Personally, for me this is IT. My most favourite game of all time. Sadly though, this game has not appeared on the radar of many gamers and has a kind of “special insider tip”-label nowadays. If you are considering playing this game, let me give you some reason why you should do so without hesitation.

Lufia II – Rise of the Sinistrals is a prequel to Lufia & The Fortress of Doom and one of the rumours floating around the internet – which is also a reason for the lack of this game’s exposure – is that you already play through the ending of Lufia II at the beginning of Lufia I. However this is only roughly true. Complicated yet? No??? Well let us see what we can do about that. Lufia I takes place a hundred years after Lufia II. As an introduction Lufia I begins with the final battle of Maxim (the legendary hero) and his companions against the Sinistrals (yep, the obligatory bad guys), after that short sequence you play as Maxim’s descendant through the rest of the game. Lufia II allows you to play as Maxim himself and witness what happened 100 years before Lufia I. So yeah, the ending of Lufia II is just the beginning of Lufia I, right? Wrong! Just to give you a comparison, while the beginning of Lufia I makes you eager to play the game, the ending of Lufia II is not unlikely to give your lachrymal glands a run for their money! Character development is the keyword. The characters in Lufia II are wonderfully drawn. You have so many happy, sad, funny etc. moments in this game, that it will really absorb you into its own world. And isn’t that what a good game is all about? And btw, knowing who Dekar is belongs to every gamer’s general education. ;)

On to the gameplay. Lufia II is a classic RPG with turn-based battles. They are animated and fast paced so it is not likely to get boring any time soon. It has a total of seven playable characters and only four at a time can be in your active party. Besides that you can encountered so called capsule monsters (Pokemon anyone?). There are seven of these non-human companions in the game and they support you in battle but are not controlled by the player. (On a sidenote: You can feed these capsule monsters and with enough food they evolve into a different form and they also have a secret final form, try figuring out, how to get those!) The overworld of Lufia II is huge (many towns, castles and dungeons) and can be explored by foot, boat, submarine and airship. Another fantastic aspect are the menus, they are so well structured. You can instantly see which equipment in-/decreases what stats, switch between characters and compare how the equipment works on them in comparison to the other characters and so on. In other RPGs I have often missed such an effective menu-system.

The graphics are good-old school RPG graphics with a lot of details. Not en par with for example Chrono Trigger, but still really enjoyable for lovers of the older RPG graphic style.

The music in this game is fantastic!!! There are so many pieces that will not leave your head any time soon even though you have turned of your SNES long ago. For every mood there is the right track and the final battle music is beyond epic.

Then there are the puzzles. Lufia has many of them and some will really require your brain to push some heavy weights. It is so much fun. (And try to solve the “World’s Most Difficult Trick” and see why the name is no exaggeration!)

The story appears standard at first sight but as stated above, the characters make the difference! You do not just have a group of people traveling the world and fighting a Big Bad but you have travelers and fighters that are human and face the situations in different manners and develop uniquely. If you look for a game that will end in a happy “OK you saved the world – FIN”- moment do not pick this up because the end of this game will most likely give you mixed feelings!

The main story part alone is likely to take you over 35-40 hours of playtime and that is even without the sub quests! You have casinos with various games (Poker etc.). Then there is the sub quest with the egg dragon. You have to collect 7 dragon eggs and he’ll grant you a wish (Dragonball anyone?). And prepare to face the strongest enemy in the game after you bring him the 7 eggs a fourth time! And last but not least there is the legendary Ancient Cave. This is a huge dungeons with 99 floors of which 98 are randomly generated. But be warned, there are only stairs that lead down and only if you find Providence in a treasure chest or if you are defeated you will leave. You can find some of the strongest equipment in the whole game in the Ancient Cave but also super-strong enemies that appear nowhere else in the game.

For me this game always had a huge replay value because of its diversity. If you finish the game you will be given the option of starting a new game but this time the amount of EXP and money the enemies drop has quadrupled and maybe now you should try taking on an enemy that you are not supposed to defeat at first meeting and see what happens. If you finish this play-through a third option appears: Gift-mode. In this mode you will focus solely on the Ancient Cave and beating it. Only here you have the option to create your own unique team consisting of characters that were previously not playable at the same time. Or you can even go into the Ancient Cave accompanied just by your capsule monster (Are you suicidal, or what?).

Lufia II is not a gem but it is a mine full of gems. For me video games have never gotten any better than this. If you have the opportunity to try it, give it a go as soon as possible.