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chuckroIn the village of Vale, the people practice the secret art of Psynergy in peace. But everything goes wrong when Mt. Aleph erupts and mysterious strangers start kidnapping people and stealing ancient artifacts.
As jrpgs go, I feel like this followed a path blazed by Lufia 2 that not many other games of this era did: A story heavily based on character interaction, and dungeons heavily based on puzzles. I love the game's puzzle density and the delightful innovation that random battles tend to disappear while you're in puzzle areas.
I'm less enthused by the amount of backtracking necessary. I also find some of the wandering to find plot irritating, like trying to figure out how to get the boat to Tolbi, or having a reason to go there in the first place. They clearly wanted to make variation of the quest order a feature (whether you tackle Tret or the Mercury Lighthouse first, for instance), but man, this game could have really benefited from a quest log. For that matter, these two factors combined to let me miss a major subquest and get well ahead of myself: Rescuing Hammet is technically optional, and since I didn’t realize you could just pick up the Cloak Ball from the desk it’s on, I kept going without it. I was in the final dungeon and short on djinni when I looked up a FAQ and realized what I’d missed.
The difficulty curve is a bit shallow, which makes sense when you realize this is only the first half of a game. I sold the first revival item I found (they're rare and expensive) to buy broad swords and make grinding easier, and I think that was the right call—you’ll never hit a point where you can steamroller the game, but you can get and maintain an edge fairly easily. This game was also one of the earliest ones to give you regenerating PP with the expectation that you'll use psynergy in most battles. Combined with the system for unleashing djinni and summons (which are functionally unlimited) and the very limited inventory means you need to break out of some standard jrpg routines. And that’s good!
It's been many years since I last played this, and I think the most noteworthy plot point I had forgotten was that many of the problems Isaac and co encounter are directly caused by Mt. Aleph erupting and showering psycrystals everywhere. Very few of the problems you encounter are actually caused by the villains you’re chasing—until they get very close to their goals, they keep a low profile. Instead, the repercussions of various events show up in unexpected places as problems you often have the option (but not the requirement) to solve.
Overall: This game was firmly in my wheelhouse. It gets a little too talky and sometimes loses direction, but the battle system is solid and the puzzles are excellent. I’ll need to replay the sequel, too.
As jrpgs go, I feel like this followed a path blazed by Lufia 2 that not many other games of this era did: A story heavily based on character interaction, and dungeons heavily based on puzzles. I love the game's puzzle density and the delightful innovation that random battles tend to disappear while you're in puzzle areas.
I'm less enthused by the amount of backtracking necessary. I also find some of the wandering to find plot irritating, like trying to figure out how to get the boat to Tolbi, or having a reason to go there in the first place. They clearly wanted to make variation of the quest order a feature (whether you tackle Tret or the Mercury Lighthouse first, for instance), but man, this game could have really benefited from a quest log. For that matter, these two factors combined to let me miss a major subquest and get well ahead of myself: Rescuing Hammet is technically optional, and since I didn’t realize you could just pick up the Cloak Ball from the desk it’s on, I kept going without it. I was in the final dungeon and short on djinni when I looked up a FAQ and realized what I’d missed.
The difficulty curve is a bit shallow, which makes sense when you realize this is only the first half of a game. I sold the first revival item I found (they're rare and expensive) to buy broad swords and make grinding easier, and I think that was the right call—you’ll never hit a point where you can steamroller the game, but you can get and maintain an edge fairly easily. This game was also one of the earliest ones to give you regenerating PP with the expectation that you'll use psynergy in most battles. Combined with the system for unleashing djinni and summons (which are functionally unlimited) and the very limited inventory means you need to break out of some standard jrpg routines. And that’s good!
It's been many years since I last played this, and I think the most noteworthy plot point I had forgotten was that many of the problems Isaac and co encounter are directly caused by Mt. Aleph erupting and showering psycrystals everywhere. Very few of the problems you encounter are actually caused by the villains you’re chasing—until they get very close to their goals, they keep a low profile. Instead, the repercussions of various events show up in unexpected places as problems you often have the option (but not the requirement) to solve.
Overall: This game was firmly in my wheelhouse. It gets a little too talky and sometimes loses direction, but the battle system is solid and the puzzles are excellent. I’ll need to replay the sequel, too.
