I

f you’re new to RPGs, you likely tend to think of Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior. If you’ve played RPGs for a while, you may think of Chrono Trigger or Secret of Mana. If you fashion yourself to be an expert tome of RPG knowledge, maybe you think of Treasure of the Rudras or Tales of Phantasia. And if you’re in this last category, you probably hate Lufia.

Lufia & the Fortress of Doom came silently onto the SNES scene in 1992 after years of RPGs most would call mediocre, like Drakkhen and Lagoon. For the few who had a chance to experience it, it became one of the most beloved RPGs of all time.

In the early ’90s, Neverland Company was had just formed, with dreams of being a successful game developer. Their first project on NEC’s PC-98 computer systems, Felrose, unfortunately went unpublished. The team began work on a second title that would be an RPG called Esteel.

Partway through development, the SNES became the rising star of the RPG world, and Neverland decided to enter the SNES business. They migrated some of the story, concepts and art from Esteel to this new project, and Estopolis, also known as Lufia, was born. Taito agreed to publication of the game and Neverland had a chance to prove itself as a development team.

There was very little promotion in magazines; Nintendo Power didn’t even run a page on it. Look it up in the Nintendo Power Index (came with issue 50), there’s not even an entry for Lufia while it covers a whole year past its release. Most rental chains did not even stock it. You were lucky to find a single copy of it in one of four Blockbuster Video stores.

Gamers were left to discover it on their own, but for those who did, it left a big impression. This writer can’t count the number of times he’s talked to someone about games and brought up Lufia, and watched his or her face lit up as they exclaimed, “Oh, I remember that game!”

As the game begins, four vicious gods called Sinistrals are giving the planet a severe ass-kicking, so the four strongest warriors from Estopolis have gathered together for the world’s last strike and last hope of survival.

The player controls the four heroes, who have insanely high levels for the upcoming battle. Maxim, Guy, Selan and Artea fight valiantly against the dark gods and manage to defeat them, but with great cost. Selan dies from injury in the battle and Maxim stays behind with her as the others escape (you can beat Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals if you want to know more about this).

Thanks to their efforts, peace reigned over the land for a century.

One hundred years from their battle, the people became lax with peace. The young hero of the game and his childhood friend, Lufia, have spent their happy days in Alekia, a kingdom founded by the descendants of Maxim. One day in the inn, rumor circulates among patrons about a tragedy that struck Sheran kingdom to the north. The hero leaves to investigate and comes face-to-face with the reincarnated Sinistral of destruction, Gades, who mops the floor with him.

Lufia and the hero set off on a journey to learn why the Sinistrals have returned, and how to stop them before they can resume their path of destruction.

While it may seem standard RPG fare, the story is just the framework for gameplay. The real theme behind Lufia is love, something the composer, Yasunori Shiono, states he had a hard time conveying in his music, because for love to mean anything, the game also had to have its opposites: sadness, suffering and anger.

Yasunori rose to the challenge, and produced one of the best soundtracks of the SNES’s early years. It easily transitions from powerful, adventurous numbers like the overworld theme, to more tender music, like Priphea Flowers (Lufia’s theme) and the music for small villages. The theme for port towns is fast and upbeat, and really conveys the bustling activity one would expect of a port. Likewise, the goofy melody of Raile Shaia’s theme gives that eccentric inventor feel that fits his character.

If any two tracks stand out from this game, they would be The Fortress of Doom (played, of course, in The Fortress of Doom), and the ending tracks which connect into each other, A Reunion, And … and Journey’s End. The ending of the game is far more beautiful and happy than any of its sequels would ever achieve.

Lufia’s soundtrack is something of a midpoint between soundtracks of the old Nintendo Entertainment System, and the later years of the SNES. On one hand, it has the extreme catchiness classic NES music did, but with the sophistication and ability to create the mood like later SNES titles.

The graphics complemented the story and music extremely well. Neverland chose very bright and lively colors for the game, very different from what is used in most SNES RPGs. The lively palette feels more like the kind you would see in a PC-Engine title by HudsonSoft, as opposed to the more washed-out coloring used in games like Final Fantasy III and Paladin’s Quest.

As an RPG, play control isn’t much of an issue. The game features a cross-menu system for battles, similar to what would later be seen in Sony’s Wild Arms series. It’s quick and easy to navigate, like an RPG should be.

If there’s one thing Lufia lacks, it’s challenge. It’s very easy to walk through the game within 24 hours of play (assuming you don’t collect all the sets of Dragon Eggs). There are a few puzzles to trip you up here and there, but they’re by no means the focus they became in the series’ later installments. It’s fairly straight-forward and linear.

One thing must be said about this game, and that is the censorship job that was pulled on it. Lufia was one of the last titles to get smacked hard by Nintendo of America’s famed censorship department. In Castlevania, crosses became boomerangs. In Lufia, we see a lot more.

To start with, the Holy equipment was all renamed to “Carbo,” and “Death” became “Gloom.” But censorship is not limited to items. Throughout the game, there are “cider” stores. These were all originally bars, where you could purchase rum, vodka, gin and whiskey, which could then be used in battle for effects. Did it seem dumb when the pirates drank “Sour Cider” and had their strength increase and accuracy decrease? That’s because it was supposed to be rum.

Similarly, on Forfeit Island, the shop on the second floor had scantily-clad women in bunny costumes, and the store sold Bunny Ears and Bunny Clothes–not a Gown and a Ribbon. That just kind of gives that scene a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?

Lastly, all the churches were removed and replaced by … I can’t tell what it is and nobody ever says. It appears to be run by an old man … or an old woman. I can’t really tell because the sprite replacement wasn’t very detailed. The priest in his red robes is long gone, as are all the crosses in his church.

The translation also suffers from some rough spots which confuse the script. Originally in Sheran, Gades says about Lufia, “That woman … she’s …” In the English version, the spirit of Conan the Barbarian comes over Gades as he grunts, “YOU! WOMAN! YOU!”

Nitpicking aside, the translation is very good. These are just small, infrequent issues to be aware of, and certainly nothing in the face of the job done on Final Fantasy II. They really shouldn’t take away from the reader’s enjoyment of the game. They certainly didn’t take away form this writer’s enjoyment of the game in ‘92, and they still don’t today.

In the world of RPGs, replay value is always one of the biggest problems. Lufia & the Fortress of Doom is like a good book you can return to, year after year, every time finding something old and something new to enjoy. If you haven’t had the chance to experience its magic, I hope you give it a chance. Maybe you too will become a yearly visitor to the land of Estopolis.

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Originally published at The Second Dimension.