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

Field

Back to Grenoble. In order to keep you from losing track of your ship, the Falcon follows you whenever you warp. Of course, warping to certain landlocked locations like Medan or Ranqs can result in the ship being stuck in a less than useful location.


Cave

We've already been to the fifth level, so finding Cooper will be no problem for us.



You can find him here, in the last room of the chamber, perhaps looking for the Golden Pawn that we already took. This was probably a disappointing trip for him.





Say what you want about Cooper, but he's more than willing to cut his vacation short when he hears that his friend Raile needs him.



Uh, guys, he's standing right there.



Hells yeah! I like this guy already. Good to see people who can get things done.





Oh, well, that's okay, we always have a half-elf-shaped contingency plan within arm's reach.





Incidentally, if you were wondering if this whole ordeal was to check your party's level and make sure you were an appropriate level, you'd be wrong. If you come to the Spring Basement, the clerk will arrange to let you access the fifth level regardless of your level.

Personally, though, I have a really hard time imagining a player making it this far into the game at less than level 20. Only insanely low level runs or single character challenges would likely make it this far. The Dark Ghost would probably eat most parties of that low level alive.

You may also point out that this whole excursion to find Cooper in the Old Cave was completely pointless filler, and you'd be right, but I don't mind it. It reminds a player who may have long since left Grenoble behind and never looked back that there are more levels to the Old Cave, and they should probably check them all out!

Speaking of which, we're ready to take on the sixth level of the Old Cave, and very close to taking on the seventh. But we'll return Cooper to Carbis first. You can't access any new levels of the Cave while Cooper is following you. (Maybe because he's too low level, ha!)

Shaia Labs



Raile and Cooper no doubt have a lot to talk about, but there's no time to waste. We've got science to do!



Cooper helpfully points out that Raile never actually finished building the Falcon which is why it leaks and would sink if it stayed underwater for too long. He suggests locating something called Alumina to fix it.



No other metal will do it. The Falcon needs to be light, since it can fly, and needs to be rustproof, since it can go underwater. Only a very specific kind of metal can meet these specific requirements.



And so we are given our next elaborate fetch quest. The Falcon can't be repaired until we locate seven pieces of Alumina to patch up the holes.



Alumina is very rare, but fortunately Raile and Cooper know a fellow named Brant who's a pro at finding it, so sends us off to consult with him in Linze.

Taking all bets as to whether Brant is actually in Linze or not. Taking all bets.



Anyway, Linze is beyond the Tower of Light, and it is totally landlocked so it can't be reached by the Falcon. So here is where we're actually prompted to visit the tower, and now the boss will appear at the top of the tower.

But before we go, let's finish clearing out the Old Cave.

Village

The clerk sends us off to level 6 in search of the Miracle Gem, and compliments our bravery in a somewhat linguistically-questionable way.


Cave

Level 6 should be full of the same types of enemies we've already faced near Bakku.



Lufia's lightning magic handily demolishes armor-clad foes.



She gains the “Protect” spell, which raises the party's magic resistance. This is a very good spell and it's a great way for Lufia to open a boss fight.

Something weird is going on in that screenshot. Can you see what it is?



The usual array of treasure awaits us.



Floor 6 of the Old Cave is the first floor to incorporate multiple levels into its design.



This tower shield is really nothing special, I just took a screen of it because useful item drops are rare.







Medi hitting level 30 means we're ready for Floor 7 after this, which happens to be the final level of the Old Cave, and contains a very useful item.

Of course, this level has useful items too...



The Miracle Gem is what we came here for, but the real prize of this level is the Blast Ring.



Combine this with Lufia's “Blast” spell and you can kiss good-bye pretty much any random encounter from here to the end game.



Of course, Lufia only knows “Bang” still, but it still hurts a lot.



We turn in the Miracle Gem, and prepare to take on the final level.

The old Cave presents us its final challenge. Find the Crown Jewels and we'll be the world's greatest treasure hunter!


Cave

Floor 7, the final level. Strangely, even though the guy was very specific in saying no one has ever made it this far, there are still empty treasure chests on this level.


Battle

The critters here are nasty. You might remember these creatures from the fortress of Doom in the prologue. As far into the game as we are, these monsters are still several regions away. They're much stronger than what we're equipped to deal with, and very dangerous.



Get used to seeing that, for instance.



These Stone Golems are stone-cold bastards, and they're very hard to damage. Not only can they petrify us, but they can also do a busload of damage, as Medi's face-planted self can attest.



Sometimes, discretion is the better part of valor.



Megaturtles might be the worst of the lot. They can come in packs of four, and they dish out a lot of damage.



