Welcome to this edition of Retro Corner Reviews and we take a look at Taito's first attempt at the role playing genre. In the early 90's Final Fantasy became an initial success in the United States with five console releases and three on Game Boy. After the series' success, many third parties like Capcom, Altus and Taito wanted to take advantage of the RPG popularity. Taito would be the second to step in and create their own role playing game called Lufia and The Fortress of Doom in 1993. The game would take everything an RPG experience had from other series from the level design and the gameplay. However, even though Final Fantasy VI and Breath of Fire weren't going be available until 1994. Lufia failed to receive the same success as a game called Secret of Mana for Super NES as Square’s latest title overshadow it. The game still manages to have a niche of fans who love RPGs such as myself. In fact, Taito even had a Genesis port in mind before they eventually cancelled it. That’s too bad because the first Lufia would’ve helped the Genesis’ starvation for JRPGs on an action and sports genre dominated console. Gameplay If anyone has played the Dragon Quest NES titles, then you will feel at home. Some of the layouts might be simple but at the same time it tries to feel different from tradition RPG jargon like HP. Using shapes of hearts for HP, wands as MP and stars for the characters' levels made it easier to understand. Even the battle menu for attack, defense, item and run would have the icon gold tabs. Like any typical JRPG there’s always a mage as Lufia fits that role and is the red mage of the game. Aguro is the usual tank/powerful striker of the party and he’s always used for attacking. Jerin when equipped with a bow will attack a group of enemies at once. It’s similar to Ryu’s boomerang but it individually targets one single enemy or a group of them only. A couple of things these B quality JRPGs always got right is avoiding random encounters. I could never understand why Square Soft or Sega never did these ideas for Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star. The issue with the bigger releases is the encounter rate was too high and its every 3 to 5 seconds at a time. These encounter rates were nearly repetitive as I would only take three to five steps just to get into a fight. These items are Sweet Water and Smoke Balls as most of the time they would get me out of tight spots. Sweet Water reduces the encounter rate, and a smoke ball lets the player escape a battle without an enemy hitting them. The level design is really reminiscent of Dragon Quest as the player would go through these towers and cavern like mazes. They would then face a boss at the end and get a quest item. The image is part of the Color Towers puzzle to get to Elfrea and its a shame that this is the only part where Taito changes the level design up. There’s even an item called Foul Water which has the opposite effect to Sweet Water. That made Lufia superior in this area as it would only take several steps until running into a fight. One of my favorite things in this game is finding hidden stuff in the towns and sometimes in the dungeons. When entering a new town, I always check the patches of flowers and the shelves in the houses for these items. However, there were only a few dungeons I have found that had hidden things in them. Like in any RPG, enemies can drop weapons, equipment and common items randomly. As you can tell Lufia manages to incorporate the standards of RPGs usually found in bigger titles. Another area Lufia had a similar mechanic to FFIV is the Look option that was available in the weapons and equipment shops. That helped make it easier to check the statuses of the characters when any weapon and equipment were applied. As I played through Lufia its clear the gameplay felt dated even in 1993 and lacked several key features. For starters, there was no auto target as that's an essential feature for the genre. The next problem is sometimes two of the offensive characters (Hero and Aguro) would strike the same enemy causing the second party member to miss that spot. If that’s not bad enough, you can’t pick any monster from a group no matter what. It was even worse when they chose one randomly and couldn't strike a single one you chose. The only party member that targets all of them physically is Jerin with her bow or casting magic from Lufia. Of course, Jerin’s bow attack and Lufia’s magic even can’t hit the monsters who are by themselves. Another problem during the battles was the fact some enemies would spam the same spell each turn. Take the Were Frog and these goons always casted Flood each turn which would cause nearly 50 to 70 points of damage. It would make the gameplay experience frustration especially when there's two of them in a battle. The thing I hated about the spells was the names they were giving with Strong and Boost. When the word Strong come to mind as a spell, the meaning usually implies it can increase my party's offensive. However, restoring HP wasn’t what I expected as this happens often when learning new magic. I understand they were shooting for originality, but an easy name that relates to the spell would’ve been better. Fortunately, a hint feature lets the player check what the spells do so at least that got put in place. Rating: 7.2/10 Graphics/Presentation The game’s intro opens to an epic music playing as it tells a short back story with Doom island being shown as lightning flashes. The intro