ever seen, too, with the colors completely bleeding over the lines like a 3 year old's first coloring book. The most infuriating thing for me though was the lack of visibility in important parts of continuing the story, I mean, just take a look at this photo. Can you even tell I'm supposed to climb that wall in order to get to the next part?! I walked around in circles for 15 minutes before giving up and looking at a guide to realize those TINY white dots are supposed to be a LADDER... You're supposed to recognize these tiny white dots as a mandatory ladder you must take... while white tiny white dots are flying all over the screen from the snow in this level... brilliant.
I got to Meadow Road, which seems to be about half-way, before throwing in the towel. I appreciate my growing ability to feel less guilt in abandoning a game I am not enjoying at least, hehe, and I hope the cartridge has fun sitting at the bottom of my coworkers bookbag for the foreseeable future.
1.5/5
Ugh. We wanted a Lufia 4 and we got this. It isn't awful, but it isn't great either. Overall, it is extremely generic and forgettable.
The more time I sink into this game, the more I hate it. But I still managed to finish it anyway, thanks to sunk cost fallacy.
In the early game, you might think this is just a discount Lufia II because of the dungeon puzzle, how the enemy moves when you do, even the combat UI looks the same.
Then when you played more of it, you noticed that the dungeon gets longer and the puzzle gets a lot more tedious and requires trial and error instead of logic, and there are a lot more enemies in one area (sometimes even in a puzzle room).
But it gets worse, some dungeons you have to traverse twice, even thrice with no variation in the layout but just different enemies, just to pad the already long and boring playtime.
Combat is standard turn-based, but with a monster catching mechanic that I soon abandon because most of the monsters you catch are useless. You can build your monster, like fusing a monster into a new monster so that the new one gets the skill of the old one, you can evolve the monster too, but from what I read, it requires a lot of research and effort just to make 1 single useful monster. I’m not doing it.
There’s a neat job system in the game though, it’s simple but I do find it addicting to level them up. You gain a new skill every time you level up a job, and this new skill is carried out even if you switch job later on. The problem now lies in that, you don’t need to mix and match, you can just level a job to Master, and then switch to another without thinking because all you need is the skill for that job. The only other reason you want to switch to a mastered job is to get the stat bonus from said job.
As an addition, most skills are useless anyway. Especially the elemental magic.
Oh yeah, the story, I honestly don't give it too much thought. Evil empire is attacking other countries and trying to summon an evil guy, so stop them… I think… I kinda forgot how the whole story goes because most of my time is spent on dungeon crawling and the game doesn’t really do a good job making me care for any of the main characters.
Overall, a game with potential, but butchered by a lot of bad decisions regarding the story, combat, and the dungeon crawling. They could’ve cut this game playtime by half and I think it would be a lot better.
In the early game, you might think this is just a discount Lufia II because of the dungeon puzzle, how the enemy moves when you do, even the combat UI looks the same.
Then when you played more of it, you noticed that the dungeon gets longer and the puzzle gets a lot more tedious and requires trial and error instead of logic, and there are a lot more enemies in one area (sometimes even in a puzzle room).
But it gets worse, some dungeons you have to traverse twice, even thrice with no variation in the layout but just different enemies, just to pad the already long and boring playtime.
Combat is standard turn-based, but with a monster catching mechanic that I soon abandon because most of the monsters you catch are useless. You can build your monster, like fusing a monster into a new monster so that the new one gets the skill of the old one, you can evolve the monster too, but from what I read, it requires a lot of research and effort just to make 1 single useful monster. I’m not doing it.
There’s a neat job system in the game though, it’s simple but I do find it addicting to level them up. You gain a new skill every time you level up a job, and this new skill is carried out even if you switch job later on. The problem now lies in that, you don’t need to mix and match, you can just level a job to Master, and then switch to another without thinking because all you need is the skill for that job. The only other reason you want to switch to a mastered job is to get the stat bonus from said job.
As an addition, most skills are useless anyway. Especially the elemental magic.
Oh yeah, the story, I honestly don't give it too much thought. Evil empire is attacking other countries and trying to summon an evil guy, so stop them… I think… I kinda forgot how the whole story goes because most of my time is spent on dungeon crawling and the game doesn’t really do a good job making me care for any of the main characters.
Overall, a game with potential, but butchered by a lot of bad decisions regarding the story, combat, and the dungeon crawling. They could’ve cut this game playtime by half and I think it would be a lot better.
A spinoff in a simpler format, Lufia: The Ruins of Lore is mostly a catalog of different (new, revised, returning, etc.) systems, boasting several nods to the past, including the introduction of crafting, transformations, and oddly enough - Dragon Quest VI's job class hub. Two somewhat overlooked ideas from Lufia II stand above all the bland revisitations: Monster capsules - retrofitted with the Pokemon inventions it basically predicted, and the optional roguelike Ancient Cave side-quest, now granted a heavier spotlight. Unfortunately, the Zelda elements responsible for Lufia II's greatness is downplayed here to focus on other ideas, instead adopting a Breath of Fire-ish approach to tools by assigning them to different characters. It also marked a retreat to simpler dungeon designs while leaving the puzzle ingenuity behind in favor of infrequent secrets. The resulting gameplay and story is rather dull and tedious, and - compared with the series' heydays, feels inconsistent, messy and meandering. A list of quotations that never really coalesce into anything of interest.