Part 1
No, the title is not a typo. Lufia II is the prequel to Lufia I.
The box art, showing our hero, Maxim.
That's right, fresh from completing the first Lufia game here I am, the next day, starting Lufia II. Lufia II cost me $50, used, when I bought it way back when. It's rare.
Look at this retard with his cartridge. . . wait that's me.
Lufia II is far superior to Lufia, in everything but music. And colorfulness, boy did Lufia have a lot of bright colors. And I mean I guess if you like really stupid looking enemies, so stupid they're pretty funny, then Lufia I takes the cake. A few things have changed between games:
What's the deal with Lufia II being a prequel?
In Lufia II we play as Maxim, who defeated the Sinistrals the first time. Oh shit spoilerz! In addition to Maxim, Selan, Guy, and Artea (called Arty in this game, though if you call him that I WILL KILL YOU) you also get some other characters who join you temporarily. Who? You'll find out, although one of them happens to be the coolest guy ever:
haha holy shit I found this on Google
DEKAR is my favorite video game character, ever, hands down. You'll find out why later, but let's just say he fucking tears things to shreds with a giant axe.
Let's see what has changed between games:
What has changed in Lufia II?
1) There are no longer random encounters in dungeons! Gone are the days of fighting a battle every 5 steps. Instead, monsters walk around in dungeons, and walking into them causes a battle. There are ways to stun enemies, avoiding battles with them, which I will get to in the next section:
2) PUZZLES. ACTUAL FUCKING PUZZLES. AND THEY'RE HARD. You have to push blocks onto switches a la Zelda, line up colored blocks, bet correctly on who wins a crazy monster race, and pick up pots and slash grass. Yes, you can swing your sword in dungeons, shoot arrows, and other weapons you may find to help you solve puzzles.
3) You have to buy magic in this game, instead of learning it. Which isn't bad, since you get a lot of money, although the highest tier spells cost in the range of 20k, and you have to buy the spell for each individual character who can use it, ouch.
4) IP Skills. There's an actual reason to keep equipment and not sell it! Each character has an IP bar, which fills up as they take damage. When it is full enough, they can unleash awesome attacks, support magic or healing skills that are inherint in the equipment they are wearing. And yes, the IP skill for Dual Blade is fucking devestating, although I think it costs 100% of your IP bar.
5) Battles are actually turn based. You put in all the commands at the beginning of the battle, and then the turn pans out. Much nicer than the schizo- pseudo-ATB in the first game.
6) Capsule monsters! You sometimes find monsters who become your buddy and act as an AI controlled fifth part member. DON'T WORRY, I'LL LET YOU GUYS NAME ALL OF THEM, OKAY! More about them when I actually get the first one, WHO YOU WILL NOT GET TO NAME BECAUSE THERE IS ONLY ONE NAME FOR HIM.
7) The Ancient Cave, which is a 100 floor randomly generated dungeon where you start at lv1 and can't bring any (most) equipment in, and you can't bring any equipment not found in blue chests out, although said blue chest items can be brought back in with you, so as you accumulate blue chest items you can progress farther and farther. More on that later, although I might record myself doing a run because it's the biggest time waster in the game. It's also the way to get most of the best equipment, and you can collect ten "Iris" treasures which don't actually do anything, they're in red chests. I guess if you had no life and wanted to collect all ten you could, I think I got four once.
Any of those points confusing? I'll explain better as I go.
Anyway, now that that is done, here's the game's intro on youtube:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RFKLhCx7k9Y / Backup
EDIT: Now with 100% more of my talking! I did my own intro video to replace the one that died.
Note the character Arek the Absolute. He is completely pointless and is never seen or even mentioned again for the entirety of the game (except once he is alluded to in passing by Daos). Yep. He's real important. ONWARD TOWARDS THE ACTUAL GAME!
Like in the first game, you can get retry mode, wth 4x EXP and gold. And then you can get gift mode, where you can just play the Ancient Cave with your own hand selected team from all the characters in the game! HOW FUN!
There's a 99% chance I'll name him Maxim, unless someone else can come up with a better name for him. Which I doubt you can, because Maxim is such a cool name. Try me.
(Also note that for most of June I will be on vacation, I'll try to update this thread from hotels/motels with free internets, and I'll actually update it regularly starting July 1st. I'm just making it now so that no one else does.)