The island suddenly appeared in the sky. Let's Play Lufia & the Fortress of Doom!

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Battle of Doom Island
Chapter 1: Monsters in Sheran
Chapter 2: The One
Chapter 3: The Apprentice
Chapter 4: The Hope Ruby
Chapter 5: The Half-Elf
Chapter 6: Artea
Chapter 7: The Search for Professor Shaia
Chapter 8: The Tower of Light
Chapter 9: Alumina
Chapter 10: The Dual Blade
Chapter 11: The Winds of Glasdar
Chapter 12: Savior of the Earth
Epilogue: Priphea

---

I love this game!

Lufia & the Fortress of Doom (Estpolis Denki in Japan) is a roleplaying game released in North America in December 1993. Anyone who’s ever had a conversation with me knows that my childhood consisted of two things; Lloyd Alexander’s The Prydain Chronicles and Lufia & the Fortress of Doom. It was these two things that cemented my love for medieval fantasy. Lord of the Rings and Dragon Quest can take a hike.

If you’ve read a certain other thread I don’t need to tell you why I love this game so much. Sure, it’s not as technically impressive as some of the other games of its time, and it has its flaws, but I’m still hard pressed to name a game that I think has as much soul and charm as this title. I would probably name this as my absolute favorite SNES RPG and very possibly my favorite game of all time. It’s hard to overstate how much of an impression it left on me as a tiny child so many years ago.

But Solitayre! I hear you say. Surely you must mean Lufia II is your favorite! Lufia 1 is way worse!

Lufia II is great, no question, and I’d probably say it’s the best SNES RPG. But it’s not my favorite. But when players talk about being Lufia fans, they’re almost always talking about Lufia II. And I am of the opinion that it leaves the original criminally underappreciated. The only time I ever see this game mentioned is when people talk about how bad it is! This cannot stand!

That’s one of the reasons I wanted to do this LP. As great as the prequel is, it just doesn’t have quite the same charm, the same magic as the original. I imagine it would be different if I had played them in the reverse order. Since Lufia II is a prequel, a great many of its plot twists, including the game’s entire ending, are given away, and certain other story elements which might be a surprise to people who hadn’t played the original would be easy to predict for players who are already familiar with the game’s universe.

If you haven’t played either game yet, I’ll leave it up to you which order to play the games in (or let the Talking Time hivemind discuss it and influence your decision). But if you’re afraid of spoilers for either game you might not want to continue on, because the prologue of Lufia & the Fortress of Doom rather notoriously gives away the entire ending to Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals. So, you know, fairly warned you be and all that. I assume that pretty much 183% of the people interested in reading this LP already know the game’s entire plot, but for the sake of the hypothetical reader who is unfamiliar, I’d ask the spoiler discussion be kept to a minimum.

If you’re still here, great! I’m going to play this game and you’re going to watch and it’s going to be super cool! I hope you enjoy this game as much as I did so long ago!

Our first order of business; the hero of this game has no canonical name. So feel free to make suggestions as to what his name should be, and I’ll feel free to ignore them because they're silly!

We'll begin next time, with what many consider the best part of the game. If you've never played this game before, it would be an honor to introduce you to Lufia's legendary introduction.

To be honest, I've always named him Maxim. It's a bit lazy, but I can see him being known as Maxim the nth by virtue of his ancestors heroic deeds.
So I'd like to see him named something else this time.

I like most of the Lufia games, but it was the first that made its mark on me. I'm looking forward to this LP.
Everyday I'm Sundering.

We should name him Lufia. I've never played the games, but I assume the main character of the first game is the series' namesake.

I mean, it worked for the Metroid and Legend of Zelda games, right?

Y cant zelda bomb?

Fuck it, name him Zelda. #yolo

For a real brain-twister, name him Mixam. This leads to amusing instances of him being referred to as "Mixam, descendant of Maxim". Alternatively, spite his ancestor's silly name and call him Minim.

We already did that.

We sure did! And it's still funny.

Yeah, but let's face it, the hero of Lufia III deserved to be the Minimum. This one is way more competent. I mean, he's not nearly as strong as Maxim, but I have way too much affection for this particular hero to give him such a humiliating name.

I'll tell you what though, I shall continue the Talking Time tradition. I'll meet you halfway.


Perfect.

Wouldn't his name need to be Medim?

Maximum
Minimum
Medium

I'm okay with this.

Perfect name.

I like the flow of Medim better than Medi.

Midim.

I usually name him Max. Because the Mighty Max cartoon taught me the heirs/descendants of of heroes named "Maxsomething" should be named Max.

I vote Max.

There's no such thing as a Midimum, silly! Honestly, what would you guys do without me?

I did consider Brickroad's Zelda suggestion, though I likely would have gone with Link. My first thought was "Man, that would work better in Lufia II" since you can run around shooting arrows, laying bombs, and hitting switches in that game.

But this game does let you use arrows and bombs as items in combat, there's a magic flute, red and blue rings, a magical evil-slaying sword of plot advancement, a subplot where you gather the three magical gems...basically lots of parallels. Would have been good for a few jokes I'm sure.

First update will be this evening, most likely!

I like this suggestion.

And now we can never be friends.

That's what makes it even funnier! The series is full of nonsensical errors like that. Frue Destruction!

Prologue: The Battle of Doom Island



The Battle of Doom Island

The game begins with a very impressive and descriptive opening crawl, which sets the stage for the conflict between the Sinistrals, evil beings who terrorize the land, and Maxim, the hero who would oppose them.

Make sure to listen to that music link, it sets the atmosphere very well.

The ominous floating island in the sky is known as Doom Island, or, if you want to be all original japanese about it, the Island of the Void, which I think is way cooler. The localizers really dropped the ball on that one.




However, I do think the localization did change this one for the better. The "Sinistrals" are no mere mortals, they are literally gods. Their original name was "The Four Mad Gods." However, due to Nintendo's early nineties censorship standards, they couldn't be referred to as gods, hence, the name change.

Personally, I think "Sinistral' is much cooler; it's a more dignified, more intimidating, and more distinctive moniker than "mad god," which sounds like someone who would make it rain burning dogs or something like that.





The Sinistrals rain death onto the world from on high. Though many would challenge them, none would succeed. The world fell into darkness.


Until one brave band of heroes, wielding a legendary sword, stepped forth.



This is the very first thing that happens in the game. But this isn't the start of a story, this is the beginning of the end. This game does not waste any time, we just turned it on and there's already four heroes standing on the precipice of the final battle. That's right, we're about to go kill the Sinistrals right now.

Last Duel

Welcome to the Fortress of Doom, readers. This is no ordinary castle, but a shrine to the Sinistrals’ power. It resonates with dark energy. Just standing here is making the world’s greatest heroes uncomfortable.

If you’ve never played this game before, check out that music track above, as it’s one of my favorite tracks of all time.





A voice rings out in the darkness. The chief Sinistral, Daos, beckons to them. The final battle is about to begin…

Whatever your opinion on Lufia & the Fortress of Doom may be, pretty much every agrees that this prologue is pretty much the greatest in RPG history. While the opening crawl tells us of the great struggle that occurred between the hero, Maxim, and the four terrifying Sinistrals, that’s where most games would probably leave it. We’d hear about the bravery of the warriors and how they vanquished the villains, and restored peace to the world. In most games, that’s all you’d get.

Not this game.

In this game, we’re about to live it.



That’s right, my humble reader, we are now in control of Maxim and his party of heroes.

What’s pretty amusing about this scene is that, as I’ve mentioned, the exact same sequence of events plays out at the end of Lufia II. But here, the heroes talk fairly formally, the way you’d expect great heroes of old to converse. In the prequel, however, the characters talk much less formally. “Beware! It’s powerful!” becomes “Watch out, it’s pretty strong!” Not nearly as ominous!

