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Overview
Lufia: The Legend Returns was the first game in the series to be released after the series heavyweight, Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals, and was the first Lufia game on a handheld system, so expectations were high. In many ways, nobody was disappointed. Neverland pulled out all the stops in visuals, sound, and gameplay, delivering detailed dungeon and enemy graphics, memorable tunes and vivid sounds, and a flexible and in-depth battle system. The hitch was that the dungeons themselves were randomly generated. What this amounted to on the Game Boy Color was hallways and blocky rooms. The puzzles of Lufia II were gone, and the dungeoneering became more akin to Rogue. This was enough to make many gamers forget that the game was still very good. Lufia: The Legend Returns has great depth and replayability, and adds some fun twists to the classic RPG formula.
Story
In a small town like Patos, a strange woman entering town was somewhat of an oddity. Even more so was that she accosted Wain, the local monster hunter, and tested his skill with a well placed lightning bolt. Thoroughly put off, Wain declined her offer to go on some far-fetched quest, and instead went to see his friend and mentor, Ibla. However, their conversation was soon interrupted when a blast of energy shot down from the sky and incinerated a house. Wain rushes into the house and saves a trapped girl, but ends up passing out.
As Seena, the strange woman, nurses him back to health, she tells Wain about her quest to find the legendary Doom Island. This floating landmass serves as a flying fortress and superweapon for a group of four warriors who call themselves Sinistrals. They were defeated on two occasions in the past, but no matter how many times they are killed, they always return after around 100 years. However, Seena won't say what has posessed her to chase such a fearsome group of individuals.
As the sun rises on the next day, Wain and Seena start on the road to the Tower of Death, from where the energy blast had been reported to emanate.
Battle System
Lufia: The Legend Returns' battle system is an interesting take on RPG battling. Each character has a certain color of an attricute called Spiritual Force (SF). The color of a character's SF determines what stats will be updated when their SF level is increased. During battle, 9 characters out of the available 13 will be active on a 3x3 grid. The type and level of each character's SF will be shared along their row and column, thus giving each character bonuses from other characters' SF as well as their own. However, the real benefit of this allocation comes when dealing with IP Attacks.
IP Attacks
One of the Lufia series hallmarks are powerful attacks known as Infuriation Point (IP) Atacks. IP is accumulated as a character takes damage, and the amount of IP gained is roughly the percentage of HP that character lost. Each IP attack has a certain threshold of SF that a character must have in order to learn the attack. However, after learning an IP attack, that character can still use it even without the necessary SF, but at double the cost to their IP meter. This makes the structure of any party very important, as the SF needs to be spread around efficiently to the characters that need it in order to ensure that frequently used IP attacks can be used at normal cost. The later sections of the game require a well-functioning party in order to progress without many hours of grinding, so mastering party layout is a must.
