Oh boy, the Lufia series has not aged well. II is the best game, bar none, while The Fortress of Doom had some real annoyances. This game? Pretty interesting but it still has its nuances.
Yeah cool, nine party members can be in the active party, but only three can be used to do things. And the top three characters must never fall in battle or it's a game over, which is dumb. The problem with this is that all the really good fighters (so just Wain, Aima, and Deckard) are the ones you HAVE to put in the front, because other characters like the glass cannon Randolph are really not useful for front line assault. Sure, put Seena or Milka in the back and have them use magic, but then again, magic isn't entirely all that useful here when physical attacks do way more damage. Why though? The answer is IP. This game really does rely on that moreso, even though many of the good ancient texts can be difficult to find. But they are pretty much what you WILL rely on.
Admittingly though, they do make battles a lot more interesting, especially if you get good ones while trekking through the now 200-floor Ancient Cave. And speaking of dungeons, all of them are actually randomized, which actually makes things quite interesting on the whole. There's a few hidden areas to look out for, and monster patterns to fight as well. Bosses tend to be much harder than the regular enemies overall, especially concerning Sinistrals, which for the majority of the time are supposed to be unwinnable (but it is possible to beat them). There are so many ways to break the game though. Ruby has this one ability which can do well over the damage cap, but really is only good for a save scummer. The Cat Ring makes any female character really fast. And if you were as lucky as I was when playing, you may pick up an Alum Blade from a low-level monster. This blade just so happens to be stronger than the Gades Blade if you managed to win the first fight against Gades. What the hell.
Given how long I did things, especially Ancient Cave trekking for items, I guess this really was worth the play. But what about the characters and plot? Naturally, Sinistrals returning is pretty much what drives this as a Lufia game, but our heroes are surprisingly nothing special. Wain is idiotic for a main character, Seena has to keep reminding him of that fact which ACTUALLY makes her way worse, not to mention her obviously spoilerific secret. Dei seems competent enough to be that one friend who actually ends up with more interaction than the rest of the playable cast. So what about the others? Aima has a short arc and that's it. Yurist spends most of his time prior to recruitment cheering on Jan, who is a good character despite being an NPC. Mousse, Isaac, and Ruby have no plot significance whatsoever. Making Milka and the Egg Dragon into playable characters is really sort of just fanservice, as they don't really do much*. The arc involving Randolph, Melphis, and Deckard was somewhat decent and at least involved Amon to a large degree. Once it's over, there's not a whole lot left for these characters. I'm okay with Melphis and Deckard being brother and sister even though they look nothing like it though. So really, the plot is just dumb and the character interactions are worse. The gameplay does randomize things to ensure it stays interesting, but there really didn't need to be that many characters when most aren't all that amazing in the first place.
*okay, Milka actually does have natural significance in that she exposed Seena, and naturally is the one character in the whole series who at least lived long enough to know just about everything here, but still, being the last party member to join doesn't really help her that much.
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