Lufia: The Ruins of Lore

"Wow... this is different.. in a bad way"

I can't say I've played alot of RPG's. As a matter of fact I've only played Golden Sun: The Lost Age and Lunar Legends which led me to believe all RPG's were good. As you can see by my score, I was wrong. I bought Lufia thinking ''this is gonna be sooo much fun!''. Poor innocent me. Let me start off with the...

Graphics:7
Wow, the game doesn't look half bad. The towns are bright, the sun always shining, and your teammates are always trailing behind you. I've noticed an occasional slow-down while in towns but other than that it's alright. The graphics for the fighting is simple but the weird thing is your enemies don't do much. They just scowl at the main characters and fire fire/ice/you name it/etc.Now let me get around to the sound.

Sound:6
The sound is loud and clear and cheery. A bit too cheery. It's always some happy-go-lucky beat when you arrive in a town. AND IT NEVER CHANGES. Well actually in such and such a town, it'll eventaully change. Dungeons music is alright but it isn't really serious and something to call your friends. It's sort of like my singing. You get used to it but it's not something you really care for.

Fighting:1
It sucks. Point blank. End of story. There's a reason for this low-low score, though. Firstly, fightings not really random. You just bump into a monster and the nonsense begins. Don't think, ''Yes! The Master Ninja Blade adorned in Gold and Silver is finally mine! I wonder how it'll LOOK?'' Well, keep wondering because the look of your weapon NEVER changes. The fighting is actually quite simple until you get surprised whereas the monsters attack you unrelentlessly and until you're barely alive. An example would be I was fighting seahorses(of all things) and their one attack paralyzes all your characters. I waited for it to end or for the things to attack my characters, but NOOOOO, just the same ol' paralysis attack. I then got bored of this and went outside for ten minutes and when I came back, my characters were still being harassed by these evil creatures whereas I did the smart thing, and turned my game off. ALso, it takes forever to level up. You will spend hour and hours AND HOURS just to get up one little level.And this somehow, leads into...

Gameplay:2
I never actually knew where I was going, what I was doing, etc. Thankfully, I had this website to guide me to wherever I'm supposed to go. The story isn't really deep at all. You just go from town to dungeon to town. The characters aren't really special and they all tick me off except for Eldin who stay's quiet. One character that really gets on my nerves is Rubius. she can't do anything for herself and she's pretty useless unless you want her to read gibberish. Also, she seems bossy. Very early in the story, Eldin meets his father. You'de think they'd hug and cry and proclaim how much they missed each other but NOOOOO. All they do is talk about stuff going on the world.If I was Eldin and I finally found my father and all he could talk about was worldly matters, i wouldv'e walked away right then and there. But Eldin is a quiet idiot and deals with it. Nothing deep, nothing heart stirring, just BLAAAAH.Oh, and the save system really bites. You have to wait until you reach a church to save. If you save while in a dungeon, once your save file is loaded, it will delete. And if you accidently turn off your GBA while in said dungeon you will start back at the last church you saved at. ARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!. Which leads to my...

Conclusion: I'm mad I wasted my money on this game. But maybe I was destined to this so I can warn the world about the horror that is Lufia: The Ruins Of Lore. Maybe...in the future...Lufia we'll be better...

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 10/21/03