Lufia & the Fortress of Doom

"Understandable how you could get into it, but I have found better"

Let me get this out of the way...I am perfectly understood how you can get into the storyline of Lufia, however I have played through almost all of the game and finally have asked ''why the hell am I playing this?'' Lufia isn't for everyone, I can understand it. Lufia 2 was a masterpiece in it's own right but the first one left somthing to be desired.

Graphics: 8

Okay, the graphics are terrible, but Lufia was relesed at the beggining of the SNES's days and brought to the US of A. They are very colorful(I actually like the hair). The enemy graphics are very nice, and I also like the touches of animation they put onto the characters. All in all everything is full of color and more than once your going to want to stop and look at everything

Music:4

uhhhh, I think the music could have used some new tracks you usually are listening to the same music in the same town forever with no breaks. If a plot twist happens usually there is no suspense building music kinda sucks. Most of the Tracks are very happy, giving you the happy atmosphere with the happy people. This is a nice change but we could have had a little more. Tracks I am giving good note on are the Sinistrals theme and the boss theme. The regualar Battle Theme gets a -9 because it does the evil RPG laugh. The encounters are endless, so you get the same damn song every five steps it starts much like FF with a drawn out pitch sound. I consider this the game laughing at you saying ''Ha ha ha ha ha ha! you dumb poor SOB you get to fight me yet another time go another five steps to fight some more Hya ha ha ha ha'' It gets completely annoying.

Gameplay: 3

The game is standard RPG fare random encounters are endless(I have only complained on Random encounters in BOFIII and this game, I actually like Random battling, so when I complain that should say somthing). Even worse the strategy part is taken out of it. you can't gang up on your enemies from the outset. When you target your enemys you target the groups. so possibly all your characters target a group, you may all hit the same enemy or you may hit different enemies(ie: group of 4 magic swords targeted all may hit one or they may spread out) this drags battles even longer. Also if you kill all the group your members won't move to the next group instead they will miss their attack witch makes it EVEN longer. this is flat bad because with all the battling you have to do(leveling up is required) so the game takes forever.

Story:

well you are a descendent of Maxium and you are fueld to stop the Sinistrals(whom have revived) unfortunately you are to do so by fixing a brige or saving a townsperson. The game moves from town to town and the big plot twists don't happen till the end. but by then I could care less which finally made me hang up the controller for good.

Rent or buy?

This game has its good spots, I didn't like it, I can understand how you could but I didn't like it. Try it with caution, you may enjoy it. but it is more of an way to familiarise yourself before playing II.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/06/01, Updated 06/06/01