Lufia: The Ruins of Lore

"Makes a nice paperweight."

Lufia: The Ruined Sequel

The worst game in the Lufia series, Lufia: The Ruins of Lore is sure to make many Lufia fans unhappy when they pick up this cartridge.

Graphics - 6/10

The graphics are actually pretty nice. The surroundings are quite detailed for a GBA game, the sprites are drawn decently, and some dialogues come along with a facial expression of the speaking character. The animation, however, is pretty bad. Bleh...walking outside of battle, the screen shifts very unsmoothly...it reminds me of Pokémon Red or something. The battle animations are...limited, to say the least. There are some pretty flashy special attacks, but they become clichés as you use the same attacks again. The enemies don't move around much, and if you score a critical hit, you get to see a crappy zoomed-in imagery of the enemy being hit, making the screen horribly pixelated. Overall, the graphics are decent.

Sound - 8/10

I love the sound in this game. Yes, the same music repeats quite often, but it sounds exciting for a GBA game. Of course, to experience the music, you need to plug headphones into the headphone jack, otherwise it sounds pretty crappy coming through the tinny GBA speakers (Haha to you GBA SP users). Much of the music is remixed from the earlier Lufia games; Lufia fans will recognize it automatically. I love the bass that pumps throughout the songs...they almost seem, techno-ish, if you will. As for sound effects...well...you know how it is. Slash, boom, smack, whip. But what's really cool is that you hear bosses scream as they die! =)

Gameplay - 1/10

Wow. You'd expect the gameplay to be the same as the other Lufia games, right? Well, the truth is, if you changed the name of this game, you wouldn't even know that it was Lufia. Anyway, the gameplay flat out sucks. Let's start with the battles. Lufia, usually, has 5 attack options: Melee, Magic, Items, IP, and Defend (which actually does nothing). However, in Lufia 4, they've completely changed the function of IP and Magic attacks. They've changed IP to mean ''Install Points'', which allows you to ''Install'' one of the monsters you catch. Oh yea, I forgot to mention, you can catch the monsters with which you battle using ''Disks''...however, the monsters suck and die a lot. Back to IP, if your IP meter is full (it fills up as you take damage), you can morph with your monster to form one invincible powerhouse. Pretty cool, no? The installation only lasts for three turns though...but it can be useful sometimes. The bad thing about this is that the old IP function - using the special powers harnessed within your weapons/armor - is completely gone. Rue. Now onto magic. It's not really ''Magic'' anymore in fact. Into the game they've placed ''classes''; you can become an apprentice of one class, such as a knight, priest, mage, etcetera, and learn ''Skills'' based on which class you become. The skills that you learn from your apprenticeship are your 'magic', which can be used via AP Points. However, your characters have barely any AP Points, rendering their skills next to useless. Bummer. Digressing, the battles are seemingly infinite. Within dungeons, you can see the monsters walking along the floors. It's difficult to avoid them, so you'll be fighting many battles. However, once you return to the room, all the monsters are there again! Agh! It took me about 20 hours (give or take 19) to get through the first flipping dungeon. No joke. And because you have limited AP, it's difficult to heal. Especially since potions are rarer than gold in this game. Healing is best done at inns, which are inconveniently not located within dungeons, so yea you're screwed. Puzzle-wise, um...the puzzles in this game are not complex. Each of your characters has a special ability that they can use with the B Button. These are used to get past the pointless puzzles that are included in the game. Yipee. Yes, the gameplay has many flaws, and I've only touched on some of them. Good luck getting a full list on everything that the designers screwed up in this game.

Story - 1/10

The story...not only is craptacular, but has nothing to do with Lufia! How can this game even be called Lufia!? The opening sequence starts off with your father, who is a hunter, leaving home to search ancient dungeons or some crap. Anyway, he never comes back, and then you go to become a hunter with your annoying friend Torma. Once you get your hunter's license, you go to Gruberik, the home of the Ancient Cave, to explore. So, you'd think this game is about being a hunter. Nope. You'd think it has something to do with Sinistrals or anything Lufia related. Not quite. This plot, ladies and gentlemen, involves doing useless quests for people you don't know! Yep, that's the whole game. Oh there's a part about a military Kingdom, Gratze, attacking a bunch of cities to find out the secret about an ancient beast which they are trying to revive, but how can that compare to saving people from a mine cave-in? It doesn't! Side-quests forever!!! (sarcasm there, FYI)

Replayability - 0/10

I doubt you'll want to beat it the first time...

Buy or Rent? - None

If you buy it...you'll just be wasting 30 bucks. After becoming frustrated with the game after you've played it for 80 hours straight in order to become level 3, you'll just let it collect dust in some drawer, or find some crafty way to include it in your own home-brewn pyrotechnics show. And if you rent it...you won't have endless hours to spend playing it. Frankly, this game is a disaster...a horrible disgrace...to the Lufia series.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 06/07/03, Updated 06/07/03