Also worth noting is that Selan has a useless “Light” spell in her magic list for the whole game, entirely for the conceit of this one scene at the very end.

But yeah, like I said before, this sequence of events plays out exactly the same as the ending of Lufia II. If you don’t want the ending of that game spoiled for you, turn back now.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. We don’t even know who these heroes are yet! Let’s take a minute to introduce them, shall we?


Leading our brave band of heroes is Maxim, the world’s mightiest swordsman. He is distinguished in combat by his fiery red hair and his immense spiritual energy, powerful enough even to rival the godlike Sinistrals.



He wields the Dual Blade, a powerful sword that will have great significance to us later. He also wears the Wave Ring, a unique and powerful accessory. In addition to his powerful sword skills, Maxim also knows a wide assortment of white magic to heal and protect his allies.


This lovely lady is Selan, Maxim’s wife. Though in Lufia II, Selan was a spitfire swordsman who was equally capable with weapons and magic, here she takes the role of a pure sorceress. Not that this is a bad thing, as her magical capabilities give her some truly enormous damage potential.



Selan is a master of Fire, Ice, and Lightning spells. While she has no distinctive equipment, she wears the Flash Ring, which augments her powerful Lightning magic even further. Few enemies can withstand a blast from Selan’s Thunder Spell.




Maxim’s second ally is Artea, an elf and a skilled archer. My usual reaction upon seeing an elf is to punch him in his smug face, but Artea is a pretty cool guy, who aids Maxim with his wisdom and magic. His elven blood gives him great ability to sense spiritual energy.



With his unique weapon, Artea’s Bow, he can hit multiple enemies at once, and the HiDaze Ring gives him an impressive defensive boost. His greatest assets are his agility and his wide assortment of healing and support magic. Not that we’ll likely need much healing here; Maxim and pals are so damn powerful that few enemies in the fortress can challenge them. Artea rounds out his assortment of spells with Blast and Water magic. He’s not quite as powerful a mage as Selan (whereas in Lufia II, he was the game’s best mage) but he’s quite capable of holding his own. He also has the magic of “Warp,” but we can’t use it here.

As for why he’s wearing heels, well, that’s frankly none of our business.


The final member of our band is Guy, a powerful warrior. He knows no magic, but his strength and endurance are much higher than Maxim’s. He pays for these advantages with much lower speed and magic defense, but it’s a worthwhile trade off. Just look how much HP this guy has!


Wielding a powerful Zircon Axe and wearing the White Ring, Guy is a worthy ally to stand at Maxim’s side, even with out the aid of spell or sorcery. It’s a bit of a shame he doesn’t have his own signature weapon, though. Even Dekar got one of those!


As you can see, Maxim and his team came well-prepared for an epic struggle. They have more healing and recovery items than even a novice player would ever need.


But enough introductions, we have a mission to accomplish.

Maxim and his allies have arrived in the titular Fortress, and somewhere within waits the four Sinistrals: Gades, Amon, Erim, and Daos. No one has ever bested them in combat, though many have tried. Our search for the Sinistrals begins.

Last Duel

The Sinistrals were nice enough to leave a plaque here, explaining how to learn what a magic spell does. That’s oddly sporting of them.


Battle


Our first enemy encounter!

The enemies in the fortress are very strong. Efreets can cast powerful fire magic, and Mega Frogs have powerful healing abilities.


But Maxim and his allies are incredibly powerful themselves, and these enemies are no threat to them. Selan gives them a shot of her strongest ice spell, Glacier.



Triumph

Victory! Maxim even gained a level, not that he needed it. Maxim’s party outclasses these monsters so completely that they’ll often all be dead before they get a turn.



This next room gives us a Power Potion. These can be used to raise Max HP.



Maxim won’t stand for having less HP than the wussy elf, so he uses it. Sadly, it doesn’t help much.



Heading down the stairs reveals only one room.





