Lufia & the Fortress of Doom, or Lufia 1 as it's more
commonly known, is actually the sequel to Lufia II. I know
it's kinda backwards but that's just the way it turned out.
You play the part of a descendant of the hero in Lufia II
Maxim. The basic story is that once again the 4 evil
Sinistrals have returned to wreak havoc on the land. You, a
descendant of Maxim must fill his shoes and once again
defeat the Sinistrals before they take over. In fact the
story follows a very similar path very much like Lufia II.
Just not quite as in-depth.
Graphics [7.5/10]:
The graphics in Lufia are nowhere near as good as the
graphics in Lufia II. But yet the game does share a very
similar look and feel to Lufia II just the same. Not much,
if any, use of Mode 7 and the detail found in Lufia II just
isn't there. And don't get me wrong, the graphics are still
fairly good as compared to most other early SNES games, but
if you're like me and had just played through Lufia II you
are in for quite a let down in the graphics department. A
score of 7.5 was being nice.
Sound and Music [8/10]:
The music is typical Lufia music but I just didn't find the
soundtrack in Lufia 1 nearly as catchy as Lufia II. You will
immediately notice the similarities but too many of the
soundtracks sounded alike in the game for my taste. I found
that after being in one place for too long a period of time
that the music began to become a tad annoying. The sound
effects, however were generally good overall. The good thing
being that they didn't adversely effect the background
music. So many of today's RPGs crank the sound fx up so much
that you can hardly hear the actual musical background
track. Lufia however did a good job of molding the two
together.
Gameplay [8/10]:
My one real gripe about Lufia 1 was the combat system. I
missed the use of the IP command found in Lufia II and it
took me awhile to get used to the odd selection order. I
didn't like the active-battle-type selection. I much
prefered the combat system found in Lufia II where you chose
commands for everyone in the party at once instead of
waiting for the computer to let you choose intermitently
during combat. And not being able to zero in on one enemy
was also a pain. The sword moving quickly between enemies
made it near impossible to attack one enemy in particular
and at times got my party defeated. I will also say that
combat in the game was sometimes frustratingly unbalanced
especially early in the game. Even enemies in the beginning
of the game were at times tough to beat. And my last gripe
was that it seemed like every other step I took in the game
I was attacked by an enemy. It often became a bit
frustrating especially on lengthy trips. Not nearly as
balanced as Lufia II. But overall the combat system was
adequate but not much more than that. Maybe it would have
been better if I had played this game before Lufia II.
Challenge and Replay [8/10]:
The game, although supposedly geared at beginners, was very
challenging. Not nearly as long as its sequel, it made up
for that in quantity and difficulty of battle. The game does
have replay value in the fact that you can replay the game
in a kind of game + mode that makes beating the game much
easier the second time around. But if I had to give my
honest opinion, playing through this game once is enough. If
you want to play another Lufia game definately pick up part
2...it's leaps and bounds ahead of this one. But I must say
that any Lufia fan will definately enjoy this game. It was
still a very enjoyable game.
Conclusion/Overall [8/10]:
Overall any fan of the Lufia games should play this game.
It's really a good game. It's just not Lufia II which was
kinda what I was hoping for. The game is a bit on the
difficult side at times and you will spend the majority of
your time doing battle but in between you can expect typical
Lufia storyline and a better than average soundtrack. I
would reccomend that you play this game before playing Lufia
II if you have the choice as you will definately appreciate
just how much better Lufia II is and you will be thanking
the developers for fixing the things that needed to be
tweaked. But overall a great RPG that shouldn't be missed.
