The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Fall of the Sinistrals

So that's Lufia over with, and the results from the judges are in and they are.....
Very positive.

After all playing this game and loving it was what drove me to buy the prequel and sequel, which in turn drove me to drink and abuse. It really is unbelievable how one game in the middle can be so good, when both the PRECEDING and the SUCCEEDING game are so terribly awful. How is that possible?

Why is this game so good then?
Well, I'll get to that in a moment, but first let me tell you what is NOT good, so that we can get that out of the way, and it's a considerably shorter list.

First of all, story and dialogue are really cheesy. I own this game in Dutch, purely for novelty value since this was one of the very first console games in existence to be translated into Dutch, and I liked the idea.
But dialogue is painfully bad in some cases. Now I don't know if the original Japanese script writers are to blame, or that the Dutch translators are idiots, OR (and I suspect this is the real reason) the Dutch version is merely an accurate translation of the butchered American version, which has totally raped the original Japanese script.
It is entirely possible that the original Japanese dialogue wasn't too intelligent to begin with but some of the jokes are excruciatingly bad and some dialogue is just really childish and dumb.

Secondly, the game is really far beneath graphical and musical standards of that time. I found out it was released in 1995, at which time the SuperNES was experiencing a prime a graphics and sound. Before this we had already witnessed the marvellous sounds of Final Fantasy VI and the stupefying graphics of Donkey Kong Country, and it was only a couple of weeks before Chrono Trigger would hit stores and shake the gaming world. In other words, this game, by all rights, could and should have looked and sounded a LOT better than it does. Towns and dungeons are very plain and the sound system is also very average. Mind you, it's never really BAD, plain is really the adequate term, but it's evidently beneath SNES standards of that time. Quite a shame, especially considering the fact that this game has no problems ripping off gameplay elements of some of the bigger SNES titles, but not graphics or sound unfortunately.

Those are the only things that really bothered me though, but what it DOES excell in more than makes up for this.

Firstly, the shop system, or the buying and selling equipment system is quite easily one of the very best in the history of RPG's. I sometimes still like to point out how enjoyable Chrono Trigger was in terms of equipment management, but this game has it beaten to a bloody red-haired spikey pulp.
Basically, your party consists of a maximum of 4 characters at ALL times, and all 4 of these characters will be visible in the shop window, including their ENTIRE status. So that's Attack/Defense/Speed/Intelligence etc. all immediately visible.
Highlight any weapon or armor and the changes in status are immediately apparent for every character that can equip it. Blue means increase, red means decrease. Press the X button and you can read a description of that item and see any special effects or attributes it might have. Choose the item and you can opt to equip it immediately, or press down on the Control Pad and just purchase it for later use. When you're done, you can immediately sell the stuff you took off, so all your business can be done WITHOUT CHANGING WINDOWS.
Now, why not every RPG has used this kind of system since is a complete fucking mystery to me. It is the ultimate in equiping comfort, it can't really be any better.
Even the mighty FF series has been bumbling about with their equipment system for ever now, despite the fact that it's as simple as all of the above.

Secondly, the game has some cool ideas and gimmicks. Next to the standard HP and MP your characters also get RP (Rage Points), which fill up when you get hurt during battle. When you have enough points, you can use the special abilities embedded in your weaponry for support attacks or strong magic. Not every weapon has a Rage function though, adding a new element of strategy to buying equipment; will you buy the stronger armor with no effect, or will you buy the weaker one that has a healing function? I love this system, and it makes battles more interesting as well.
Another idea is the Capsule Monster system. Capsule monsters are monsters that help you during battles. There's 7 or 8 of them, hidden across the world and when you find them you can use one of them in your party, alongside your 4 main characters.
Capsule monsters will help you with support attacks and healing magic etc.
You can increase their status, raise them and change their appearance by feeding them items and equipment to shape them into a powerful being at your side. Very cool.