Mind Potions can raise intelligence, Great Potions increase strength., and Speed Potions increase Agility. We’ll make good use of these later in the game, but they’re fairly useless to Maxim.



More enemies! Stone Golems are very tough, but Selan’s Thunder spell dispatches it handily. The Mad Knights are easily taken down by the others.



Mad Wolves can hit hard but don’t have much defense.



Nothing more down here, so let’s head back upstairs.



Spell Potions raise Max MP.



We’ve found all the treasure here, so let’s continue into the fortress.



Most of the second floor is just hallways, but there’s some treasure to our right.



Another Power Potion. Maxim uses this one too, but it’s a lost cause, especially since Artea gained a level by now. Poor Maxim is doomed to live the rest of his days knowing that a wussy elf is tougher than him.



This is probably my favorite room in any game. What would have been a perfectly featureless hallway is made majestic by the picture windows along the back. The Fortress is beautiful, it is own way.



Hydras are powerful enemies with a lot of magic. But like most things, they are very vulnerable to Selan’s awesome magical power.

Maybe you’re wondering what the point of all these useless enemies is. They clearly pose no challenge! Well, keep in mind, this is the introduction of the game. Essentially, this is where the player learns to play the game. And they learn it in an environment where they have access to the strongest weapons and magic, dozens of healing items, and enemies that pose no threat. It’s a great way to let the player experiment without much fear of screwing up.



Let’s continue our quest. The right hallway holds a Spell Potion. It’s pretty nice of the Sinistrals to leave all this stuff for us! Maybe they want us to get stronger? They seem to enjoy the idea of a good fight, it’s not like anyone else they’ve killed was much of a challenge…

Nothing left here. There’s really not a lot going on in this part of the fortress, other than that lovely window. On to the third floor!

Last Duel


The third floor of the Sinistrals’ Fortress. Check out that cool reflective effect in the floor. This game doesn’t get enough credit for its graphics.



Circling around the rear of this dais reveals two chests containing Miracles. Miracles are essentially the game’s “Elixer,” instantly restoring a character to full HP and MP, even if they’re unconscious. They’re very powerful. Maxim and crew already have a billion though.



More enemies! This time it’s Artea’s turn to show off some of his magic. The Flood spell is especially effective against the Efreets, who are weak to water.



The first level of the dais has a staircase leading to these useful healing tiles. Or at least, they’d be useful if Maxim and crew weren't already wielding magic that could full heal their entire team. And more MP than they could ever use. And hundred of healing items.



It’s time to continue on. At the top of the dais is a shrine to the four Sinistrals. These guys are so vain they actually have stone idols of themselves. I doubt they see many worshippers up on their flying sky island full of horrifying monsters though.



We push on to the fourth floor. We’re very close to the Sinistrals now. Let’s circle around this glass bridge first.



There are three treasure chests circling this yawning abyss. They all contain miracles. These are the final treasures of the fortress.



We’re still getting hounded by monsters though. Selan demonstrates her fiery Vulcan spell. It’s much cooler looking than it appears here.





Here, we encounter a strange chasm. Daos assures us that it is perfectly safe. Seems legit. Sign me up for believing everything he says.



Selan is apprehensive. But Maxim recognizes this for what it is; a test of willpower. Daos is the Sinistral of Terror, you see, and can sense their fear. It wouldn’t do to let him know that they’re afraid.



Guy concurs, and crosses. He won’t show fear in front of the Sinistrals, or his friends!



Artea is a bit less brazen than Guy, but he knows that his people are counting on him. As the greatest hero of elvenkind, he has a responsibility to uphold.



Selan still doesn’t like this, but Maxim reassures her. So long as they hold the Dual Blade, there is still hope for victory. This is the first time the heroes have mentioned the Dual Blade, and it’s the last we’ll hear about it for a while, but suffice it to say that it is a sword of such limitless power that even the gods speak of it with reverence and fear. Whoever holds it has the power to shape the destiny of the world. If there is hope of defeating the Sinistrals, it rests with the Dual Blade, and its wielder.



