YMMV / Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals

• Awesome Music:
  • Battle #2. (Though, really, Battle #1 and Battle #3 are pretty great, too).
  • "Tower". What more needs to be said? You'll be stuck listening to this one a lot, but somehow it never gets old.
  • "Savior of Those on Earth" really gets the blood-pumping for Maxim's Heroic Sacrifice. There's no battles or puzzles during this sequence, so it was important to get the player keyed up for the Fortress of Doom's imminent destruction.
• Best Level Ever: If the fact that it has it's own little section on the main page isn't a clue, the Ancient Cave is probably one of the most memorable dungeons in 16-bit role playing games.
• Complete Monster: Daos; see the series page for details.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: In spite of his thick-headedness, Dekar is pretty much unbridled awesome: from proclaiming himself the strongest man in the world in his introduction to his seeming death scene where he faces down Idura's ghost and vows to follow him to the ends of the earth.
• Even Better Sequel: When old-school gamers reminisce fondly about the classic Lufia series, what they're actually referring to is this game due being more deeper and polished thanks to its larger number of features, longer length, and better battle system compared to the original. Hardly anyone remembers the others.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Due to the PAL regions barely getting any of the classic SNES turn-based JRPGs like Final Fantasy IV or VI, Breath of Fire I, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, or even the original Lufia & The Fortress of Doom, Lufia II (released simply as "Lufia") was considered by a lot of PAL gamers at the time to be the best traditional JRPG on the console.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • If you have the money for it and sleep at an inn, they will charge you the normal price. If you don't, you stay for free.
  • The Egg Dragon has its HP set at the Cap, but the programmers didn't set a maximum HP value. As a result, using any sort of healing on it will overflow its HP, leaving it weak enough to finish with a single hit.
  • The other Bonus Boss, the Master Jelly, is a Time-Limit Boss. He can be more-easily "defeated" by killing your own party.
  • Capsule Monsters were far, far easier to feed in the US Version than other English versions. The first upgrade could be reached with 11 Long Knives and 40 Shrieks, which is far cheaper than any other means. Just Feed them 1 knife, then 3 Shrieks, then 1 Knife, 3 Shrieks. The other versions seem to have fixed this "bug" (or at least tweaked the algorithms).
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • The sound effect when stunning an on-screen monster with the Hook or Hammer is different than when stunning them with Arrows, but is remarkably satisfying to listen to every time.
  • The sound made when stepping on a Healing tile for either HP or MP in a dungeon, especially when finding a hidden HP tile in the Ancient Cave.
• Sequel Displacement: Rise of the Sinistrals is unquestionably the high point of the Lufia series. It not only far-surpassed its predecessor, but none of the later sequels could live up to it, either.
• Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: So much so that, after beating the game on New Game Plus, you unlock a mode entirely dedicated to exploring the Ancient Cave.
• Strangled by the Red String: Maxim and Selan falling in love for no reason other than him being an Amazon Chaser. Maxim already had a lovestruck companion (Tia) who is willing to risk her life for him. All Selan has to do is to embrace Maxim and tell him she was worried about him not making it alive out of the previous dungeon, and Tia more or less throws her hands in the air and gives up on marrying Maxim; the very next image is his wedding to Selan.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Lufia & The Fortress of Doom was a solid if unspectacular JRPG. Rise of the Sinistrals is fondly remembered as one of the best non-SquareSoft JRPGs of the 16-bit era, and a big step-up in both depth and polish.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • Iris' theme is a soundalike of the main theme from The Terminator.
  • "Watchtowers of the Seal" is a high-tempo version of "Eternal Wind" from Final Fantasy III.
  • The Sinistral battle theme lifts its climax from T-Square's "Rodan".
• Tear Jerker: The deaths of Maxim and Selan. Even though a savvy gamer knows they're screwed, it hurts because you've gotten to know them over the course of the game. The entire ending which follows is just as sad, with Tia crying for the first time since she was a child as she senses Maxim's death, and Selan's aunt telling their son Jeros that they'll be home soon after saving the world, unaware that he's now an orphan.
• That One Boss: The Tarantula in the Ruby Cave, though weak to fire, can be a real pain due to the fact that it can inflict poison and paralysis. It can also summon spiders to assist in battle.
• That One Level: The Dankirk North Cave due to its length and being full of Ninjas and Shadows in the second half, both of which are capable of instant death on party members and the Ninjas are incredibly fast both on the map and in battle. Those who are uninitiated with the game will also usually go through it twice come time to learn about the passage to Gratze. The enemies may be easier the second time around, but all of the puzzles have to be re-solved.
• That One Puzzle:
  • In the non-Japanese versions, the third Reversi puzzle in the Treasure Sword shrine.
  • That's to say nothing about the "World's Hardest Trick", the sliding block puzzle in one of the last mountain areas in the game.
  • Also worth mentioning is the 'weak floor' puzzle in the Phantom Tree Mountain.
  • The 3x3 bomb square grid in the dungeon near Dekar's castle.
• Woolseyism: An example of this gone wrong. Right before the final boss fight, Daos bellows, "You little hoochees! [sic]" In case you didn't know, a "hoochie" is a slang term for a woman who is promiscuous. It makes absolutely no sense in this context and provides the biggest unintentional laugh in the game.

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