Lufia: The Legend Returns

"Reverting back to the first Lufia with worse gameplay..."

Ok, I went to the store and wasn't really planning on buying this but since I'm a fan I guess I have to. The didn't look that great from the screens that I saw and the fact that it's on the GBC ticked me off. Let's get to it!

Story 6/10: A woman comes to find a good swordsman (which is you but she doesn't know that) and after talking to her a bolt hits a house. So some guy makes an assumption that it came from Death Tower. Ok so now we're going to death tower and look who it is a Sinistral. Well it's been so long that the people have forgotten about the first and second Island War and they don't know who the heck this guy is. Then after you find out his strength your off to find people to help you beat him(Gades). Well all you fans know there are 4 sinistrals and there are! You just journey from place to place trying to find new people. Pretty bland eh?

Music/SFX 7/10: You could probably sum this up in three words: ''Worse than midis.'' The music is about the level the Pokemon music and the SFXs are about the level of a cricket chirping in your ear. The music stinks and gets repetitive. Yes this is the GBC and it probably can't help it but hey it stinks! The SFX are ok...it's basically just like all the other Lufia's SFXs.

Graphics 8/10: Wow! Very detailed for the GBC. You can even count the tiny bricks that make up a wall. The flaw is in the maps themselves! Not the over world maps, those are terrific if not better than the SNES ones! The dungeon map graphics are terrible! Basically it's a tunneled out series of channels all leading to different treasures and monsters. The graphics hardly change from level to level and it can be straining on the eyes.

Control 8/10: Standard control here. I'll just name the bad things though. One, you can press the start button to turn without stepping forward but on a GBA the start button is on the side that the D-pad is on so you can't hit start easily on a GBA. Of course this is a GBC game but heck...I'd love to play it on my GBA since it has better colors. Second, sometimes when you press start to turn but you don't the way you want to face on accident and you let go of start it brings up the menu which can be a hassle to get off. Solid control mostly, keeps to the series.

Gameplay 6/10: You run around the maps going into towns, doing quest, and battling monsters. First the good. The battles can pretty fun and strategic once you get at least four characters. Learning moves and magic is easy to do and kind of fun! Now the bad. Battles can get a little repetitive especially when your leveling up or trying to get LP or money. The game brings us this new system of random dungeon maps. This could be a very cool system if utilized correctly. But it's not used correctly in this game unfortunately. The whole dungeon is basically random maps except for two(usually) and in those two you can only walk around. Those two are usually the entrance to the dungeon and the very top or bottom of the dungeon where a boss usually awaits you. The random maps are boring, like said before, a series of rooms connected by tunnels that lead to treasure and monsters. Basically you hit the walls with your sword to find secret rooms or cut down the grass to try and find treasure chest while you walk around in these monster infested rooms. You can see the monsters but it's kind of hard to avoid them sometimes. Any ways, these random maps get repetitive and don't add anything like Lufia 2 did. (i.e. puzzles) A better way they could have done this random map and still make it good is to put in some pre-made maps in between the random floor maps that have puzzles and better treasures. The game never requires skill in battling until you get to the boss which is STILL a lot of hacking away at it. Woo...ok no more rambling! Basically the gameplay in this game takes out a lot from Lufia and Lufia 2 leaving you with a very disappointing after taste.

Rent or Buy: Only buy if you can find it for 20-25 otherwise don't waste 30 bucks on it. And to you fans, I feel your sympathy too lets just hope Lufia Gaiden for the GBA is as good as Lufia 2.

Overall 7/10: Let's just hope the next one is better my friends...

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/30/01, Updated 09/30/01