Maxim and Selan promise each other that they will stop the Sinistrals, no matter what. Together, they cross the chasm.




Daos is impressed by their bravado. Instead of fear, he senses their hope.



Selan needs to redeem herself for her apprehension earlier, so she tells Daos off. This would be a ballsier move if Daos were actually here, and she were saying it to his face.



Erim comments that she can sense the love between Maxim and Selan, a very powerful source of energy unknown to the Sinistrals. Lufia II delved a bit more fully into the concept of love giving a person power, but it’s not given much consideration here; Daos handily dismisses it.



And who has time to talk about silly things like love anyway? We’re here to make war, not love. Let’s go kill some gods.

We’ve reached the Sinistrals’ lair. That’s right, kids! We’ve been playing this game for about ten minutes and it’s already time to fight the final boss! This must be a pretty short game. These are the four Sinistrals, masters of doom, scourge of the land, and the main villains of this game. Clockwise from top; Daos, Erim, Gades, Amon.



Daos is pleased to finally meet Maxim face-to-face, apparently he’s heard of his exploits, and comments that Maxim might be the first worthy opponent he’s ever faced. Maxim gives the usual spiel about the hopes of his people riding on him, he swears to exact vengeance, etc. One wonders how many times Daos has heard this one by now.



But hold your horses, Maxim! You don’t get to fight the final boss first. That’s just not how things are done around here.

And thus does the first Sinistral, Gades, step forward.


Boss Battle

Gades is the Master of Destruction, a powerful warrior clad in black armor. The Sinistrals don’t get more than a few snippets of dialogue here, but Lufia II delves a bit more into their individual personalities, and reveals Gades to be a fairly arrogant and bloodthirsty warrior, who enjoys challenging people weaker than him and crushing them beneath his self-righteous boots. Gades is the weakest of the four Sinistrals, but still powerful enough to decimate entire cities, so he’s certainly not to be trifled with.



Gades basically only has two moves: hit, and hit harder. To that end, Artea uses his Courage spell to raise our physical defense. Not strictly necessary, since Maxim and friends are so powerful, but let’s at least pretend that the all powerful God of Destruction is a threat.



Gades is very weak to Thunder magic, and takes even more damage than most enemies. This doesn’t slow down his offense, though.




Artea's attacks aren't very effective against the Sinistrals, so he'll spend most of his time casting support magic. Here, he'll cast Trick on Maxim. dramatically raising his attack power. Buff spells are very powerful in this game, as they scale with your power; the stronger you are, the more effective the buff will be.



In the end, Gades isn’t a very challenging opponent, and falls to our attacks.




Our defeat of Gades doesn’t deter the other Sinistrals. After all, he was the weakest one.


Boss Battle


The next Sinistral, clad in some seriously stylin’ golden armor, is Amon, the Master of Chaos. Due to a localization error, he was mistakenly referred to as the Master of Terror in this game. However, the other games in the series correctly refer to Amon as the God of Chaos. Daos is the Master of Terror.

Amon sometimes gets a hard time for being the least interesting Sinistral, but he’s actually my favorite. In Lufia II, more so than the others, Amon had a personality and an agenda of his own. He was depicted as resourceful and clever, often being the one to think ahead and outwit the heroes at their own game, and he enjoys manipulating mortals. He even attempted to unlock the powers of a mysterious shrine to augment his own abilities! He’s certainly far more proactive than, say, Gades or Daos, who basically do nothing but blow up random cities for no reason. As far as the Sinistrals go, he’s the third strongest, being considerably more powerful than his brother Gades.



Amon is not much of a warrior, but a magician, and has two tricks up his sleeve; the Flood and Sunder spells. There’s little functional difference between the two, both hit our whole party and no one in the group has any particular elemental weakness. But it’s worth using Maxim’s “Protect” spell to raise our team’s magic resistance.



