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Pretty much
everything about the Lufia series of games screams "cult following."
The series has so far spanned three different consoles, with Lufia
and Lufia II appearing on the Super Nintendo, a sequel appearing on
the Gameboy Color, and now Lufia: The Ruins of Lore appearing on the
Gameboy Advance. While Lufia was heralded by many as a series worthy
of Final Fantasy-like accolades, it has just not received as much
attention as Squaresoft's baby. In essence, Lufia: The Ruins of Lore
is as solid an RPG as I've seen in the last few years. The main
disappointment, however, is that it seems to underachieve in so many
areas, namely innovation. I realize that the RPG market seems to
shun any sort of deviation from the norm, but this game takes the
safe route in so many areas that it often times just feels like its
just going through the motions. The story is nothing you haven't
seen a million times, the battle engine is very familiar, and the
dungeon crawling will seem like second nature. That being said,
while Lufia: The Ruins of Lore fails to really make itself stand out
in any meaningful way, it wisely chooses to borrow only the RPG
elements that actually work. By taking this "better safe than sorry"
route, Atlus has created a game that is guaranteed to satisfy the
masses, but is guaranteed to fade into the background once more
innovative titles come along.
You start off the game as a boy named Eldin. And you'll just love
this: Eldin lives in a small little village, and as you start the
game he is waking up in the morning! Okay, okay, so there are like
45 other RPG's that start off exactly this same way. As you try and
learn what is going on details are a little sketchy, but the main
gist is that an evil empire is starting to force its influence into
the rest of the land, even going so far as to bend the ear of the
local government. It seems that it is all part of bigger plot to
(::cue dramatic music::) awake an ancient beast and TAKE OVER THE
WORLD! Bwahahahahahaha!
::ahem:: Sorry about that. Yes, the plot is hackneyed. Most of the
characters are somewhat flat, and aren't given much of a history.
Honestly, though, a thin plot can easily be compensated for with fun
gameplay, and luckily, Lufia really delivers in this area. I had
enough fun just playing the game that the plot never really
concerned me all that much.
Gameplay
Lufia: The Ruins of Lore does offer some deep and interesting
gameplay elements, even if they are not all that innovative. The
game borrows heavily from many different popular franchises, such as
Final Fantasy, Golden Sun, Atlus's own Tactics Ogre, and even a
little bit from Pokemon. The main gameplay is your standard RPG
fare; you travel from town to town, talk to the citizens, and gain
clues about where to go to next. Along the way, you fight battles
and gain experience, while buying your characters new gear and
items. All this is really nothing new, but Lufia adds a little of
this and a little of that from other games to make an interesting
gumbo. For instance, they have added a "job" system, similar to the
ones found in Final Fantasy Tactics, or the Tactics Ogre series.
Granted, it is a much-simplified version, but it adds a layer of
depth nonetheless. You can assign a certain set of skills to each
one of your characters and make them stronger in that area as they
gain experience. For instance, if you choose a fighter job for a
character, he will learn new fighting combos and offensive attacks.
If you choose the priest abilities for him, he will learn healing
spells and support magic. What makes this an interesting aspect of
the gameplay is that after you learn a set of skills from one job,
you can then switch jobs and learn a totally new set of skills,
while still retaining the old skills. For instance, your fighter
will still remember all of his offensive skills while he is learning
the healing spells. This makes an opportunity for some very deep
character customization (or you can just make all of the members of
your party Uber-Characters if you wish to take all of the challenge
out of it).
Dungeon crawling in the game is also not immune to borrowing from
other games. The most widely games that Lufia nicks from is Golden
Sun and Wild Arms. While wandering around in the dungeons of the
game, you will be presented with certain puzzles that either have to
be solved by moving blocks and crates (a'la Golden Sun), or you have
to switch between characters to take advantage of their specific
abilities (Wild Arms). For example, Torma has the ability to use a
whip to swing you across certain gaps, or he can hit switches from a
great distance with his whip. Rami has the ability to light torches,
or burn certain key items, and Eldin can swipe through plants with
his sword. With this in mind you will have to switch between each of
your characters to make full use of all of their collective
abilities in order to navigate the Lufia dungeons. Many of the
puzzles will involve some sort of combination of this
character-swapping, along with pushing around blocks or hitting
switches. The puzzles really aren't that difficult, and the game is
very forgiving in the fact that you can always reset the puzzle to
start over again. Really, you're much more in danger of getting
hopelessly lost within the dungeons than getting stuck on the
puzzles – due to the fact that Lufia does not offer a world map.
There is also the monster-collecting aspect of the game. As you
fight monsters and gain experience, you will also collect "discs."
These discs are specific to the area in which you are fighting the
monsters, i.e. cave discs, field discs, etc. Ultimately these discs
can be used to capture monsters. If you soften up a monster a little
bit in the battle, you will then be able to throw the disc at him
and hopefully capture him. If you are successful in capturing the
monster, he will join your party as another combatant, and you will
be able to upgrade him and give him weapons and armor. You can
evolve your monsters by giving them different types of fruits that
correspond with their abilities. For instance, giving a monster with
a natural water affinity an aqua fruit can make him stronger, as
most monsters are a little too weak when you first capture them to
be of any real help in battles. The character that threw the disc to
capture the monster will be the monster's keeper, and the monster
will grow loyalty toward that keeper as the game progresses. You
will have the option in battle of "fusing" the keeper and the
monster to make kind of an Uber-Monster, but it will only last the
duration of that particular battle, so you will need to use it
wisely.
You also have the option of using a link cable to trade your
monsters with friends, as well as exploring the Ancient Cave
together to get valuable items. What is this "Ancient Cave" I speak
of, you ask? I will talk more on that later.
