Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals



In the small town of Elcid lives a man named Maxim. He is but a simple monster hunter who works for a woman named Tia, his childhood friend. One day, on a trip to the caves near the town, Maxim meets a mysterious green haired woman named Iris, who tells Maxim to go on a journey. With Tia following close behind him, he learns of the Sinistrals, four mighty gods who seek global domination. Now on a quest to defeat the Sinistrals, Maxim meets Guy, Dekar, Selan, Lexis, and Artea, who aid him along the way. Eventually, the heroes make it to the Fortress of Doom and fell the Sinistrals. Maxim and Selan fall with the Isle of Doom, but they live on through their legend and their descendants.

Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals is the second in the Lufia series and the prequel to Lufia and The Fortress of Doom. The conclusion to the game was known by anyone who had played at least ten minutes of the first game, but the game's whole story had more to tell. In addition to adding onto the story of the Heroes of Legend, Lufia II got rid of the random encounters from the first game, and brought in monsters you could see on the map. Said monsters would react to the movement of the player and could even be frozen with use of a tool. The game also introduced puzzle dungeons to the series, which are similar to those seen in the Zelda games. With a series of tools (and the Reset spell) at the player's disposal, Lufia II's dungeons were more than the typical dungeons of J-RPGs. Combat was also changed; gone were the ineffective attacks of the first Lufia, and in its place was the IP (Item Point) system. As characters take damage, their IP increases, allowing them to use powerful abilities. The player could also find a series of pets to raise that would aid the heroes during battle. These additions would help make Rise of the Sinistrals the most critically acclaimed of the series, though it would not be enough to make the series a mainstream giant like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. It has, however, become a Cult Classic, and is generally considered by fans as the high point of the series.

This game provides examples of:

 * Action Girl: Selan in the first half.
 * Action Mom: Selan in the second half.
 * All Your Powers Combined: Pulled off by the Sinistrals.
 * Ambiguous Gender: Though the first game made it clear Artea was male, the second was a bit more fuzzy on this matter. Official artwork didn't help much either.
 * The Archer: Artea, though he can use other weapons.
 * Artifact Title: This game has no Lufia or anything to even do with her, except in The Stinger, which contains dialogue from its predecessor.
 * Badass Normal: Guy.
 * Battle Couple: Maxim and Selan.
 * Bittersweet Ending: The world is saved, but Maxim and Selan, who are both Doomed By Canon die.
 * Block Puzzle: There are many. Very many.
 * Boisterous Bruiser: Dekar and Guy
 * Bonus Boss: The Egg Dragon.
 * Call Reception Area
 * Childhood Friend Romance: Tia, an Unlucky Childhood Friend.
 * Control Room Puzzle
 * Cosmic Deadline: The game is noticeably rushed in the end.
 * Cursed With Awesome: Played with when it comes to cursed equipment. After having a priest remove the curse, the item can be freely equipped and often ends up boasting even better stats than when it was cursed.
 * Cutscene Power to The Max:
 * Degraded Boss
 * Evasive Fight Thread Episode
 * Faux Action Girl: Tia.
 * Fill It With Flowers: Lexis does this for a little girl in his hometown, and leaves the party in order to do so.
 * Flower From the Mountaintop
 * Foregone Conclusion: If you've played the first game, you know how this will end, since you've already played it.
 * Four Is Death: The four Sinistrals. Bouns points for
 * Game Breaking Bug: If you Press Left on the Stereo/Mono setting it affects your stats giving you 999+ to almost everything and it takes in inordinate amount of time to display the battle results and save/load. In the American version, the Submarine Shrine and are graphically trashed.
 * Genius Ditz: Dekar.
 * Global Airship
 * Guide Dang It: Some of the puzzles.
 * The Hero Dies
 * Heroic Sacrifice:
 * Hopeless Boss Fight: The first fight against Gades. You get a sword if you manage to beat him, although that's difficult without New Game Plus.
 * Hundred Percent Completion: After the ending finishes there's a statistics screen, and one of them displays X out 164 chests you have opened in the main game. (Ancient cave chests are counted separately in its own page)
 * I Am Left-Handed: Gades.
 * Innocent Flower Girl
 * I'm Crying but I Don't Know Why: Tia at the end, because of.
 * Jack of All Stats: Maxim.
 * Keep the Reward
 * King of All Cosmos:
 * Love Cannot Overcome
 * Metal Slime: Cube enemies.
 * Minigame Zone: Forfeit Island.
 * Money Spider
 * Mons / Monster Allies: The capsule monsters.
 * New Game Plus: EXP and Gold earned in NG+ is x4 the normal amount. (Except the Ancient Cave).
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Secondary Character: Subverted? Apparently, if Maxim died fighting Gades, instead of, the world would've been at peace, and the events of the second half of this game and the rest of the series would've been averted. But it was Iris who told Maxim this, so is it the truth?
 * Noble Demon:
 * Obfuscating Stupidity
 * The Obi Wrong
 * Only Smart People May Pass
 * Preexisting Encounters
 * Physical God: Multiples of them!
 * Puzzle Reset: The very handy Reset spell.
 * Random Encounters: Only on the World Map. Averted otherwise.
 * She's a Man In Japan: Artea's sex is switched in the German translation.
 * Solve the Soup Cans
 * Stay in The Kitchen: Done to Tia.
 * Together in Death
 * Token Romance: Arguably Maxim and Selan.
 * Trying Not to Cry: Tia as a child, resulting in:
 * Unable to Cry
 * Unexplained Recovery:
 * Wedding Smashers
 * World Map
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Dekar.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Dekar.

The Ancient Cave provides examples of...

 * And Now for Someone Completely Different: Your party's levels drop to 1 every time you enter the Ancient Cave. Your inventory is replaced with a brand new one (which contains 10 potions and blue chest equipment), play time resets to 0:00, and money resets to 0 as well. When you exit the Ancient Cave, your levels, inventory, gold, and play time return to normal.
 * Anti Grinding: Each floor has a finite number of enemies, which limits experience and item acquisition.
 * Check Point Starvation: There are no save points in the Ancient Cave at all! It will take will take at least 10 hours to reach the bottom floor in a single sitting. This is assuming everyone in your party is already geared completely with blue chest items at the beginning of the run. And hope you don't get wiped on the 98th floor...
 * Depending on your viewpoint of what "Ancient Cave" is, you might consider Providence a form of checkpoint, since nobody beats Ancient Cave in one run. There are many checkpoints and it takes a long time. Spatially the Ancient Cave contains no checkpoints, but Ancient Cave transcends space as a dungeon that requires multiple entries over time.
 * Money for Nothing: Despite all the monsters inside being Money Spiders, you can't take any money you earned inside the Ancient Cave outside.
 * New Game Plus: You can begin a new Ancient Cave run with all blue chest equipment you previously acquired, either in the main game or previous Ancient Cave runs (provided you exited the dungeon alive using a Providence).
 * Random Drop
 * Roguelike