Amon is weak to Fire. But it’s fairly pointless, as due to Selan’s Flash Ring, her Thunder spell does more damage.



Amon has some powerful spells, but he’s probably the easiest Sinistral. He just doesn't have much damage output.



Really, all of the Sinistrals are pretty easy. But I think this is how it should be. Keep in mind, this is the very beginning of the game and I wouldn't want it to be hard. It's perfectly okay to let the player feel like an awesome badass and destroy opponents easily sometimes. I wish more games embraced this kind of design.

Erim isn’t impressed. To her, we’re just the latest in a long line of heroes who were always destined to fall here.


Boss Battle


This is Erim, the third Sinistral and Mistress of Death. Erim is easily the most complex of the Sinistrals, being the most inquisitive and introspective of the four. She attempts to test Maxim several times over the course of his journey, but we’re given no hint of this rather complicated plot in this game; Here, Erim barely seems to know Maxim’s name. As the Goddess of Death, she can revive the other Sinistrals if they fall in combat. This means that killing her is essential to victory.

I really like Erim’s look; the quasi-Greek goddess outfit she has on. The Sinistrals have some really great designs in this game.



We’re a little banged up after our last two battles, so Artea will give us some relief with the Valor spell, which will fully restore all our HP.



Erim is a bit trickier to beat than the other Sinistrals, due to her enormous magic defense. This means we can’t just spam Thunder for massive damage and call it a day, which renders Selan mostly useless.



Erim’s Thunder spell, on the other hand, is deadly. Note how much damage it did to Artea, who has decent magic resistance. She'll also occasionally cast the Dread spell, which lowers defense, but Erim's physical attacks are pathetic.



Erim can dish out punishment better than the other Sinistrals so far, and with magic useless, it’s up to Guy and Maxim to destroy her.



Which, of course, they do without much trouble.


You’d think maybe Daos was getting lonely, if Sinistrals could feel emotions.



At last, with three Sinistrals vanquished, only one remains. Daos congratulates Maxim on his performance, but insists that his little band has no chance of defeating him. And so begins the final battle.


Boss Battle


Man, check out that gorgeous cape. So stylish…

Ahem… Daos is the Master of Chaos Terror and the most powerful of the four Sinistrals. Daos’ main advantage over the other Sinistrals is that he is, in fact, so powerful that ordinary weapons cannot harm him. Only the Dual Blade is capable of slaying him. In Lufia II, Daos was portrayed as very haughty, having a massive superiority complex. Perhaps most amusingly, he was also a very sore loser and threw truly impressive temper tantrums when he didn’t get his way. And by “impressive” I mean “genocide.”

This portrayal clashes with the personality he has in this game, though; he tends to remain calm and collected at all times. Even watching his comrades get cut down right in front of him didn’t seem to bother him.

In Lufia III, he was a serial killer, which is a pretty messed up thing for a god to do.



Fortunately, Daos lacks the powerful magic resistance his sister had, and Thunder spells will take out huge chunks of his HP.



Daos is the most powerful Sinistral by a long shot. He is a very strong spell caster, much stronger than Amon, and he wields the Vulcan, Flood, and Glacier spells. His Vulcan spell is capable of axing off 100 hp on our whole party per shot. He’s the only Sinistral with a snowball’s chance in hell of actually taking us down.



We’re winning, but Daos’ high powered magic spells are taking their toll. Artea decides he better heal Guy up with the Champion spell, which restores all HP to one member.



It’s a pitched battle, but eventually even Daos, the mightiest Sinistral, finally falls to us. And none too soon; Selan came out of that fight in really bad shape! Eh, I’m sure she’ll be fine…

Wow, we did it. All four Sinistrals vanquished! That was easy!



Okay, I take it back. Daos is still kind of a sore loser.



So…what? This is your final trick? A staring contest? That’s stupid, no one in this game is animated to blink!



Oh.