Hydras aren't too bad, as they cast a variety of mid-level magic, which is actually less horrifying than what some of the other monsters in the cave can do.

Hydras have a very, very small chance of dropping a “Might Sword” which is the single strongest weapon in the game. But I've never seen it happen.



I don't think there's anything special about Griffons, but I included a shot of one anyway.



Defeating these foes nets an awful lot of gold and experience. The money is especially nice since we still have stuff to buy in Frederia.



A lot of the items on this floor are stat potions. But there's one extra special treasure to find.



The Wind Flute might be the most prized find in the entire Old Cave. It competes with the Blast Ring, certainly, but this wonderful item is truly a blessing.



The Wind Flute provides around 90 HP worth of healing to the entire party when used in battle. And it can be used infinitely. That's unlimited free healing for the whole party, forever. Moreover, it's powerful enough to keep up with almost any amount of damage. If we had this, the Dark Ghost would have been a pushover.

The Wind Flute is a great way for Jerin to spend her turn if she doesn't have anything better to do.



We also find a powerful Buster Sword here, which Medi will wield for about five minutes.



In the final corner of the cave, we find the Crown Jewels.


Village

10,000 GP richer, the Old Cave staff declare us the greatest treasure hunters of all time. That's it, no more Old Cave. Nothing left to do now but get back into the main story.


Shopping

Back in Frederia, we have so much money now that we can afford to outfit everyone properly.

We can even afford to buy Lufia a Catwhip, which is her best weapon but there's no point in her ever using when she has a Blast ring on.

We'll upgrade Medi's Buster Sword to a Carbo Sword, at which point the Buster Sword is sold, finds its way to Forfeit Island, and will be purchased by a spikey-haired mercenary about four years later.

Port

Okay, Bakku again. The old man said he had the key to the Tower of Light, and we could borrow it if we needed to get to Linze. No problem!



Oh &^%# me! One of the all-knowing old men has gone rogue.



Yeah, well,we already climbed that tower already. We'll just head back, pay the old man a beating, and be on our way.


Shopping

There's nothing to buy in Bakku that's better than what we have, I just wanted to point out that Plate Mail really does have a 5,800 GP price tag. Did you think I was kidding?



We'll go ahead and sail to the Tower of Light this time, and admire some of the aquatic wildlife along the way.



Lufia finally learns the “Blast” spell, which is the second tier of Blast magic. With the Bast Ring on, she can now effectively demolish most anything that crosses our path.



Observe.



Jerin also learns the Boost spell, though it's fairly superfluous now that we have the Wind Flute.



The fourth and final entrance to the warp shrine is also east of the Tower of Light.


Shrine

Helpful as always, old one.


Field

You can actually see Linze from here, but we can't reach it. This tiny cave passes beneath Linze and towards the town of Marse, to the north.


Cave

There's not much of note in the cave but this treasure chest and a pack of horrifying hell demons bent on my destruction.

We have no business in Marse yet, so let's clear out the tower.

Okay, Tower of Light, for realsies this time.


Tower

The far end of the bottom floor reveals a locked door that we need the key to open.



The theme of the tower of Light is invisible pitfalls in the floor. Sometimes they're traps, but other times they're necessary to find certain items.



The Tower hides these two rings. The Sea Ring makes us strong against sea monsters, but Jerin already has that handily covered. The Undead Ring would have been nice for the dark ghost, but I don't think there are many undead enemies for the rest of the game, so both these rings are nothing more than vendor trash!


Battle

Oh look, this knight thinks he can cast blast magic. How cute.



Lufia will show him what real Blast magic looks like.

Lufia's magic lessons do not have “pupils.” Only “victims.”



It is a science fact that clowns and half-elves are bitter enemies.



A pile of delicious treasure chests lies just out of reach. How do we get there, you may wonder?



I'm sure this suspicious-looking room is unrelated.



The Power Gourd is just a lure of course, the real point of this room is the hidden pitfall.



It drops us into easy reach of all these delicious treasures. Most of this stuff would be quite good if we weren't already wearing gear well above what we'd normally have in this region.





The top of the tower is now occupied by the evil old man. I was hoping we could just intimidate him into giving up the key, but this dude looks pretty hardcore. And wizardly. Our wizard can demolish everything that stands in her way with a wave of her her hand, so maybe we should prepare first.



The best strategy for Lufia in the late game is typically to wear the Blast Ring for normal encounters and the Flash Ring for bosses.

Tower

As previously mentioned, in addition to the standard “old man” sprite, there are also two types of wizardly old men in the game; good wizards, like Flake, and evil wizards, like this guy.

