For awhile, Taito teased a third Lufia entry for the PlayStation. However, development was shift instead to the Game Boy Color, and the end result is significantly different from the SNES entries. Lufia: The Legend Returns is focused almost entirely on dungeon crawling, and drops almost all of the puzzle elements. The game's visual style is much more anime influenced, and also features the first display of blood in the series.

Characters

Wain

The main character. He is your standard Big Dumb Fighter. He even has a running joke around the character's stupidity, with villains (and other possible party members) calling him stupid, with him objecting.

Seena

A fortune teller, adventurer, and spell caster. She is the straight-woman to Wein.

Dei

A thief who steals from people who he finds evil, cruel, or unworthy, to give to the poor.

Aima

A monk who joins the party after her mentor was kidnapped by a group of bandits terrorizing her town.

Randolph

A vassal of Princess Melphis, and an elderly swordsman who specializes in dual-wielding.

Melphis

A princess exiled to a haunted lighthouse who joins the party so she can see the outside world and help her people.

Mousse

A capsule monster (like the ones from Lufia 2).

Deckard

A pirate with a mysterious past (who is secretly Melphis' older brother).

Ruby

A female gambler with a habit of cheating who has a sentimental streak.

Yurist

A wanderer, poet, doctor, and powerful warrior.

Isaac Shaia

A third generation scientist and inventor.

Milka

An elf who was a minor NPC in the first 2 games, and who is now promoted to full party member status.

With the shift back to dungeon crawling comes a change to the way the dungeons are designed. Now each level of the dungeon is randomly generated, and changed every time you revisited a level. Even when the party ascends back out of the dungeon after completing their objective, the levels they were re-traversing would be different then they were when they came back through them the first time. Each level would have hidden treasure chests, either in secret chambers which could be found by slashing specific areas of the walls, or underneath shrubs in the various rooms in the dungeon. There would also be traps as well, which could stun the party, confuse them, or deal damage. As with the earlier games, though, the player can see monsters in the dungeon, and attempt to avoid them with some skill.

The party size in the game has increased to more than all of the earlier games in the series, with a sum total of 9 characters being available in the party at one time, divided between 3 columns of 3 characters each. During each turn in combat, one character per column can act. Characters in the front and back ranks can be targeted by enemies, and the party is defeated if their 3 front-rank characters are defeated.

Lufia: The Legend Returns also overhauls the skill system. In Lufia II, a character's IP skills were determined by the weapons they had equipped. This game, on the other hand, uses a somewhat more traditional skill system. As the party explores dungeons, various chests will have Ancient Scrolls, which allow characters to learn IP Skills. Different skills can be learned by different characters. Which characters can learn which skills appears to be based by concept (thieves can learn sneak attack and theft related skills, female characters can learn cooking, etc.). IP skills can be used once the character's IP meter has built-up enough to use the skill. More powerful skills require characters to level up their Spiritual Force, a concept new to this game.

Each character has a different color of Spiritual Force: Red, Green, Blue, or Yellow. Each kind of spiritual force provides a bonus to different abilities. Red increases Strength and general attack skill, Blue increases Intelligence and Wisdom (and thus magic attack and defense power). Yellow increases a characters MP and Agility (which determines when they act). Green effects HP and defense abilities. Each character has only one type of Spiritual force for themselves. The Spiritual Force of characters can also flow between them based on their formation - characters in the same row and column share Spiritual Energy. Characters can increase their spiritual energy by using Learning Points (which are different than Experience Points). If the player changes the party's formation so that a character doesn't have the same SF levels they needed to learn a specific skill, the IP cost to use that skill will increase.

As the party wins battles, the party's shared pool of Learning Points increases. In addition to spending LPs on Spiritual Energy, they can also be used to purchase new spells, instead of using money, as with the first two games, from the priests in each town. Thus, the player has to manage their Learning Points based on whether they want to get new spells, or increase the Spiritual Force of various party members so they can learn a new skill, or otherwise increase their abilities.

In general, while the story in this game is presented just as well as earlier titles in the series, the shift in focus to dungeon crawling doesn't work very well, and makes playing the game somewhat dull. Further, the way the dungeons work doesn't lend them well to to portable gaming. Ultimately, while this game isn't terrible, it's not great either. Fans of the series will be disappointed by the lack of the puzzle dungeons from the second game, and people who are new to the franchise will likely similarly find the dungeons too tedious to be fun.

Lufia: The Ruins Of Lore returns the series to the puzzle-dungeon style game-play of the second game, along with re-introducing the capsule monsters from 2, and adding a new job system to the title. The game's story is set 20 years after the events of Lufia II. It's considered a side story - the Japanese title is Estopolis Gaiden since it doesn't directly involve the Sinistrals. With the discovery of various ancient ruins tied to lost civilizations, groups of people called Hunters (essentially licensed adventurers) go out to explore these ruins for fame and fortune.

