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09-23-19 08:25 PM
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09-23-19 08:25 PM
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Lufia and the Fortress of Doom

 
Game's Ratings
Overall
Graphics
Sound
Addictiveness
Depth
Story
Difficulty
Average User Score
9.3
7
7.5
7.8
7.3
8.3
7
G789's Score
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09-23-19 08:25 PM
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| ID: 1375058 | 1235 Words

G789
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Lufia and the Fortress of Doom was released for the SNES in 1993, developed by Neverland, and published by Taito. This is an RPG in which you gather and control a party of four that must fight to save the world. While this basic premise can be boiled down to a multitude or RPGs, Lufia mixes it up in the prologue section of the game. Here, you control a different party of the game's previous generation informing the player of the overarching story, as well as introducing the villain characters right away. While that concept & execution may not be uncommon now, Lufia is one of the earliest games I can think of that featured its beginning in such a way.



Graphics: 7
Starting with battle, animations are pretty simple. Enemy sprites appear large with intricate designs, while your characters' sprites are smaller (not unlike FF: Mystic Quest, but without enemies changing appearances). The battles themselves happen overlaying the world map or current location. The world map is populated with terrain features and doodads with the only functional differences being what is traversable or not.


Sound: 8
For me, the best music is, far and away, the opening dungeon theme. The various town themes are relaxing, as well. I appreciate the actual sound effects in battle. Attacking, healing, applying buffs/debuffs sound crisp & clear. In fact, if a curtain were pulled over the screen, you would still mostly be able to correctly pair the general effect to what is happening on screen.


Addictiveness: 8
Like many good RPG games, Lufia keeps you hooked with the objective-based nature of its plot. It's easy to want to continue playing for hours in order to find the next party member, VIP npc, or other mcguffin. Sometimes, that desire gets bogged down after X number of random battles. The encounter rate isn't insanely high, and there are items that affect that chance, but I've occasionally felt the pace of progression stop to a halt after fighting scores of random battles.


Story: 7
To briefly reiterate what was mentioned above, the intro/prologue immediately inform us of a world on the brink of destruction at the hands of a few prominent villains called Sinistrals. The world has chosen several over-leveled fighters with a beefy inventory to vanquish these foes. Now, you take control of this party and attack their stronghold. Here, the game gives some instructional tips on how to play/navigate. Because your characters are overpowered and have lots of magic, you have the chance to explore what spells do and some enemy weaknesses. As someone who plays other RPGs, I really appreciated this element, but I can understand how a newbie to the genre may feel overwhelmed here. In any case, the Sinistrals are vanquished, but the heroes pay a price of their own.

The world ushers in a golden age of peace & prosperity for 99 years, until you (self-named Hero) notice monsters have started returning. From this point forward, the game's plot can be oversimplified to: investigating the cause of this strange occurrence, gathering like-minded allies into your party, finding the means to overcome the root cause, and achieving that ultimate goal. The process of fulfilling these objectives takes the player all around the world meeting various characters, and resolving smaller conflicts along the way. Lufia is largely straightforward with its overall story in that the heroes and villains are well defined, and tackles the matter of good VS evil on a global scale (in contrast to games such as Fire Emblem, Yggdra Union). Even within that frame of storytelling, there is a significant plot twist I won't mention here


Depth: 7
In terms of story & exploration, you must travel to almost all parts of the world in completing the game; there aren't really sidequests, and there is only one ending. With that said, there are two areas the game briefly mentions, but never directly urges you to visit: Forfeit Island & the Dragon Shrine. Regardless, missing these optional areas won't penalize the player regarding equipment, story elements, etc.

In the game's opening dungeon, one of the instructional tips informs the player how to read what their magical spells do. Thank god for that tip because the language localization wasn't the best. Moves with names like STONE or STUN are actually antidotes to those conditions (and don't cause said ailment). Also, various buffs/debuffs are not evident by name alone (e.g. DRAIN lowers an enemey's defense). I wish that feature to look up information applied to items & equipment, too!