Battles are your standard RPG turn-based affairs, with a few little
twists thrown in. Though, once again, these modifications are mainly
twists lifted from other games. You will be able to attack an enemy,
which will occasionally result in a bonus hit that does double
damage. You can also choose from a list of spells to use. These are
spells that your character has gained through experience, and will
vary depending on what job you have selected for him. Using spells
in battle will use "AP" points; the stronger the spell, the more
points you will use out of your pool. Your characters will all also
have an "IP" meter. These are special points that will allow each
character to pull of a super-duper, deluxe attack. Any character
that is the keeper of a monster that is in battle will be able to
fuse with that monster and unleash some major whoop a** for the rest
of the battle. IP points are kind of hard to come by, though, as the
gauge only fills up as your character takes damage. It's pretty much
like the "limit break" concept from Final Fantasy.
There aren't necessarily random battles in the game, because you can
see the enemies on the screen and you can try to avoid them. The
problem is that every time you move, the enemy also moves, but in
your direction. If you stand still, of course, so does the enemy.
But once you take a step, the enemy will randomly head your
direction. Where this becomes extremely annoying is when you are
trying to gain the advantage for the start of a battle. Advantage is
everything in Lufia. If you manage to run into the enemy while he is
facing away from you, you "surprise" him, and you not only get to
attack in the first round with no counterattacks from the enemy, but
you get to keep attacking first throughout the rest of the battle.
This bizarre caveat creates an oddly unbalanced advantage that will
literally make or break battles for you. Herein lies the problem:
since the enemies move randomly with your movement, it's very, very
difficult to run into them squarely to make sure they don't run into
your back or sides, thereby "surprising" you. Due to the fact that
the enemies found throughout Lufia are no slouches allowing them an
initial round of attacks can be absolutely devastating. The fact
that the monsters move randomly compounds the problem, as you might
be surprise attacked repeatedly at any one point in the game.
I had mentioned the Ancient Cave earlier, and I wanted to give this
part of the game its full due, since it becomes a very big part of
the experience. One thing that does set Lufia: The Ruins of Lore
apart from a lot of other RPG's I've played is this innovative idea
for moving your characters up a level. Essentially, the Ancient Cave
is just what it sounds like: a large, expansive abyss, which you can
enter at any time to fight monsters and gain experience. There are
60 levels in all, and each level is randomly generated. Every level
is filled with chests that when opened will either reveal monsters
or rare items. One such rare item is called the "Providence" which
is used to exit the cave. You will fight a boss at the end of each
level in order to advance to the next one, after which you will
return to your camp, in order to use healing items and equip new
armor and weapons. If there are any complaints with the Ancient
Cave, one is that since each level is random in nature, finding a
Providence in order to leave is also random. I am sure you can
ascertain why this could put you in an awful fix if your characters
are hanging on by a thread and there is no Providence in sight. All
in all, though, the Ancient Cave is a great idea; it gives
characters the opportunity to advance levels as much as they see
fit, thereby not giving anyone an excuse for being under-prepared
for the later stages of the game.
Graphics
As GBA titles go, this is a very good-looking game, although
probably not the absolute best quality graphics you have ever seen
on the console. The character designs are deformed and cartoony-looking,
and are very reminiscent of the graphics seen in Golden Sun. Even
during story segments, little emoticons appear over the characters'
heads, which is also straight out of Golden Sun. Besides these few
gameplay elements though, that is where the comparisons end. The
battle graphics are pretty much your standard fare; the enemies and
heroes are given a few different attack animations that come off
fairly glitch-free. The spell animations are very nice to look at,
although mostly they fail to rise above what you've come to expect
from hundreds of other RPG's over the years. For instance, cast
"Cinder," and you throw a little fireball at the enemy. Cast
"Frost," and a little snowflake is thrown at him. You get the idea.
Well, hey...at least there's no slowdown, right? Errrr...right?
For some disturbing reason Lufia suffers from some very bad
slowdown, and I'm not really sure why. Pretty much anything in the
game can trigger the slowdown. Walking through towns, fighting
enemies, standing in a shop, all can suddenly get bogged down. The
only time this really becomes a major annoyance is when you are
wandering around through a dungeon, and since you're lost and want
to get out of there anyway, slowing down the game even further just
gets frustrating.
Audio
In this department, Lufia really strives to excel. And for the most
part it really does succeed on this front. The soundtrack really is
pleasing to the ears even if it does not really set itself apart
from the competition most of the time. The tunes themselves are
arranged well, and at times really do mange to evoke some emotion.
Again, with the limited audio hardware available for the GBA, I'm
impressed if you can just manage to have songs in the background
that just aren't crappy. I may be aiming a little low here, but
Lufia does have some very pleasing tracks that even manage to get me
to hang out in certain areas for a while just to take in the music.
For the most part, though, the music will just kind of blend into
the background noise, and will serve as filler more than anything
you will try to download from Kazaa. The sound effects are pretty
much average on every front; you have your usual "blips" and
"bleeps" to signify doors opening, monsters noticing you, etc. A
notable exception would be the sound that Eldin's sword makes as it
breaks jugs (it just sticks out to me, I don't know why). As usual,
everything sounds much better with headphones; the puny GBA speaker
just does not do justice to games that actually try to sound good.
Lufia: The Ruins of Lore is a solid addition to the Gameboy
Advance's RPG library. It is not outstanding, by any means, but it
is fun enough to warrant a purchase for any RPG fan out there. After
playing through the gaming equivalent of a 70-hour gaming orgasm
with Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis, I was really expecting a lot
more from Atlus on this one. It shows flashes of inspiration in some
areas, while being content to rehash ideas in others. If you're the
type who wants another fun RPG romp without worrying about trying
anything new, you'll have no problems with this title.
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