felt even more epic then Final Fantasy IV’s own. What’s different is the fact the game opens with the characters from the past fighting the Sinistrals in the Final Battle. I never experienced a game that drops you into the last part of the story at the beginning. That was an excellent way of starting a long quest as this gave an idea of what the antagonists were like. The layout of the overworld, towns and dungeons use traditional designs you expect to appear in JRPGs. Nothing noteworthy that is present other than following the usual standards set by others like Square Soft. The music isn’t Taito’s best work, but I still enjoy the soundtracks from these low-budget titles. The intro theme, the boss battle and Doom Island were the notable tracks and they truly felt engaging to listen as I fought my way to the Sinistrals. The overworld has the adventure tone to it while the dungeon theme had a dreary and mysterious demeanor. Of course, we can’t forget the track called Pulifia Flowers that plays during Lufia’s love struck moments. It’s your typical romance song that accompanies the main heroin with her caring attitude to most characters. The biggest flaw the visuals had came from the exterior and interior (as seen in the picture) being so opened rather then its own separate area. It gives the aesthetics a cheap appearance and less of an organic design. However, the sprites in battle are just the basic still drawn images of the enemies but it was nice they moved a little when attacking. The enemy design had that same wackiness to them like we expect to see in the Dragon Quest series. It's obvious these developers took more inspiration from Enix then they did with Square and these designs truly reflect that. I have no real complaint as Nintendo also does this in the Earthbound games as well. Taito’s first attempt at the genre had several issues here as Lufia hardly stacks up to more noteworthy JRPGs. In Secret of Mana everything looks and sounded superior when it came to the environments, animation and sprites. While other B quality JRPGs like the first Breath of Fire produced environments within the battles and on higher places like a mountain area. Even the Final Fantasy NES trilogy had backgrounds in the battles, so there is no excuse for why Taito couldn’t do this. The sprites may have colorful depictions but in Secret of Mana it had more lush detail with better animation. Another better example is how it doesn’t even stack up to Capcom’s Breath of Fire’s visuals. BoF1 got many things right in its graphics with detailed environments (way above the B title average) and battle sprites that had actual animation. Taito should’ve been aware of Square's and Capcom's designs who were known to push a system’s capabilities. Rating: 7.3/10 Story The theme is probably the strongest thing about the plot as this is reminiscent of those end of the world arcs involving four destructive beings. You take control of an unnamed hero who is the decedent of a legendary warrior called Maxim. According to the opening he fought these four powerful beings called the Sinistrals. They are warriors of Chaos and Destruction and used a powerful mystical floating island known as Doom Island. A hundred years has passed since the battle between Maxim and the four Sinistrals but now they have returned. Compared to more traditional JRPGs, there are only four major characters instead of being several. I did find the text to feel simplistic when compared against more popular titles like Final Fantasy IV or FFV. Then again this really was Taito’s first JRPG, so the story does show their inexperience. However, the characters did have several moments during the story like between Lufia and Jerin bickering about womanly things. Then of course we have the romance implied throughout the plot between Hero & Lufia and Aguro & Jerin. One of my favorite moments with Hero and Lufia is when she gets annoyed at him sometimes. Right at the start she straight up gets annoyed that he doesn’t eat her cinnamon pie. Well, it was more to do with him getting himself into a dangerous adventure. The surprising thing of the story was a plot twist when the reunion happens with the Sinistrals. The scene reveals Lufia is Erim the Sinistral of Death who got reincarnated. I also loved how its hinted at the beginning with her commenting on Maxim and Selan’s relationship. The first image showcases the story's best elements with Lufia and her relationship with Hero. The Pulifia Flowers theme playing in Lufia's moments highlights her and Hero at the same time thanks to growing up together. The part where its revealed that Lufia is Erim on a sunken Doom Island during the Sinistrals' reunion is the plot twist this story sorely needed. It might not feel ground breaking considering the above average story telling but I found this as a nice surprise. With that said, the story wasn’t executed properly as the characters were as wooden as wood could get. The characters of Hero and Aguro sometimes state the obvious in their dialogue most of the time. From what I gather from Aguro’s text is he's the muscle headed soldier of the group. The moment that sums this up perfectly is during the color Towers section to get into Elfrea. He replies after reading a bronze plaque of the puzzle “If blue was red, we’d be in big trouble!”