Thirdly, the puzzles in this game RULE. They RULE everything there is to RULE. They RULE the ROOST, as they say. I have NEVER seen so much variety and so much originality in puzzles within one game. Well, maybe in a Zelda game, but this game definitely does not underperform even to that mighty series. Zelda does get the advantage because it has more thematic dungeons though. In Lufia basically every dungeon looks like the next one, and you only have 3 kinds: Towers, Caves/Basements, and Mountains. But every single room has a unique, fun puzzle, some of which can really squeeze your brain into a helpless pulp screaming for something easier, like the theory of relativity. Honestly, puzzles are what this game is all about and what keep it exciting and fun to the end. If you don't like puzzles in your RPG's then you're going to hate this, but you should really shut up and die anyway.

Also, I really like the pace of the game. Not a lot of time is spent on story or cut-scenes, which is a godsend, compared to PSX-era games like Xenogears when it seemed to be the hip thing to throw one hour+ dialogues at you. No, this entire game can be summed up like this: Visit Town, be told where to go (most dungeons have names like the West Tower, or South Cave, so are VERY easy to find), go to dungeon, beat boss, go back to town, be told where to go next, rinse and repeat.
And this makes the game go delightfully FAST. You're just walking in and out of towns and dungeons, no stupid fetch quests, or finding out what to do next, you just have to worry about solving the many puzzles, and you're good till the end. I loved this pacing and I propose all games go back to this basic form from now on.

Finally, this game has THE best subgame EVER. A subgame that has become the staple of the series, and one that is in its own rights a complete game all of its own: The Old Cave.
This is an optional dungeon you get to halfway through the game. It has 99 (!) stories, is virtually impossible to finish and is filled to the brim with rare treasure.
Only catch is, you can't take anything with you. You are stripped of ALL your equipment and items, you only get 10 elixirs, you are RESET to level 1, and you have to gain all your levels anew and find equipment along the way. Floors are generated randomly and contain lots of treasure and monsters usually, so this is for the real battle buff and for fans of dungeon crawling. The only way out is if you find the Exit-item, which is only available from the 20th floor downwards (you go down all the time). You can't keep what you find, and of course you are restored to your old status, but what you can keep are any of the Rare Iris treasures (10 of these in total) and any equipment you got from Blue Treasure Chests (usually very strong).
Needless to say, finding all Iris treasures or getting to level 99, where supposedly a very hard boss is waiting, is nigh-on impossible, and I've never actually met anyone who has managed to pull this off.
It's really great fun to just sit down and explore this Old Cave every once in a while though, and I still do that from time to time.

With that said, this game has SO much on offer for RPG freaks it's amazing. I understand that some people will not appreciate the puzzle-centeredness of the game, and some will be annoyed by the stupid story, bad dialogue, the many blatant rip-offs of Zelda and Final Fantasy, but I greatly enjoyed all of it, it's not very hard, so you can just breeze through the game at leisure, have fun, and use your brain for once, instead of killing it with beer.

It's not a sure-fire hit, but it's more than enough for RPG fans. A 9.0.

Oh, and just to illustrate how stupid some of the dialogues are, let me quote some of them. I refuse to believe that these are deliberately funny, this is just shoddy script-writing:

Maxim: "Something about this bothers me...."
Guy: "What, you mean those Superbeings that are trying to destroy the world?"

Me - No, I was talking about this fish down my pants, actually. Idiot. I swear, the setting of the scene did not imply that this was deliberate sarcasm, it really felt like a stupid thing to say.

NPC: "That man who sank all the ships looked like a very mean person."

Me - I dunno, I thought he was kinda cute. Geez, talk about understatement.

And this one cracks me up every time:

"That Dragon is the Incarnation of Fire. People call him the Fire Dragon!"

Me - I bet they had to call a town meeting to come up with that name. I would've called him George, though.
Haha. Really, that last one makes me laugh incessantly for some reason.

Seriously though. Great game, go and try it out.

posted by Ingen! @ 8:09 PM