Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals

What it was

Think of it as a Zelda puzzle box wearing a turn-based RPG. Out on the world map, battles are random and fought from menus as usual. Step into a dungeon, though, and the monsters are visible and only move when you do, and the rooms turn into puzzles you solve with a growing kit of tools that includes a bow, bombs and a hookshot, which also stun monsters. There are hundreds of these puzzles, some of them properly hard.

Combat has its own twist in IP skills: special moves tied to your weapons and armour that charge as you take damage, which makes choosing gear more interesting than comparing numbers. A capsule monster joins the party as a fifth member you feed and evolve. And tucked away in one town is the Ancient Cave, a randomly generated 99-floor dungeon where you start at level one with nothing and dig as deep as you can.

Where it sits in history

Neverland developed it as a prequel to Lufia & the Fortress of Doom, telling the story of the hero Maxim and the first war against the Sinistrals, four god-like beings set on ruling the world. Taito published it in Japan in 1995. Natsume brought it to North America around September 1996, after a delay from May, and Nintendo released it in Europe and Australia, simply titled Lufia because the first game never came out there.

It arrived when the SNES was near its end and the RPG spotlight was on bigger names, and it sold modestly: just over 60,000 cartridges in Japan. Its reputation has grown since: Nintendo Life calls it one of the best RPGs on the console, and IGN ranks it among its top 40 SNES games. In 2010 Neverland remade it for the DS as Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals, an action RPG.

How it plays today

The dungeons are the best reason to play, and they hold up superbly. Each puzzle is a small, fair problem, and because monsters move only when you move, fights become part of the puzzle too. The Ancient Cave alone could fill weeks, and the story, once it gets going, lands harder than you expect from a game this cheerful.

The rest is more ordinary. Menu battles on the world map are easy and a little slow, the early hours move sluggishly, and the North American release shipped with some text and graphics glitches that only the European version fixed. Some later puzzles are hard enough that you will reach for a guide. None of that outweighs the dungeon design, which few SNES RPGs match.

Compared with

• Lufia & the Fortress of Doom: The first game, set 99 years later. Play Lufia II first; it is the better game and the story reads better in that order.
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: Lufia II's dungeons borrow its tools and puzzle thinking, then hand fights to a turn-based party.
• Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars: Its big-name rival on release in North America. Mario is flashier; Lufia II has the better dungeons.

Why it matters

Tucked away in one town in Lufia II is the Ancient Cave: 99 floors, different every time, and you go in at level one with nothing. It does not advance the story. Nobody in the game needs you to do it. People lose weeks there anyway.

Bernard Suits put it best: playing a game is 'the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles'. Lufia II is a love letter to unnecessary obstacles. Its dungeon puzzles, where monsters move only when you do, are small, fair problems, and solving them yourself is the whole reward. Johan Huizinga described the magic circle, a space set apart from ordinary life with its own order. The Ancient Cave is a circle drawn inside a circle, a game within the game, stripped back until only the rules and your nerve are left. It sold modestly and nearly vanished. Its reputation grew anyway, carried by players who could not stop talking about a hole in the ground.

Read: The magic circle: the world that rules make →

1. Suits, B. (1978). The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia.
2. Huizinga, J. (1938/1949). Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture.