Lufia 2 - Rise of the Sinstrels
^He saved everyone of us!
By far & away the biggest kicker going back to these oldies is playing the fondly remembered RPGs, only to find out they actually suck a bit now. Phantasy Star 4 & Chrono Trigger really guttered me, as I remember thriving on both, yet upon return they were both average at best. This one however has an even bigger task, as I've only ever played it once on emulation before, and my memories of it are pretty sparse, so no nostalgia to help it either.
Modron recommended it, so here we go.
Well it grabbed me from the off. Nothing outstanding or mind-blowing, but everything about it is crafted SO well, that's it's just a joy to slip into. The town, the dungeon maps, the battles etc. It really is one of the easiest RPGs to get into which I've played in a long time, but it also gives you enough to get your teeth into too. The first dungeon alone displays a lovely balance between puzzles, simplicity, depth, combat & secrets - it's a perfect portion size. A few hours in and I was really enjoying myself.
And the combat is balanced absolutely superbly too, real masterclass here. You can enter a Dungeon under equipped and vulnerable, but because of the fact that battles aren't random & you can stun enemies with your arrows, you can still progress. On the flipside, there's plenty of in-dungeon secrets, and a big variety of spells & weapons, armour & items to buy from towns, so you've also the option of grinding a bit and entering the dungeons far more badass than before. Yet again, the balance with both is superb, vulnerable doesn't feel impossible and powerful doesn't feel OP. Great stuff.
Monsters are visible, but only move when you do. This leads to some really interesting scenarios, and is a great little system. Really surprising that this hasn't been copied much since. The puzzles are plentiful, and flit between having to make you think to trickily-clever, but rarely are they either pointless or frustrating. They mostly have a touch of uniqueness to them too, which again adds to the quality. In fact, I'm not one for puzzley dungeons, but this game does them & the dungeons SO well that I really enjoyed both. Top marks. But, as well done as they are, you also really need to be prepared to spend a lot of time dungeon crawling in general. It isn't for everyone, got a bit monotonous for me, and it really could have done with a few more roleplaying/exploration aspects to break it up.
Unfortunately there are other significant bugbears too. Firstly there's little to no secrets in the roleplaying areas, a particular bane of mine. Also, the main dungeon theme tune gets real old real fast, in fact I think the same track plays in every dungeon. Then you've got the game's structure. It really is town-dungeon-town-dungeon for a large portion of it, which soon becomes very repetitive. And finally you've got the story which, whilst not awful at all, isn't particularly exciting either and tends to feel like one random event after another, each of which has little or nothing to do with anything that happens before it or after it. It really did leave me disinterested at times, as the main story hook kept disappearing (similarly to how Witcher 3 has you hunt the Wild Hunt.......then have nothing to do with them for ages). And it is a 16-bit JRPG too, so be prepared for slightly obscure objectives.
I enjoyed this a lot, and think it's definitely worth playing, but be mindful that it's way more for gameplayfags than storyfags, and has enough bugbears to prevent it from being a classic.
