 Six years after Lufia 2, Rise of the Sinistrals on the Super Nintendo, the Lufia series continued on the Game Boy Color with Lufia the Legend Returns. And yeah, right from the get go, this game has a very familiar feel to it. The dialogue is just as sharp and funny, the character design is consistent with the previous games, and the music, while limited, does sound like it belongs in the Lufia universe. Despite the familiar feel, though, there are some significant differences in Lufia the Legend Returns compared to its predecessors, the primary one being the dungeon design. Where the first Lufia game is a traditional JRPG, the second game is kind of a mash between RPG and Adventure Elements, the Legend Returns is more of a dungeon crawler. In other words, did you like the Ancient Cave and Lufia 2? Because that's what they had in mind with this game. Because every dungeon in the Legend Returns is randomly generated, and changes every time you revisit. In fact, the Ancient Cave is actually in this game, but no, these dungeons aren't all 99 floors deep. But they do have similar characteristics to the original Ancient Cave, with hidden treasures found in walls or shrubs, traps that can ambush your party, and just like Lufia 2, most enemies are visible, so battles can be avoided. The thing is though, there's no puzzles here at all, this is strictly a dungeon crawler, and that makes the combat kind of monotonous. Speaking of which, they also changed a few things around with the battle system as well, the main aspect being that you can have up to 9 party members, and you place them on this grid, with the top row dealing the most damage, but also taking the most damage, the back row doing the least damage, you know, the usual stuff that applies to grid based combat like this. Even though you can get as many as 9 characters here, only 3 can attack per turn, one per vertical column. You can play with and flip around the alignment however you'd like in between battles, but if the character on the top of each column dies, no matter who else is in your party, it's game over. However, to keep you from just relying on the same characters for every battle over and over, each character can learn a different IP spell, for each ancient scroll they find, and those spells will be unique to that particular character. Leveling up your IP skills is dependent on something called a spiritual force. In other words, a character comes with a color, red is strength, blue is magic in defense, green increases HP in defense, and yellow increases MP and agility. So yeah, there's some interesting stuff here on the surface, but like I said, the battles here tend to get monotonous. I admit I missed the occasional puzzle stuff that Lufia 2 offered. I'd argue the strength of this game is the story, in fact that's probably the strength of the entire series really. The Legend Returns takes place 100 years after Lufia and the Fortress of Doom, and 200 years after the prequel Lufia 2. This time you play as Wayne, who is of course a descendant of Maxim, and the mysterious woman who shows up at your village this time is Sina, an unknown force appears that the conspicuously named Deadly Tower, and weird stuff starts happening, so of course Wayne teams up with Sina to investigate and you run into all sorts of other characters along the way that join your party. Again, in typical Lufia fashion, it's how the story is told here that makes it worthwhile, with well-written quick-witted dialogue and certain characters you recruit are all kind of like their own inclusive episodes, so to speak. It's well-executed and exactly what you'd expect from a Lufia game, and despite whatever shortcomings that might come with the battle system, it's definitely a worthwhile inclusion in the series. There's a little bit of odd history with the Legend Returns. It was originally made to be a PS1 game, but the developer at the time filed for bankruptcy in the middle of production, so Neverland, the originators of the series, took over the project and settled on making it for Game Boy Color. So yeah, if you liked the two Lufia games on Super Nintendo, you'd enjoy Lufia the Legend Returns. The battle system is a little more grindy, but the story is certainly up to the task. If you're looking for something closer to what Lufia 2 offered, you'll have to go to the Game Boy Advance's Lufia the Ruins of Lore, which brings back puzzles and capsule monsters, not to mention an appearance by Dekkar, which is a nice touch. The Legend Returns goes for about $20 on Game Boy Color, not too bad, but it's also on the 3DS Virtual Console for $6. But yeah, the randomized dungeons give it a bit of a different spin, but the familiar Lufia lore still keeps the series true to its roots. It's a worthwhile playthrough today.