Video Game Series of the Month: Lufia
The Lufia series. What words can describe the perfection achieved by three of the greatest games of all time. Oh, I know, “Perfection.” Now, granted, perfection is a pretty strong word to use, but if any series deserves the title, it certainly is the Lufia series.
Out of the three games in the Lufia series so far, the only downfall would have to be the random encounters of “Lufia and the Fortress of Doom,” a.k.a. Lufia 1. They were quite frequent and many times just plain annoying, especially since you may fight the exact same monster group over and over again and every time you fought them they would cast the exact same spells in the exact same order and your characters would to the exact same amount of damage and hit the exact same critical attack at the exact same time during the battle. Needless to say, it grew very tedious. Now, in order to get passed such a major flaw, you would have to have a great story, sidequests, etc. to make up for it. Lufia 1 did just that. It had enjoyable sidequests, such as exploring the old cave, and collecting dragon eggs to get wishes granted by the egg dragon; and an excellent story about a boy and his friends having to risk everything to destroy their enemies, and in the end having to sacrifice the one he loved the most to ensure the safety of the world *cries.* That alone is enough to make you forget about the nasty random encounters, but if that is not enough, you can buy “sweet water,” to reduce the number of encounters, and “smoke balls,” to run away from the battles you don’t want to fight, in many stores around the world.
“Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals.” Easily the best of the Lufia series. It had everything Lufia 1 had, but more. Oh so much more. In this prequel you take control of the ancestors of the hero from Lufia 1. Lufia 2 completely got rid of the problems with random encounters that Lufia 1 had. The only time random encounters show up is when traveling around the overworld map, and even then, they are not so frequent as to frustrate the player. In the dungeons, random encounters have been replaced by the monsters actually walking around, and you get in a fight when you make contact with them. A much better system, in my opinion. The story is just as good as the first, perhaps even better, and this time there are more than just the 4 main characters to control. The egg dragon is back, and the old cave has been replaced by the “Ancient Cave.” The cave is much bigger, and will provide many many more hours of entertainment than the one before it. One last addition I will mention is the addition of capsule monsters. Friendly little monsters you can meet, feed, and raise into fighting machines. Sound fun? It is.
The final Lufia game so far is “Lufia: The Legend Returns.” This one is for Game Boy Color, unlike its Super NES brothers/sisters. It has basically the same style as Lufia 2, which is a +++, but instead of controlling 4 people at a time, you can control 9. The battle style isn’t as complicated as you might think, but I’m not going to explain it. Buy the game. The sidequests are back yet again, only in this one there are more of them. If I told you of them all it would ruin the fun, but the ancient cave is back. Its twice as big as Lufia 2, with twice the rewards, wink wink. The egg dragon is also back, and this time he will join you if you defeat him in battle.
There is another Lufia game coming out in the United States this fall, I believe. It is for the Game Boy Advance, and is already out in Japan. The series is the most fun I’ve had with any series, simply because of Lufia 2. Yes, it is just that damn good. The others only make the series better, and I’m sure the next one will be amazing, as well. I’m done writing about Lufia for now. No nice conclusion for you, good-night.