. I always scratched my head at that and wonder if this muscle head was trying to make a joke but botch it instead. He’s immaturity was another thing you could add as the moron went as far as to mock Jerin by calling her slime with Lufia joining in. The Hero was basically wood itself since the guy said the typical things a bland protagonist would claim. I can’t think of any moments that made me see any relation to his personality other than he was the good guy. Of course, Lufia helped weave through his blandness since her comical moments helped the situations. It’s also interesting to note that the original main protagonists from a hundred years ago called Guy and Artea were presented later. The reason they appear again is because Guy was an elderly man in his 100s while Artea is an elf and this version lives a long time. It’s disappointing that they don’t add much to the plot except giving the current heroes their rub. I will say this about Guy, in his elderly age he still had that warrior spirit wanting to come out and fight the Sinistrals. The emerging behavior is what kills him, but you can’t help admiring a person to fight to their last breath. Artea was unable to help the heroes since he went blind in-between the Battle of Doom Island and the current era. The only thing the former elven warrior does is give Jerin his legendary bow and comments about how he almost thought Maxim was back based on Hero’s energy. About the Sinistrals' writing, it also suffers from wooden personalities through the story. It’s one thing for Gades to act as the muscle with little dialogue but for Daos (the leader) sure had a bland personality. If you were to compare Daos to Goldbez or ExDeath from the Final Fantasy games, he would come off like a cookie cutter version of them. The only member that gets the best treatment is Erim since she is reincarnated as Lufia and changes based on taking this new form. Rating: 7.0/10 Features/Content For the main quest, a play through will take about 15 to 20 hours to complete. One of these side quests includes exploring the Old Cave in Grenoble to collect treasures for the treasure hunters in the town. The Old Cave has about seven floors to explore and will only be available as Hero reaches a certain level. Another one is from the Dragon Shrine and its located west from the Kingdom of Herat and the NPC inside will exchange powerful equipment. To exchange for equipment or gain extra status points, the player must find and collect eight dragon eggs found in chests to receive the item. After collecting the first eight eggs the player can search for them again as the NPC will send them back across the world. Honestly, there was enough content to explore for a mid-tier game. The side quests were a nice option and it was great to have several hours added. The Old Cave is my favorite spot as I was able to find expensive equipment and even items like Revive and EX-Magic which were hard to come by. However, the Dragon Shrine did take a long time to finish because of finding these eggs randomly. The reward did make it feel worth the search as Hero and Aguro will receive powerful shields. Rating: 7.5/10 That's what I loved about 90s RPGs and the amount of content they try to load their games with. The Grenoble Cave with its many floors provided that extra quest a player often sort out if it meant getting that special weapon. Then there's the dragon egg collection quest and this gives the player many ways to get the most powerful equipment at the end. Lufia might not have that much content compared to other known releases like Final Fantasy IV but it still provides enough to engage one person. Final Rating Taito tried to cash in on the JRPG popularity during the early 90s but there was much to desire when using outdated ideas from 1986. The gameplay follows the traditional system of four characters as they adventure across the world to face evil. Of course, there were several problems in this area with no auto target. Party members could only attack a single enemy in a group randomly. If a group of enemies gets attacked by Jerin’s bow and Lufia’s spells is the sole way to hit them at once. Even then, it affects that party only and not the individual monsters alongside them. The spell names were the biggest issue as each name confused me at first. These developers did make a hint system, but I wish they could tell the players how to access the short descriptions. Lufia’s visuals really fall into the average category as the studio barely tried to get above the usual standards in this genre. There’s a reason the first Lufia is a B quality title because when a studio doesn’t try like the others then it’s gets regarded as such. It’s not a bad looking game by any means but when compared to bigger releases in the same category then more could’ve been done. Lufia’s plot centers around Hero being the descendant of Maxim and goes on a quest to stop his ancestor’s enemies of the Sinistrals. Unfortunately, what should’ve been a solid plot is often riddled with wooden personalities and obvious dialogue. The only thing this company got mostly right is the side quests between the dragon eggs and the Grenoble Cave. If you enjoy the early Dragon Quest entries, then it’s hard for this game to disappoint. Gameplay: 7.2/10 Graphics/Presentation: 7.3/10 Story: 7.0/10 Features/Content: 7.5/10 Final Rating: 7.2/10 Solid
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Retro Gamer has over 25 years of gaming experience and played many classics since the Golden Age. She has been an avid fan since the day the NES graced her life and changed it forever.
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