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Lufia
II: Rise of the Sinistrals (SNES) |
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Review by: kain50bc
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Reviewers Score:
9 / 10
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Posted: February 24, 2006
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This was the second RPG I ever played,
after Breath of Fire 2. I wasn't impressed at the time, comparing it to
BoF2 but I returned to it a year later when I learnt it isn't all about
graphics. What a great choice!
Graphics: 8/10
Very bright and colourful! Probably the brightest I've seen. Everything
looks slick and glossy. But there are a lot of setbacks in this
department. The characters and almost all the monsters (besides the
later ones) look very cartoonish and.. ugh 'cute'. I mean... the giant
killer mosquito's have big round eyes! What's happening there? The other
thing I noticed was that the characters had no 'emotive animations'.
Like when you play the Final Fantasies, BoF's et cetera they usually
have a 'surprised' sprite or a 'laughing' sprite or even just an action.
Lufia has none. All emotion is displayed through the script. Although
the speech bubbles change between thoughts and words which adds
slightly.
Sound: 10/10
Very good music and sound effects here. All the spells have different
animations and sound effects. Weapons have different noises, for
instance a big chunky sounding slice with an axe swing or a shwoop noise
for arrow's. Also some of the puzzles are sound based so you need to
listen carefully.
Gameplay: 10/10
Storywise, it's nothing considerably new. A mysterious light has landed
near your humble village and you, Maxim the monster hunter leave to
investigate the growing number of fiends in the area. Heard this story
before? Although it DOES have its own fair share of twists and romances.
But you don't play this game for the story. In this it's all about the
dungeons and their puzzles. This game is the owner of the 'Most
difficult puzzle' of any SNES game ever (perhaps any RPG ever?). Maxim
has a variety of tools he can find and use throughout the game to help
him overcome obstacles in dungeons, arrows, bombs, a hookshot and more.
And all the puzzles are fun and challenging, and sometimes frustrating.
Luckily he has a nice spell called Reset which places everything he'd
done in the room back to how it was when he entered (except searched
treasure chests).
And of course Lufia has its own share of random encounters. But not so
random anymore. Building on 7th Saga's idea of being able to see enemies
(on a radar in that game), Lufia 2 has made it so you can see enemies
and if you wish (or sometimes NEED to), paralyze them with an arrow.
Also you can control your chance of getting a pre-emptive strike by
attacking from the side or rear. Of course, the same goes for if the
monster attacks you from that directon. And monsters only move when you
move, or depending on which type, may take 2 steps for every one of
yours. Or vice versa.
And lastly, there are capsule monsters. Capsule monsters are funny
little things which help you fight in battle. They change form if you
feed them weapons, armour or whatnot and they like them. It's a little
buggy though and you may go through a lot of money trying to increase
their growth to maximum. But it's very fun.
Replayability: 7/10
With so much to do you may find yourself playing this over and over. Oh
and theres also a dungeon in one place called the Ancient Cave, which
has 99 levels and changes everytime you go there!
Overall: 9/10 Not to be missed by any fanatic RPG gamer |
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