Characters

Eldin

The main character, who has set out to become a Hunter, like his absent father before him. His dungeon traversal ability is the ability to cut through bushes in dungeons.

Torma

Eldin's childhood friend, who took the Hunter exam with him, and who is incredibly loyal to his friend. His dungeon traversal ability is the ability to cross gaps with a grappling hook.

Rami

Eldin's other childhood friend, who took the Hunter exam separately from the rest of the party. She tends to bicker with Torma like an old married couple. Her dungeon traversal ability is the ability to thaw items or destroy them with fire.

Rubius

Rubius - A priestess who hires the party to help her open a portal to the "Promised Land". She at no time takes part in combat. However, she does have a special ability to read Ancient Text, which in turn can provide hints to puzzles.

Bau

A guest party member who is half-beast, half-human, and who is rejected by human soceity. His special ability is the ability to smash walls and barrels with a hammer.

Dekar

Returning from Lufia II, Dekar joins the party as a guest member to provide some muscle. He does not have any traversal abilities.

Lufia: The Ruins of Lore (henceforth Lufia Advance), from a gameplay standpoint, is very close to Lufia II. Dungeons are navigated essentially the same way, with the player having special abilities that allow obstacles to be by-passed and secret areas found. However, like the later remake of Lufia II for the DS, these abilities are tied to party members, instead of items collected through dungeons. Perhaps the two biggest changes are the way how Capsule Monsters work, and the skill system.

In Lufia II, players could find capsule monsters in dungeons - either in side areas in the main dungeons, or through smaller areas found while exploring the world map. Once these monsters were found, they would take part in combat, acting on their own, and leveling up with the rest of the party. These monsters could evolve into new forms by being fed items from the character's inventory. In Lufia Advance, on the other hand, the game takes a cue from the Pokémon series. Almost any monster in the game, aside from boss monsters, can be captured by party members using capsule items. These monsters can then be tied to one of the main party members. They'll receive a share of experience from combat, and their relationships with party members will build, the longer they're with those party members. Once each monster levels up a certain degree, it can be evolved into a new form by being fed a fruit tied to that monsters elemental ability (Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Light, and Dark).

Also, unlike in Lufia II, where each character had an IP meter that was tied to special abilities for their weapons, here the IP meter allows characters to install or fuse with a monster they have a good relationship with. This combined monster has considerably higher defense than normal, and also is able to perform some potentially devastating special attacks.

Lufia: Ruins of Lore (Game Boy Advace)

Furthermore, rather than letting the player purchase spells from shops, Lufia Advance uses a job system, similar to the Final Fantasy series. There are six basic jobs that characters can take: Swordsman (like the normal Fighter), Fighter (like Monk), Thief, Priest (White Magic user), Mage (Black Magic user), and the Chemist (which focuses on inflicting poison and status effects on enemies). Each class gains abilities based on the amount of experience that characters have gained. Further, five of these classes also have an advanced class the characters can graduate into after they've mastered the base class. Swordsmen can become Knights, Fighters can become Brawlers, Thieves can become Rogues, Priests can become Bishops, and Mages can become Wizards.

The Ancient Cave has also been changed. It's still a randomly generated dungeon, but only Eldin and his capsule monster can go inside. Players can only take 10 items (or types of items) with them when going into the Ancient Cave, and it's possible to start at any previously reached floor. However, Eldin cannot leave the dungeon without using an item called the Providence, which is randomly dropped in treasure chests or from bushes. Also, if he falls in the Ancient Cave, all the equipment that has been brought in (including equipped items) is lost.

Another significant change is the way navigation in the world works. In all the earlier games in the series, you traveled the world in the traditional RPG fashion - navigating towns & dungeons and various other areas, and then going between them in an overworld area, where there were also random encounters. In Lufia Advance, you travel from area to area through routes, each of which is essentially like a dungeon. Once a route between two areas is cleared, you can then freely warp between the cities (or routes, if you want to grind), without the use of any special items. However, as part of this, the game makes exit items particularly scarce. If you need to exit a route or dungeon without the use of an Escape Ball, you need to have learned a specific ability from the Thief class. This, combined with MP restoration items also being scarce, can add some additional difficulty to the dungeons.

Mechnically, Lufia: The Ruins of Lore is very good. It maintains the puzzle dungeons that made Lufia II fun, while making capsule monsters even more useful. The Job system also makes things interesting by allowing for a multitude of play styles. However, it's missing a certain something compared to Lufia II. The characters aren't as fun, and the story really lacks the drama in something like Maxim and Selan's inevitable sacrifice to keep the climax interesting. The music is also extremely forgettable. Perhaps this is because the game was not developed by the folks behind the first three Lufia games, but was instead handled by a company named Atelier Double, whose works mostly consist of assorted outsourced projects of little interest. The English localization was also handled by Atlus rather than Natsume. The experience isn't as rich or as memorable as its predecessor, but as far as Game Boy Advance RPGs go, it's still worthwhile.