Lufia: The Legend Returns Ranking: B
As this game is the third released game in the Lufia series, I call it Lufia III. It came out for the Gameboy Color, one of the rare RPGs for the system. It had 2 notable features: dungeon layout and the battle system. Dungeons are randomly/procedurally generated each time you enter one, something I’m not a huge fan of, but given I played games like Diablo – which had the same sort of approach to dungeons – it’s not a big deal to me. The battle system is very unique – you bring 9 characters into battle, arranged in a 3x3 formation. Only one character per column can attack, but the characters will buff one another based on whom they’re adjacent to in the formation. It opens up lots of customization potential – whom to field and where to put them in the formation to construct an optimal team befitting a playstyle.
Now let’s talk about the plot. Before I begin, I want to say that I pay attention to plot in video games regardless of genre, but in games where plot isn’t meant to be a focus, such as Advance Wars or Mirror’s Edge, I don’t let plot considerations affect my score much. That doesn’t apply to the Lufia series. The Lufia series is an RPG series, and plot is front-and-center important in the RPG genre. So if there’s an issue with the plot, it’s bringing the score down.
Chronologically, the series starts with Lufia II, where 4 god-giants known as Sinistrals show up and decide they want to rule the world or something (I’m not entirely sure what these guys’ deal is – the game doesn’t really explain it). These guys represent terror, chaos, destruction, and death. Of these, the Sinistral of Death, Erim, is special – as long as she is alive, the others will resurrect if killed. The process seems to be spontaneous – Erim doesn’t need to do anything special, besides exist, to resurrect the other three. To make a long story short, in Lufia II, a guy named Maxim wields a legendary, somewhat sentient sword called the Dual Blade and kills all 4 Sinistrals.
Fast forward almost a century later and we come to the events of Lufia I. Maxim’s descendant, whom the player names – I named him Ezra, so I’ll refer to him as such from here on – meets a mysterious girl named Lufia. She seems to have no family, so Ezra’s grandpa (?) takes her in and they grow up together. Then the Sinistrals resurrect, and we learn that Lufia is Erim reincarnated, except without Erim’s memories. Erim being alive (as Lufia) was what allowed the other three Sinistrals to resurrect. Now how Erim herself resurrected as Lufia is…never explained. Anyway, in the final battle, Lufia-Erim chooses to fight the Sinistrals, valuing her human life with Ezra more than she does her Sinistral existence as Erim. After killing the other three, Lufia-Erim tells Ezra to kill her to prevent the others from coming back. Ezra refuses, but the Dual Blade (remember, it’s sentient or something) attacks her by itself and she falls into a chasm as the fortress they’re in collapses.
In the ending, Ezra wanders the world, heartbroken over Lufia, but finds her in some remote village being cared for by a wizard elder. The wizard elder explains that he found her with zero memory and abilities after the battle with the Sinistrals and used his magic to heal her. It seems that the Dual Blade destroyed Erim, but not Lufia, meaning while Erim is gone, Lufia the human remains. While the ending is bittersweet, since Lufia has no memory of her life with Ezra or of the events of the game, Ezra vows to stay with her and build a new life with her. “We’ll create new memories,” he says.
Now we get to Lufia III, about a century after the events of Lufia I. Erim has reincarnated again…somehow, this time as a girl named Seena. Unlike before, Seena is fully aware that she is Erim…somehow. Her plan is to assemble a group of heroes to (1) kill the Sinistrals, since she knows they’ll return given she is alive and (2) in doing so, grow strong enough to kill her to prevent the Sinistrals from returning. Right off the bat this makes no sense. Seena-Erim has Erim’s memories, so she must remember that she was killed twice before and the fact that she still exists should tell her that her plan won’t work for whatever reason. And when I say “whatever reason,” I mean it – why and how is Erim still able to resurrect? She died twice already, both times by a legendary sentient sword.
Anyway, Seena-Erim finds Wain, a descendant of Ezra, and the duo go off to fight the Sinistrals with Seena withholding the truth about herself from Wain. So Seena and Wain’s arc is essentially the same as was Lufia and Ezra’s arc. It goes right down to the ending, where Wain is forced to kill Seena-Erim, but Seena the human survives and lives out a happy life with Wain. So besides copying the story from the first game, this ending opens up a pretty significant plot hole.
If the Dual Blade killing Erim but letting Lufia live didn’t work, Seena’s survival in Lufia III means Erim will eventually return and resurrect the other three, meaning Seena’s entire mission has failed (and she must know this). Alternatively, the ending of Lufia III does fulfill Seena’s goal, but then begs the question of why the ending of Lufia I didn’t resolve the Sinistral threat already.
So the game’s not bad from a mechanics standpoint, especially considering the platform it’s on, but its plot is unoriginal at best and self-destructing at worst.
