Retro Corner: Lufia and the Fortress of Doom (Super NES) Review · 3:40am Jan 21st, 2020
On this edition of Monday Retro Corner Reviews, I have an old review from 2016 with Lufia and the Fortress of Doom. The first Lufia saw its development from a studio called Neverland and under the publisher Taito. If you are unfamiliar with Taito’s published games then they include Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble and Double Dragon. Lufia was the company's first attempt to take advantage of the RPG popularity from the early 90s. At the time Square Soft really made JRPGs popular in the west and a few years later other companies tried to cash in on the success. Taito’s first RPG was actually one of my early reviews I posted on this site two weeks after making it go live in May 2016. I know it is kind of odd for me to go over this game to begin with and not something like the first Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest.
The original Lufia got released in 1993 and that was a year when most companies didn’t put a big title out. The only notable titles were either Super Mario All Stars or Secret of Mana, so Taito got a break that year. After playing this a couple of times, Lufia bears a resemblance to Dragon Quest more than Final Fantasy. From the layout to the gameplay is everything that series stood for in terms of a classic JRPG. With so many contenders in the genre, it’s hard to stack this game to others especially the major releases. Square Soft back then was the king of these games due to producing some of the best gameplay and graphics. Even Sega did a nice job with Phantasy Star while Capcom became second behind Square. So how well has Lufia aged since its 1993 release?
