Lufia DS: Finished, total time is somewhere around 25-30 hours, I'd have to check the game clock to be sure. There be spoilers ahead, in case figuring out if a giant post dissecting a game has spoilers is too hard for you.
Where to begin? I'm going to touch on a lot of crap so I'll break this up into segments.
Gameplay:
This is where Lufia DS shines. Combat fits into the world well and is quite a lot of fun. It's fluid, moves well and maintains a breezy pace. None of the battles are overly long, be them random encounters or boss battles. The normal enemies serve well enough, though there's a lack of variety and things feel the same-ish after awhile. This isn't a big deal do to the breakneck pace Lufia DS moves at. The only real threat in most battles is poison, damage and other statuses aren't remotely difficult to deal with. Boss battles aren't much harder, though often gimmicky or otherwise mixed up from normal gameplay. This is a doubled edged sword; many bosses stand out but there's a constant, pervading air of gimmick-ness to the bosses. This isn't a huge deal nor does it seriously detract from the experience, but it is noticeable. You never really have a real boss fight that plays like a normal battle, with the possible exception of Idura's last form. I say possibly because he died in about 1.5 seconds.
Gameplay is further boosted by six playable characters. Each has a unique style that feels different from one another. This is good and encourages you to experiment! This is doubly good since I found Maxim to be the best character to play as, so motivation to move off of him helps. The game isn't hard enough to where using the best character is required; in fact, Lufia DS is so easy that you can play whomever you prefer without much problem. Yes, this is a bit of a backhanded compliment since Lufia DS is piss easy. That aside for the moment, I liked most of the characters with the exception of Guy and Tia. Tia's routine is too fixed in movement in a game that I feel rewards aggression, while Guy's just fucking slow. The others are all good or have ways to work with the system well, much love for their specials.
As mentioned, Lufia DS is easy. E-A-S-Y. The randoms are never threatening unless you monumentally screw up. Even if you do, the fact that one PC dying simply brings in the next ensures that difficulty is transitory at best. Full heals at level up and full healing save points reinforce this, as does the continuing system. You died? No problem! You can select to restart five levels higher than you were! No, I'm not bullshitting. Combined with the short length of Lufia DS and it's the easiest game since...damn, I can't think of one. Something really easy. I never saw a game over except once, and that was on purpose to see how the continue system worked. I don't think I ever came close. I think a few times a single PC died? Usually Guy when using his special on those shell-bug thingies results in him taking 900 damage. It's telling when your few deaths are the result of a strange character quirk.
The final element of gameplay is the puzzles. Like Lufia 2 the game is chock full of them, each dungeon having several. It gets to the point where this is the subject of in character references; Lufia DS is self aware so this shouldn't surprise you. More on that point later. Back to what I was saying, the puzzles are generally solid. None of them are stumpers and they generally feel easier than Lufia 2's. I think there's a bunch of reasons for this. The shorter length means less cracks at making hard puzzles, the general shortness of dungeons and smaller tool supply simplifies thing and I quite frankly think they didn't make them hard. Fits with the rest of the game design, y'know? They may as well call it Lufia: Easy Type.
In fact, being easy is one of the defining marks of Lufia DS. One can pontificate on if this is a reference to Lufia 2 or not - I won't - but it is what it is. The entire gameplay experience is like a warm spring breeze. It warms you up a bit and then it's gone, just like that. This really syncs up well with the rest of the game, for better or for worse.
Characters:
Posting this here for reference. Wish I had a better scan or image of it. That's a subtle hint if someone does and wants to post it.
Maxim: He's still the hero and his fundamental role in the story hasn't changed that much. He's a little more hot-blooded and more impulsive than his Lufia 2 counterpart. If anything, he feels like a generic good guy anime lead. At least he's old enough to drink, which puts him a few up on typical RPG mains. This is one of his traits compared to the norm, he's an adult. Not a teenager, not an overgrown ball of emo, but a real, functioning adult. 21 is young, but I can at least accept that, you know? If anything, old Maxim was much more serious. The image up there is a nice reference to that. The old style Maxim is serious to the point of being grave, focused on whatever his problems are. The newer one is less hung up and is often seen smiling in game. I think I slightly prefer old Maxim, but this is less to do with his portrayal here than the general feel and changes to the plot.
Selan: There's not much in the way of changes to Selan's core character. She's slightly more impulsive but very little tweaking was done. The changes are to how she's portrayed compared to Maxim. There's a big movement to make her a full equal to Maxim whenever possible. Instead of staying in Parcelyte when Gades shit goes down, she rushes off and faces him first. She's shown to be competent compared to the other characters, even when it might not make sense. The scene in the three towers with the Energy Augmenter and Tia comes to mind. You would think the mechanical girl would know what it is and Selan wouldn't, not the other way around. For lack of a better way to say it, Selan feels more modern in her presentation.
The crowning touch to this is when she goes along with Maxim to help stop Doom Island, instead of dying when the Sinistrals rupture. I dislike this particular change, I felt the Lufia 2 version of this last part was more effective. In the Lufia 2 version, there's a slow growing sense of understanding of what's going to happen, what has to happen and what Maxim ultimately wants to have happen. Without Selan, there's no role for him but to be the sacrificial savior. It's equal parts saving the world and suicide writ large. It makes a beautiful end to Lufia 2, as well as being a really good downer ending. In Lufia DS it isn't quite the same. Selan's still there and fine, there's none of that tension about what's going to happen.
I don't really hold this as a knock against Selan per se, but more against the game itself.