As at the North Tower near Belgen, this guy is busily at work reviving the Sinistral Amon.



“No no, Sinistral of Chaos! Didn't you read the pamphlet at the entrance?!”



While no doubt all-knowing, this particular old man has no interest in bequeathing his limitless knowledge unto us, and decides to kill us instead.


Boss

Have I mentioned lately how much I adore the monster designs in Lufia? Here we are fighting a for real wizard with a long white beard and everything. So badass.

The Guardian was known as “God's Sage” in the Japanese release, and I can only assume “Tower of Light” was similarly censored from something godly and divine. Of course, the gods in Estpolis are all bastards, so a tower devoted to them is naturally a place of macabre sacrifice, dark power, and evil clowns where mad wizards come to invoke dark rituals for the revival of the God of Chaos.

Note that this is the second time a minion has explicitly referred to Amon being the guy signing his checks. Among the Sinistrals, only Amon, being the Master of Chaos, takes much interest in meddling with mortals, since his power explicitly is to influence the behavior of men.



Lufia leads off with Protect, since- and I'm just going out on a limb here- I bet this guy uses a lot of magic.



Even though this is the first boss since the Dark Ghost, the Guardian makes his damage output look absolutely pathetic by comparison. The Guardian is by far the mightiest enemy we've ever faced. Being all-knowing, he possess powerful magic of Fire and Ice. The only reprieve from his onslaught is if he casts the 'Dread' spell. Dread reduces defense, but the Guardian has no physical attacks, so it's essentially a wasted turn.



Of course, we've come a long way since we faced the Dark Ghost. We have reliable party-wide healing now, and Lufia's magic attacks can actually deal damage now.



All in all, the Guardian isn't a hard boss if you have the Wind Flute. Despite his overwhelming damage output, we just have too much healing for him to ever really threaten us. What he needed was some sort of status ailment to cast, as opposed to the useless “Dread” spell. He could have benefited from pulling out a stronger spell as his HP diminished, too.


Tower

But no matter, what's done is done. I'm reasonably sure this is the first time in the game that we actually killed a human.

But hey, we had to do what we had to do, right? The Tower of Light is clear, we got back the key, and Amon didn't get revived! Kind of weird that there wasn't even a sacrifice this time, right? Either way, I'm prepared to call that a pretty successfu-



FFFffffffffffff-

Lufia II: Four Sinistrals

I don't know, but ominous, disembodied voices are rarely a good thing.



Well, the Guardian was trying to revive Amon...



and now there's a mysterious voice gloating about being revived...



and apparently the voice is friends with Gades...



Oh snap it's Amon what were the odds?!



Also making his first appearance since Sheran, Gades arrives to attend his brother's resurrection from the dead. This is the first time he's dared show his face since Lufia chased him off at Sheran, so obviously he did what anyone would do and told his big brother on her, and now they intend to confront her together, playground-style.



Gades is getting a little lippy now that he finally has some backup from another god to help him deal with these pesky teenagers.



Aguro, of course, has the best idea, and conveniently points out that there's three and a half of us versus only two Sinistrals, and the odds are only going to get worse from here. Best take them out while the taking's good!


Lufia II: Sinistral Battle

Alright, for real boss fight time! You know how this works, Gades stomps on our face to demonstrate how strong the Sinistrals are, but if you're really strong you can-



Uh oh.










….Go team!

Lufia II: Four Sinistrals

So, it seems we totally failed to live up to Maxim's legacy, and the two weakest Sinistrals were more than a match for Medi and his band of heroes. Tough luck, catch you guys in Lufia III.



Oh, it seems Amon wasn't trying to kill us for some unfathomable reason. Instead, he just swats us like flies because apparently he has better things to do than kill his greatest enemy.



Aww, man! He's like, the worst one.



Completely content to walk away without finishing the job, again, Gades and Amon vanish to wait for Daos to return, presumably because they're tired of speaking for themselves.

This is the second time they've let Medi live when they could easily have killed him.


Tower

Medi is no stranger to getting his ass kicked by Sinistrals, but makes sure to check on everyone else. The first time is always the worst, guys! Even Maxim lost to Gades the first time they met! (Optionally.) Of course, Maxim kicked his ass the second time, and Medi is higher level than Maxim would likely be at that point...





Aguro asks a fair question. Based on the stats of the group as is, fighting Gades and Amon right now, our team could probably defeat Gades fairly handily, given his inability to deal any kind of party-wide damage. Amon, on the other hand, would be leagues above anything we've ever fought, and defeating him would be very difficult.