Your characters don't have any class names describing their abilities, and can only remain in that 'class' while learning their preset arsenal of spells. With that said, here's a quick rundown: You (main protagonist) are a Paladin, Aguro is a Warrior, Lufia is a Black Mage (with some healing), Jerin is a White Mage (with some offensive magic).


Difficulty: 6
The hardest parts of Lufia are much more present in the first 3rd of the game, and that difficulty primarily exists because of one or more of the following: not all party members have been acquired, certain spells haven't been learned, and you haven't obtained a wealth of gold. In effect, you start off choosing between certain equipment or healing items, having to pay to revive KO'd party members (until learning revive, aptly named “Dead”), and grinding so you can beat those damn Goblins!

Otherwise, after passing some of the major difficulty spikes, progression becomes much more steady & manageable. Boss fights have similar strategies that require setting up buffs/debuffs, and keeping the party healed above some threshold, while others use physical attacks.
I forgot to mention actual combat! It isn't particularly difficult, but deserves a note. Combat is turn based. If two characters target the same enemy group, and the first character wipes out that entire group, character 2 will still try to target the now-dead group and automatically miss. This means that, in large part, you can't just spam the attack button to fight. Regular battles involving tougher enemies will actually require some sort of strategic approach as targeting one specific enemy may not be a sure-fire hit.



Overall: 7.8
Lufia and the Fortress of Doom is a great RPG game for the SNES that still holds up. When playing games of a certain era, I can't help but compare them to their respective contemporaries for reference. In Lufia's case, I found that its appearance resembled FF IV. In retrospect, FF VI would only come out a year after this game. Meanwhile, Breath of Fire came out the same year as Lufia as another RPG not released by a major company of that genre. In playing older RPGs like Lufia, I can't help, but take note of some of the rough edges present in earlier RPG games, such as: lack of item descriptions, poor localization, no way to zoom out or get a bigger picture on the world map, and so forth. However, this was a different era for video games, and I'm able to appreciate it so much more when newer, more modern games do have features addressing these older concerns. Lufia can sometimes come off as a more bare version of the Final Fantasy games that came out around the same time, but even when factoring in everything, I can still say Lufia and the Fortress of Doom is a game worth playing.
Lufia and the Fortress of Doom was released for the SNES in 1993, developed by Neverland, and published by Taito. This is an RPG in which you gather and control a party of four that must fight to save the world. While this basic premise can be boiled down to a multitude or RPGs, Lufia mixes it up in the prologue section of the game. Here, you control a different party of the game's previous generation informing the player of the overarching story, as well as introducing the villain characters right away. While that concept & execution may not be uncommon now, Lufia is one of the earliest games I can think of that featured its beginning in such a way.



Graphics: 7
Starting with battle, animations are pretty simple. Enemy sprites appear large with intricate designs, while your characters' sprites are smaller (not unlike FF: Mystic Quest, but without enemies changing appearances). The battles themselves happen overlaying the world map or current location. The world map is populated with terrain features and doodads with the only functional differences being what is traversable or not.


Sound: 8
For me, the best music is, far and away, the opening dungeon theme. The various town themes are relaxing, as well. I appreciate the actual sound effects in battle. Attacking, healing, applying buffs/debuffs sound crisp & clear. In fact, if a curtain were pulled over the screen, you would still mostly be able to correctly pair the general effect to what is happening on screen.


Addictiveness: 8
Like many good RPG games, Lufia keeps you hooked with the objective-based nature of its plot. It's easy to want to continue playing for hours in order to find the next party member, VIP npc, or other mcguffin. Sometimes, that desire gets bogged down after X number of random battles. The encounter rate isn't insanely high, and there are items that affect that chance, but I've occasionally felt the pace of progression stop to a halt after fighting scores of random battles.


