Basically, it fails to capture any of the magic of the previous three games (yes, I liked Lufia 3; that should tell you how bad this game is). It reverts to the puzzle style of Lufia 2, and the graphics and battle style also resemble Lufia 2 (the battle theme even is Lufia 2’s!). Unfortunately, in each of these departments it fails miserably. Except maybe graphics, which are fine. The music is nowhere as good as L2, the gameplay is preety stale, you get the picture. I haven’t played enough to judge the plot, and it should be fine, but unfortunately the game doesn’t make you really want to play on.
One new feature involves being able to capture monster and train them as capsule monsters (think L2’s Foomy, who actually reappears here as a wild monster). Unfortunately, there is no tutorial for this, and you’re left high and dry as to what monsters you should catch or not.
The expalination is apparently that Neverland, who did the past three games, didn’t do this one. Big mistake, Taito. Oh well, so long Lufia. v.v
You don’t seem to get any enjoyment out of playing the game, because of said music and gameplay. The characters were a little flat as well. I’m glad I didn’t buy it (I played it briefly at a friends’ house).
It takes DW’s job system and most of the Lufia 2 traits and adds in a bit of pokemon with the monster collection and evolution.
Everything moves slowly, from the battles to the story. The monsters are absolutely useless (My first one ran away from every battle until I evolved it), battles are boring, and puzzles are extremely simple.
The monster system’s not hard at all. I don’t see why you’d need a tutorial. Talk to people at the whatever town’s bazaar, and they give abit more info. Basically, when you see a monster of the same or lower level, throw a disc of the matching area at it (Ex: Cave disc for when you fight it in a cave :P). The monster system actually has merit, though. Once they gain a few levels, you can feed them a fruit to get them to evolve depending on which element the fruit was. You can also fuse with the monsters to become the next form for it (or a new one if there are no more), and you can use extra monsters to teach skills to the ones you use most. Base monsters and some later ones have branching evolution paths (Ex: you can feed the Newt Aqua fruit or Flame fruit to make it evolve into Lizardman or Lizard Mage, respectively, then further evolve it with fruit of the same type). It’s a pity that monsters tend to do very little in battle, though.
And Ancient Cave sucks now. You keep all the items this time, but even up to level 10, all the items are weaker than the ones you should have by the time you get to the level.
I like it, even if it’s a little…blend in terms of story. However evolution from a blue slime into a KILLING MACHINE OF DOOM when I fuse with my Neo-Slime was just sweet.
The music would have been better, were it not for some reason REALLY quiet and really…umm…not sure the word I want, but it was really hard to hear even with good volume. Like, the opposite of CotM’s music.
I never played it, but I assumed the music would be pretty bad, since Yukio Nakajima (The composer of the Lufia on GBC) did it. I’ve read an interview with Nakajima; he’s not even really a composer, he’s a programmer. He does composition sometimes, but in reality he doesn’t with to continue doing so if I remember correctly.
I will still personally give it a try, but I’m not expecting much. The graphics are really nice, but I just figured the music would be bad, and the gameplay would be kinda goofy. And I never ever liked Lufia puzzles anyways.
meh, I liked it, but then again, I’m hardly an RPG connosuer (and no, I have no idea how to spell that, so…) due to the ridiculous difficulty I have finding the things…
when you have three interests that are all dependant on imports, you know you’re in trouble… and probably in debt too.
oh, and since I haven’t posted it anywhere else, hi, I’m new, -insert standard newbie rubbish here-
It’s a pity, since I always loved the Lufia series.