Daos, on the other hand, could probably turn us inside out. By no means are we ready to face the Sinistrals yet, and there's still two more on the way.



Getting the Dual Blade is our only hope. If Daos comes back before we have it, there's not a whole hell of a lot we could do about it.



The stakes have never been higher. With two Sinistrals back, our quest grows ever more urgent. We know what we must do.



Time to embark on a long fetch quest, that's what!

Next time: Blue Skulls, Red Wolves, and Purple Newts

So hey guys, remember back towards the beginning of this update, I speculated that Raile was the most talkative person in the game after our four PCs? Well, I decided to test that theory.

I tracked down a text script of the entire game, and, using a highly scientific process (Ctrl+F) I checked approximately how many lines each character had in the game. Here's the list of people with at least twenty-five lines.


Medi: 456
Lufia: 277
Aguro: 133
Jerin: 92
Raile: 67
Daos: 49
Artea: 33
Roman: 32
Flake: 31
Guy: 26
Maxim: 25

I expected Medi would be the most talkative person, but not by such a wide margin (nearly double what the next most talkative person has). But a lot of his lines are merely exposition, or him repeating something that someone else just said to him, to prompt them to elaborate.

I was fairly surprised to see that Aguro talks a lot more than Jerin.

Notable people who did not make this list: Selan (who was tied with Maxim right up until she died), and any Sinistral who isn't named Daos. If you combined all of Gades, Amon, and Erim's number of lines, they'd still only be half as talkative as Daos. Whatever, it's not like any of those three are actually important.

I love Forfeit Island and I prefer to not remember Alumina Hunting.

gee i wonder where that could be

Nah, it's not Soshette, although it has a lot of gear similar to Frederia. The best armor is for sale in Arubus, which can only be reached by flying.

I never knew about the Wind Flute or the hidden Might Helmet! (And now I've missed them both in my play-through.) Wild!

You can't miss the Wind Flute, just go to the 7th level of the Old Cave and it will be there. You're never locked out of any levels of the Old Cave.

The Might Helmet is one of the most cleverly-hidden items I've seen in any game, however.

What about Erim?

one assumes she just straight up slaughters everyone

No, Erim is totally creepy. As the Goddess of Death, she knows the exact moment every human being will die. She likes to appear to great heroes and tell them exactly how they will meet their end.

Sometimes, she likes to be there when it happens.

Surely he is referring to Erim's exploits as both Iris and Lufia, hanging out with Maxim's friends and family, even saving their lives, or helping them save the lives of others.

Hey guys, as some of you know I have been facing a minorly serious health issue the last few days which has slightly impaired my update schedule. I apologize for this and will happily refund all of your $0 entry fees.

Not to worry, though, I have another diversion to entertain you instead. For you see, I have a burning desire to know the truth to the greatest question of all time.



Two dooms enter, only one doom walks away alive.

100% Doom Castle. One of the best songs from one of the best soundtracks.

Fortress of Doom. Doom Castle may be the more technically impressive track, but Fortress of Doom still sends shivers down my spine. Even this version.

I've been called here to vote on this. Doom Castle is totally better!

f o r t r e s s O o f O D O O M

This is actually pretty tough.

Doom Castle
This song is simply awesome. It sounds amazing, and it flows through so many different moods. As a piece of music, it is clearly the superior choice. It makes me rock hard. Interpret that any way that you wish, it'll still be accurate This song is badass, and everyone knows it. It makes you know it.

Fortress of Doom
There's one area that this song is completely superior to Doom Castle, and it can be summed up in one word. Ambience. This song is the penultimate "The final battle is approaching" song, in my mind. It just captures the atmosphere of the location that is "The Fortress of Doom" so much better than Doom Castle. You know you're in the Sinistrals house when you hear this song. And it doesn't fall short in the department of being an awesome song, itself. On the contrary, this song is awesome.

At the end of the day, my vote goes to Fortress of Doom. Both songs are awesome, but I'm not really somebody who listens to very much video game music outside my video games. In the context of their environments, Fortress of Doom simply hits home a tiny bit better than Doom Castle. They are both strong competitors, however.

Fortress of Doom!

Nooooo Doom Castle is totally better! This poll is just posted in the wrong topic.

For his next trick, Solitayre will go to the Sonic forum on GameFAQs and ask if Sonic is better than Mario.

Hey, I love both these songs, I am totally unbiased!

I honestly expected Doom Castle would win in a landslide. It still might!

Come on, now. Fortress of Doom.

But hey, Mystic Quest has a really good soundtrack. This is new information to me.