Of all the games one might think of when one thinks of classic SNES RPGs, Lufia has to spring to mind. It may not be the peak of 16-Bit graphics or sound, but it has an epic storyline, character whom you care about, and high amounts of fun during the journey. This is a game where, at times, you can't predict what is going to happen next.

If you are a RPG vet., you may notice a trend in the RPG world of similar plot lines. It may even get frustrating when you get another mysterious female and an unlikely hero teaming up to save a world. The thing is, Lufia was one of the first to have this sort of plot line. The plot itself is great. It truly shows the extent of how older RPGs can have plots that would take 3 or 4 CDs if they were remade today. You start the game getting a bit of back-story.

You begin in a fortress with a group of four strong, well trained, and powerful warriors. They are here to defeat four evil beings known as Sinistrals. The Sinistrals are evil super-beings who want to take over the world with their dark power. They live in a fortress on the floating island named, and quite appropriately so, Doom. Maxim, Selan, Aretea, and Guy, the four adventures whom you start out playing as are the planet's last hope for salvation. To make a long story short, after a brief amount of time fighting random monsters for the basic purpose of learning the innovative battle system, you come to the Sinistrals. Though your victory, at this point, isn't assured, you defeat the Four Sinistrals; Gades; Amon; Erim; and Daos with relative ease. But after the battle, the Sinistrals make one last ditch effort to destroy the world by merging their powers around the four heroes. The heroes then merge their own powers and destroy the Sinistrals. Unfortunately, in the blast, Selan is knocked across the crystal bridge you walked over to get to the Sinistrals and dies. Maxim, heartbroken at his love's death, doesn't react in time to get with Guy and Aretea who end up on the opposite side of the now collapsed bridge. With Maxim's go ahead, Aretea casts warp magic on himself and Guy and transports away from Doom, never to see Maxim or Selan again. Maxim stays with his fallen love and dies as Doom Island crashes into the sea. The world was saved and the humans began to lives peaceful lives.

The game fades out and opens again 90 years later at an inn. A young boy, who you later find out is a descendant of Maxim, walks into the inn. Then, out of nowhere, a young, blue haired girl wanders into the inn. The friendly boy introduces himself to her and asks her name. She eventually replies and says her name is Lufia. The pair then goes off and plays tag, while in the mean time, the innkeeper wonders who the girl was exactly. The game then fades in 9 years later with a more grown up version of that boy and Lufia. The boy, by the way, has no default name, which I suppose makes you relate more to the upcoming main character because you named him yourself. The game moves on from that point after the boy, who has become a knight, catches wind of monsters attacking a nearby city.

The sound and music in the game are fairly good. The music sets the mood fairly well, but is very repetitive. The sound effects are pretty good too, but don't really differ from weapon to weapon. The character's sword hitting an enemy sounds much like the same character's later hit with a club or a bow. The graphics are somewhat simplistic, compared to today's RPGs. But for the day and system, they are good. It is much like other games in that only the main characters and special NPCs look different from the rest of the NPCs. But, overall, the graphics are well made.

The battle system is innovative. In battle, you have five options of what to do. To select the options, you simply move the control pad to whichever option you want and select it. In battle, you can either Attack, which is represented by a square with a sword graphic inside it; Defend, which is represented by a square with a shield in it; Run, which is represented by a square with a stick figure running in it; use an Item, which is represented by a square with an open treasure chest in it; and use one of the many magic spells, which is represented by a square with a staff in it. When you use either the item or magic options in battle, a menu is brought up with whatever items or magic spells you have at that character's disposal. The default option for battle is attack, which is located at the center of the control pad shaped cross that controls your battle. The battle system is a "wait" style system in which you have unlimited safe time to choose how you want to attack. The attack order and when you choose how to attack with each character depends on the character's speed.

You can only save at save points and with priests, who are in many towns and other town-like locations. In many dungeons where a difficult "boss" battle is going to occur, you will find a save point and sometimes a HP and MP restore point as well. There is a menu you can activate from wherever you are at the time, aside from in battle, which gives you access to your items, spells, equipping, battle formation, and item and spell sorting. In this game, you decide where you want your spells to be located in the spell menu. To talk to others and use items in the world, you just hit one button on the control pad. There is no run key, which is one of my complaints about this game. You walk rather slowly compared to other games. It seems to take forever at times to get from point A to point B.

The weapons and armor are, for the most part, bought from stores. You will find pieces in caves, which usually means they are special weapons and armors. There are three basic types of shops. Weapon shops, which sell the city's supply of weapons; Armor shops, where you can obtain armor; and item shops, which you'll find to be very useful indeed. With weapon and armor shops, you have four options when you get the buy/sell screen, Buy, Sell, Exit, and Look, the last of which allows you to see how a weapon or piece of armor affects your character's stats before you buy it. Item shops do not usually have the Look command enabled, but on occasion they will if the shop sells an item which can be equipped. There are also inns and church-like buildings in most towns which you will find yourself visiting an awful lot. The inn will, like in many RPGs, fully cure the HP and MP of all living characters for a nominal fee. The inns will not revive a fainted teammate. Also, the inns won't heal some status abnormalities, such as being stone. Priests can revive a fainted friend; lift curses when you have the misfortune of equipping a cursed item, and save your game. Reviving and removing curses have you paying a small fee, while saving is a free option.

There are many sub-quests within the game which can illuminate the backgrounds of different characters. There are also a few mini-games, such as a cave within which you go treasure hunting. The end of the game, not to give anything away, doesn't have a true feeling of ending, in that it does end up leaving a few questions unanswered. You will meet two of the four heroes of the "Battle of Doom Island" during the game. They will be of some help and tell you information you will need. The game, overall, is great. It is an RPG which can be a good break from the darker-seeming ones of today. I give it an overall score of 85%. I'd recommend this game to new RPGers and RPG Vets alike.