-- Calydor.

ANDREW And don't forget Palom and Porom - Tellah did everything in his power to unstone them, but sometimes you just have to let kids learn for themselves. As for that mystery character, I'm not so sure he did die, since his replacement becomes him, for all intents and purposes. I think it was just the first signs of Square pandering - after all, which would you rather have, an old man, or a sexy young blonde sprite who's got smooth lines and a caboose to die for? Fanservice, my friend, fanservice.

Lore Master Mamo Rpg gamer since Nintendo Power Gave out free copies of Dragon Warrior.
GO ENDRICK.
Lore_Master_Mamo@msn.com

ANDREW Ah, you think you have won, but wait! Cast your attention to the following: first, the original Lufia and the original Camelot title, Shining in the Darkness. SitD was released in 1991, a full two years before the first Lufia title. Herego, even if you were taking my statement to mean the original Lufia preceded Golden Sun, it doesn't matter; the mechanics were born in SitD, which is incidentally the only Camelot title that doesn't make me want to descend upon the company's headquarters with a flaming sword and a couple of those goons from the Brother Work Solutions commercials (my Grandma's been making do with the same coffee table for forty years!) Meanwhile, Golden Sun preceded Lufia: Ruins of Lore by almost three years, making me right and you wrong and Atlus a bunch of shameless hacks who should be punished severely for crimes against nature, or at least ordered to recall Rhapsody and issue full refunds to everyone blighted by its existence. And yes, I know Golden Sun doesn't precisely count as a Shining title, but let's be honest: GS is just Beyond the Beyond in shiny, jelly bean drag. Of course, none of this answers the most pressing question: why on earth would anyone want to follow in the footsteps of such execrable fare?

To quote you, "I also picked up Lufia, and I'm struck by how totally the game ripped off Golden Sun, from its battle theme to its mechanics to its freaking interface art."

I must point out that, having played all of the lufia games in It's four game series, the battle mechanics, which I am assuming you are refering too, are far more similar to Lufia 2's game system than to Golden Sun. Now if you were refering to the puzzle mechanics, I say that Golden Sun must've ripped off Lufia 2's mechanics. then again most RPGs with Puzzle elements, WIlD Arms Lufia Golden Sun, seem to *borrow* mechanics and sometimes even Puzzles from other puzzle rpgs.

You are very correct on the battle theme though They are WAY to similar.

The Interface art, yeah they look similar but come on this is the GBA it's not like you can get the art to look like it is from Disgaea.

ANDREW Granted, I'm sure Atlus is probably liable to take material from titles it holds the rights to than to go skipping off to Camelot for guidance. It was just a little too much for me when the first phrase of the battle theme was identical, that's all.

On to my recomendation, I would strongly urge you to pick up Lufia 2 for the Super Nintendo. It is a whole lot better than either of the portable Lufias. Neither of them have as good play mechanics, music, characters, or story as the two super Nintendo games. The reason why I recomend Lufia 2 over Lufia and the Fortress of Doom is because Lufia 2 is a direct prequal to Lufia 1. *and this is not really a spoiler but I'll put it in spoiler marking anyways*

(Spoiler)

The end of the second game is an updated version of the prologue of the first game. *

ANDREW Thanks for sharing, nameless hero. Perhaps I will wander on over to eBay and see what I can dredge up in the Lufia department - after all, this SNES isn't going to super itself, especially if I don't go see that guy who hangs out behind the eBay shack.

Thank you

ANDREW Sorry I took so long to answer this letter, Joe. Anyway, I'm fairly certain the bulk of them are PC shots, for the simple fact that it's easier to get in-game shots from a platform on which people are actually playing. If you would like to find some PS2 shots, you can probably find them somewhere at the spiky maze deathtrap that is PlayOnline. As to whether it would work on a Celeron processor, well, that all depends on the speed of your Celeron processor. I will tell you that video card is a much more important consideration; there's very little difference between my P4 1.6G and my dad's P4 2.4G because we both have fairly crappy video cards, so as long as your processor speed meets the minimum requirements, you should be okay. If you already have a PS2, take my advice and just go that route - Square Enix has a comparatively lousy online staff as far as interface design vs their console work goes, and I'm hoping against hope that the PS2 interface will be a little bit easier to manouver around (not that it'll do me any good; I'm not about to drop another $80 CDN just so I can play it anywhere).