As this game is the third released game in the Lufia series, I call it Lufia III. It came out for the Gameboy Color, one of the rare RPGs for the system. It had 2 notable features: dungeon layout and the battle system. Dungeons are randomly/procedurally generated each time you enter one, something I’m not a huge fan of, but given I played games like Diablo – which had the same sort of approach to dungeons – it’s not a big deal to me. The battle system is very unique – you bring 9 characters into battle, arranged in a 3x3 formation. Only one character per column can attack, but the characters will buff one another based on whom they’re adjacent to in the formation. It opens up lots of customization potential – whom to field and where to put them in the formation to construct an optimal team befitting a playstyle.
Now let’s talk about the plot. Before I begin, I want to say that I pay attention to plot in video games regardless of genre, but in games where plot isn’t meant to be a focus, such as Advance Wars or Mirror’s Edge, I don’t let plot considerations affect my score much. That doesn’t apply to the Lufia series. The Lufia series is an RPG series, and plot is front-and-center important in the RPG genre. So if there’s an issue with the plot, it’s bringing the score down.
Chronologically, the series starts with Lufia II, where 4 god-giants known as Sinistrals show up and decide they want to rule the world or something (I’m not entirely sure what these guys’ deal is – the game doesn’t really explain it). These guys represent terror, chaos, destruction, and death. Of these, the Sinistral of Death, Erim, is special – as long as she is alive, the others will resurrect if killed. The process seems to be spontaneous – Erim doesn’t need to do anything special, besides exist, to resurrect the other three. To make a long story short, in Lufia II, a guy named Maxim wields a legendary, somewhat sentient sword called the Dual Blade and kills all 4 Sinistrals.
Fast forward almost a century later and we come to the events of Lufia I. Maxim’s descendant, whom the player names – I named him Ezra, so I’ll refer to him as such from here on – meets a mysterious girl named Lufia. She seems to have no family, so Ezra’s grandpa (?) takes her in and they grow up together. Then the Sinistrals resurrect, and we learn that Lufia is Erim reincarnated, except without Erim’s memories. Erim being alive (as Lufia) was what allowed the other three Sinistrals to resurrect. Now how Erim herself resurrected as Lufia is…never explained. Anyway, in the final battle, Lufia-Erim chooses to fight the Sinistrals, valuing her human life with Ezra more than she does her Sinistral existence as Erim. After killing the other three, Lufia-Erim tells Ezra to kill her to prevent the others from coming back. Ezra refuses, but the Dual Blade (remember, it’s sentient or something) attacks her by itself and she falls into a chasm as the fortress they’re in collapses.
In the ending, Ezra wanders the world, heartbroken over Lufia, but finds her in some remote village being cared for by a wizard elder. The wizard elder explains that he found her with zero memory and abilities after the battle with the Sinistrals and used his magic to heal her. It seems that the Dual Blade destroyed Erim, but not Lufia, meaning while Erim is gone, Lufia the human remains. While the ending is bittersweet, since Lufia has no memory of her life with Ezra or of the events of the game, Ezra vows to stay with her and build a new life with her. “We’ll create new memories,” he says.
Now we get to Lufia III, about a century after the events of Lufia I. Erim has reincarnated again…somehow, this time as a girl named Seena. Unlike before, Seena is fully aware that she is Erim…somehow. Her plan is to assemble a group of heroes to (1) kill the Sinistrals, since she knows they’ll return given she is alive and (2) in doing so, grow strong enough to kill her to prevent the Sinistrals from returning. Right off the bat this makes no sense. Seena-Erim has Erim’s memories, so she must remember that she was killed twice before and the fact that she still exists should tell her that her plan won’t work for whatever reason. And when I say “whatever reason,” I mean it – why and how is Erim still able to resurrect? She died twice already, both times by a legendary sentient sword.
Anyway, Seena-Erim finds Wain, a descendant of Ezra, and the duo go off to fight the Sinistrals with Seena withholding the truth about herself from Wain. So Seena and Wain’s arc is essentially the same as was Lufia and Ezra’s arc. It goes right down to the ending, where Wain is forced to kill Seena-Erim, but Seena the human survives and lives out a happy life with Wain. So besides copying the story from the first game, this ending opens up a pretty significant plot hole.
If the Dual Blade killing Erim but letting Lufia live didn’t work, Seena’s survival in Lufia III means Erim will eventually return and resurrect the other three, meaning Seena’s entire mission has failed (and she must know this). Alternatively, the ending of Lufia III does fulfill Seena’s goal, but then begs the question of why the ending of Lufia I didn’t resolve the Sinistral threat already.
So the game’s not bad from a mechanics standpoint, especially considering the platform it’s on, but its plot is unoriginal at best and self-destructing at worst.