Guy: Guy fills the role Dekar used to have, big hulking brute full of confidence. He's not as dumb as he looks, but he beats the shit out of things with a giant hammer. He's more developed than in Lufia 2 but I'm neutral to the changes. I like him relatively less but I feel the party dynamic around him is better as a general rule. It makes it hard to say much about him, since I feel he's so tangled up in other things and changes that I don't have much of an opinion.
Tia: Woof. Tia's base character isn't changed too much. Her appearance has and some of her tendencies, but the basic character unfolds like she did before. I have more sympathy for her this time around - Maxim simply doesn't get it at all and then he falls in love with Selan in 5 seconds flat. She resolves the same way, until she shows back up with Dekar in the summer cutscene. Near as I can figure, he dropped by and swept her off her feet, as well as out of emo-land. I'm okay with this! Any possible romance with Dekar and Tia about non-existent, but it gets her back into the party and accepting Maxim's choice. It feels like that and not a relationship, though it's probably due to Lufia DS being so short. Edit: I forgot about Dekar saving her from Idura. Okay, that's one point there but the basic sentiment stands.
From there she's mostly around for minor character stuff, she doesn't change much past then. Tia holding Jeros made me smile, though. That was nice. That more than anything else said that Tia had moved on and provided closure to her old storyline.
Dekar: Having a bad voice actor is what Dekar's second best at, after being the world's strongest man. I couldn't use him in battle since he made me want to kill kittens in pure aural rage. His character was fun sometimes, too over the top in the others. His return scene was completely fucking gimped though. No riding in on a whale and defeating hordes of monsters? C'mon now! The fact that Dekar got a few smiles out of me is impressive, most of the time I can't stand his character type. Anyway, not much more to say about him. What you see is what you get.
Artea: Same character with a gun instead of a bow, as well as a slightly different shade of willowy elf stereotypes. I really don't care much about Artea in Lufia DS, he wasn't around long enough to matter. He didn't have as much time with Guy, due to the party being bigger and less of them being the third and fourth wheel to Maxim/Selan. Oh well.
Lexis: GREAT SCOTT! I'm surprisingly okay with making Lexis into a Doc Brown clone. It works! Making him into an NPC is fine with me in retrospect, since six PCs is already bordering on too many for the game. If there was seventh I'd say it should be Iris. He's okay for what he is, most of my comments related to him are more related to the world changes in Lufia DS. Since he's so tied up in the energy cores mumbo-jumbo I don't really want to go into it here.
Gades: See, I like Gades in Lufia DS. He gets more time to shine, you get to fight him a bunch of times and he works for being what he is. He gets the most work of any villain in the game - I don't include Iris/Erim as a villain - and it shows. Being the God of Destruction is the perfect excuse for someone who goes around and causes cataclysms. It's nice, it's tidy, it works on face value. He's not any great shakes, don't get me wrong, but he works. I can accept this. My only bitch is how his body is a temple, literally. Okay, I thought it was a nice callback and reference a line in Lufia 2. Iris or someone says how the bodies of the Sinistrals are just temples of their energy. It's a nice metaphor, but you didn't have to take it literally! I prefer my gods to be spiritual entities, not giant temple mecha. This is retarded. Re-fucking-tarded. Full on slobbering all over your juice box retarded, folks. We have passed the stupid horizon and are now in idiot-ville.
Fuck how they pronounce Gades. It's Gaydes, not Gahdes. Just tossing that one out there.
Amon: Also known as bitch-boy. Okay, I liked how he sowed actual chaos in trying to drum up a war. This is good! Nothing else is. His voice is bad, his appearance is pathetic - I miss is awesome old armor - and he goes down faster than Snow on an FFT/SRW crossover. I'd be stunned if people managed to miss either of his dragon eggs. They may as well be freebies. He also doesn't get much face time, but considering how he was doing this is a good thing.
Daos: Daos hit the gym, I see. He's not different in character than his Lufia 2 form. Oh sure, he's a little nastier and deals with Erim himself, but not much has changed until you fight him. His boss fight is a fucking abortion of a last boss, ripe with lag as well as a special time gimmick to further complicate the fight and the lag. The last battle of the game is not where you include a new gameplay element. I don't care how cool or broken it is, this is fucking bad design. Let alone because he has the last dragon egg and if you want it and fail you have to do Doom Island over again. It's like a fucking nova of bad choices and bullshit mixed together. It's so bad that I'm taking points off of the entire game for it. Never have I felt so ripped off by a last boss. Even fake Myria in BoF1 was better!
This isn't really about Daos as a character, but the clusterfuck of his battle form overshadows all else. Fuck Daos.
Iris/Erim: I like the idea of adding Iris to your party. It develops her better as well as provides some backstory to Lufia DS. I approve of this much. She develops as you go, but the problem is in Lufia DS's pacing. The concept they have needs a lot of work and time to make it believable. She needs lots of development and Lufia DS is too short to provide it. You don't have the emotional attachments to her that you should, or has she had enough time in the spotlight. The high party head count only makes this worse. It's a shame because the basic idea is really damned good. I suspect the NG+ will help prop this up, or at least I hope.
I think Erim's ultimate realization is that she's in love with Maxim or at least in love with being human. In Lufia 1 Iris gets both her possible loves granted, being reborn as Lufia. In the alternate ending, Arek could be construed as granting this for her sacrifice, but it's vague. I'll go into this more later when I talk about the alternate ending.
Finally, considering the rest of the game avoided stripper-styled outfits, I'm mildly surprised Erim got one.
Part 2 of this after work.