Energy waves are a pretty important concept in Lufia cosmology. Every being, from the lowliest human to the mightiest god, resonates energy waves. In Lufia I & II, they are represented by rapidly rotating rings of light. The faster they move, the stronger the wave.

The Sinistrals here are combining all their waves together. Which is bad.



The Sinistrals are beings of pure energy. By combining all their power into one continuous flow, they can create an energy wave so powerful it will wipe out a party even as powerful as Maxim’s. I guess they never really had a chance after all.



Guy is really smart.



Maxim attempts to solve this problem by punching it. Doesn’t take. We might actually have to use our brains for this. We better think of something fast though. Artea seems to think that this combined energy is enough to wipe out the whole planet!




Our only option is to fight fire with fire. Maxim, Selan, Guy and Artea all gather their spiritual energy into an aura to combat the Sinistrals’! This is terribly dangerous!

We don’t have any other choice, though. If we don’t disrupt that wave, the Sinistrals will destroy everything!





Crap, it looks like our feeble skills are no match for the power of the dark side Sinistrals.

Looks like we’re going to have to use the Force Spiritual Force…

Hey, it’s my LP, I can make whatever jokes I want.



Alright, this is it, the final climax. It’s them or us!



Don’t be a wussy.





Everyone, say it with me now.

“You little hoochees!”



..3…

…2…

….1…


WHAM.



Maxim’s aura successfully disrupts the Sinistrals’ energy wave. The chamber shudders, the force of energy is so strong that Selan, Guy, and Artea get tossed around the room like ragdolls.




The Sinistrals flicker for a moment, then vanish, their energy completely annihilated.

It’s over.

Spoils of War

That you did, sir! That blast sent everyone else flying, though. We should probably make sure they’re alright.



Guy is unfazed by the energy blast. Or at least faking it. There’s no way he’d ever show weakness in front of Maxim.



Artea, on the other hand, is definitely faking it, as we’ll learn later.



Huh…it looks like Selan is not even bothering to fake it.



Wait, Selan, no! I take back what I said about being a wussy!




Aww….


Last Duel


Suddenly, the fortress starts shaking, and the glass bridge Guy and Artea are standing on starts collapsing. Oh no! They’re trapped!



Oh right, Artea knows the Warp spell. That’ll do the trick!



Well that just sucks.





I always felt like Guy was being a little craven here. I mean, he’s making the right choice, logically, but abandoning a close friend to certain death isn’t the kind of behavior you expect from a legendary hero. Of course, Lufia II reveals that both Guy and Artea have families to go home to, so it gives a little more context to his desire to survive.



I always really liked Artea’s little good bye, here.



In the end, Maxim can’t bring himself to abandon his beloved Selan to death alone. Considering he and Selan have a child together, he’s essentially deciding to make his son an orphan.

Maxim is kind of a dick.







And so does Maxim’s tale end…

I didn't go into a whole lot of detail in this part, simply because this isn't the story we're here to explore. Maxim's tale is much better documented elsewhere, in Lufia II.

But it’s easy to see why people hold this part of the game in such high regard, since it’s such a powerful storytelling device. In most games, you’d only hear about some legendary hero’s exploits in retrospect. Here, you do battle from his perspective. The world, villains, and rules of the setting have been established, we’ve learned how to fight, what all the good magic and items are, and got to slaughter our way through a fortress filled with monsters and feel like a total badass while doing.

We’re thirty minutes into the game, and we’ve already stormed the villain’s castle, killed four evil gods, saved the world, made a heroic sacrifice, and we haven’t even met our protagonist yet.

Nice to see you got some use out of my gifs~

The brilliance of that opening just can't be overstated. It's like Symphony of the Night except the game being referenced didn't even exist, yet the effect is still totally convincing.


I think "Mad God" is more intimidating, at least; the idea of an omnipotent being gone nuts is pretty scary.


One other subtlety lost in translation is that Erim is the god of slaughter, not just "death." That is, her domain is specifically the taking of lives.