Story: 7
To briefly reiterate what was mentioned above, the intro/prologue immediately inform us of a world on the brink of destruction at the hands of a few prominent villains called Sinistrals. The world has chosen several over-leveled fighters with a beefy inventory to vanquish these foes. Now, you take control of this party and attack their stronghold. Here, the game gives some instructional tips on how to play/navigate. Because your characters are overpowered and have lots of magic, you have the chance to explore what spells do and some enemy weaknesses. As someone who plays other RPGs, I really appreciated this element, but I can understand how a newbie to the genre may feel overwhelmed here. In any case, the Sinistrals are vanquished, but the heroes pay a price of their own.

The world ushers in a golden age of peace & prosperity for 99 years, until you (self-named Hero) notice monsters have started returning. From this point forward, the game's plot can be oversimplified to: investigating the cause of this strange occurrence, gathering like-minded allies into your party, finding the means to overcome the root cause, and achieving that ultimate goal. The process of fulfilling these objectives takes the player all around the world meeting various characters, and resolving smaller conflicts along the way. Lufia is largely straightforward with its overall story in that the heroes and villains are well defined, and tackles the matter of good VS evil on a global scale (in contrast to games such as Fire Emblem, Yggdra Union). Even within that frame of storytelling, there is a significant plot twist I won't mention here


Depth: 7
In terms of story & exploration, you must travel to almost all parts of the world in completing the game; there aren't really sidequests, and there is only one ending. With that said, there are two areas the game briefly mentions, but never directly urges you to visit: Forfeit Island & the Dragon Shrine. Regardless, missing these optional areas won't penalize the player regarding equipment, story elements, etc.

In the game's opening dungeon, one of the instructional tips informs the player how to read what their magical spells do. Thank god for that tip because the language localization wasn't the best. Moves with names like STONE or STUN are actually antidotes to those conditions (and don't cause said ailment). Also, various buffs/debuffs are not evident by name alone (e.g. DRAIN lowers an enemey's defense). I wish that feature to look up information applied to items & equipment, too!

Your characters don't have any class names describing their abilities, and can only remain in that 'class' while learning their preset arsenal of spells. With that said, here's a quick rundown: You (main protagonist) are a Paladin, Aguro is a Warrior, Lufia is a Black Mage (with some healing), Jerin is a White Mage (with some offensive magic).


Difficulty: 6
The hardest parts of Lufia are much more present in the first 3rd of the game, and that difficulty primarily exists because of one or more of the following: not all party members have been acquired, certain spells haven't been learned, and you haven't obtained a wealth of gold. In effect, you start off choosing between certain equipment or healing items, having to pay to revive KO'd party members (until learning revive, aptly named “Dead”), and grinding so you can beat those damn Goblins!

Otherwise, after passing some of the major difficulty spikes, progression becomes much more steady & manageable. Boss fights have similar strategies that require setting up buffs/debuffs, and keeping the party healed above some threshold, while others use physical attacks.
I forgot to mention actual combat! It isn't particularly difficult, but deserves a note. Combat is turn based. If two characters target the same enemy group, and the first character wipes out that entire group, character 2 will still try to target the now-dead group and automatically miss. This means that, in large part, you can't just spam the attack button to fight. Regular battles involving tougher enemies will actually require some sort of strategic approach as targeting one specific enemy may not be a sure-fire hit.



Overall: 7.8
Lufia and the Fortress of Doom is a great RPG game for the SNES that still holds up. When playing games of a certain era, I can't help but compare them to their respective contemporaries for reference. In Lufia's case, I found that its appearance resembled FF IV. In retrospect, FF VI would only come out a year after this game. Meanwhile, Breath of Fire came out the same year as Lufia as another RPG not released by a major company of that genre. In playing older RPGs like Lufia, I can't help, but take note of some of the rough edges present in earlier RPG games, such as: lack of item descriptions, poor localization, no way to zoom out or get a bigger picture on the world map, and so forth. However, this was a different era for video games, and I'm able to appreciate it so much more when newer, more modern games do have features addressing these older concerns. Lufia can sometimes come off as a more bare version of the Final Fantasy games that came out around the same time, but even when factoring in everything, I can still say Lufia and the Fortress of Doom is a game worth playing.
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