Known as Estpolis Denki: Yomigaeru Densetsu in Japan. Lufia: The Legend Returns is the third installment of the Lufia JRPG series made for the Game Boy Color system by Neverland. It was published by Taito and Natsume in 2001.
The story is a sequel to the first two games, after the previous two Doom Island wars. A traveling fortune teller, Seena, who's on a "great adventure" to uncover the forgotten legend of the Doom Island wars, wanders into a town called Patos and bumps into an idiot swordsman named Wain. At that moment, the Sinistral of Destruction, Gades, awakens and begins destroying a house in the once sleepy town. After the heroic deed of Wain running into the burning home to rescue a girl trapped inside, Seena finds Wain a worthy fellow and asks him to come along her with on an adventure. And thus begins the story.
While being less popular than its predecessors, Lufia: The Legend Returns provides unique battle and character skill growth systems as well as Randomly Generated Levels for dungeons. Players are allowed to put up to nine of the 12 different characters on the battlefield all at once. It also has a good and surprisingly extensive soundtrack, colorful Gameboy Color graphics, and a simple yet classic storyline that is also filled with nostalgic elements from previous games, such as the Dragon Eggs, plus a linear final dungeon, and every single one of the Sinistrals as bosses to date.
This game provides examples of:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Deckard's ship's front axe. It's shown to be able to cleanly cut through another ship.
- The Battle Didn't Count: If you beat one of the Sinistrals during a fight you're expected to lose, you get a powerful item drop and then lose in a cutscene.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Wain and Seena.
- Berserk Button: Don't call Wain stupid. It'll make him cry, which will make Seena very angry.
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: So many goofs... One wonders if they just shipped the game with the first draft of the English script without spellchecking it first.
- Bullying a Dragon: Gades, of all people, is toyed around by Wain's stupidity. He's not pleased.
- Call to Adventure: It's what Seena claims she looking for and it's what ropes Wain in as well.
- Cast from Hit Points: Several of Ruby's exclusive IP abilities, in addition to the Dark Sword IP ability.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Usually, since Seena and Wain will drag themselves into helping any possible person that needs it.
- Cool Old Guy: Aima's master and Randolph are both more than capable of handling themselves in combat.
- Disc-One Nuke:
- Aima’s DoubleKick IP skill. For just 24 IP, it has an extremely Boring, but Practical effect: it hits the same enemy two times, essentially doubling the amount of damage she can put out in a turn. This skill is incredibly powerful early in the game, and still very useful later on. For bonus points, it can also be taught to Deckard.
- Gades' Blade and Bracelet. Good luck getting it when not doing a New Game Plus, though, unless you're willing to farm Hi Bombs 'til you're numb in the fingers.
- It's possible to get the game's Infinity +1 Sword fairly early on as a Random Drop from a normal enemy in one of the dungeons.
- Easy Levels, Hard Bosses: This game generally plays this trope straight. Most regular enemies aren’t too powerful, and can even be avoided entirely in dungeons. The bosses hit a lot harder by comparison, and have enough HP and defence that they last much longer than a typical formation of enemies.
- Fixed Damage Attack: Ruby's Double Up IP consumes her IP meter to determine base damage and doubles in power with each correct guess in a higher-or-lower card game.
- Fortune Teller: Seena, saying all things she predicts will become true, since she's Erim.
- Getting Crap Past the Radar: Jan's Heroic Suicide in has him bleeding out onscreen, making this one of the few (if not only) instances of blood in the series. The game also has a few mild instances of swearing, including one from Seena after Jan's death and Daos' subsequent fight. It's rated "E" for everyone
. - Hopeless Boss Fight: There are several of them against the Sinistrals and other enemies — notably, the first boss in the game, Gades, is one. However, with some outside-the-box thinking, some of them are possible to defeat. Gades can be defeated by stocking up on Hi-Bombs before the fight, while the Mother Ancient Dragon seems hopeless, but is actually completely beatable with normal tactics. In all cases, winning gives you a powerful or rare item as an Easter Egg, then the game keeps going as if you lost.
- Idiot Hero: Wain. There's a Running Gag that he gets called "stupid" every time he meets someone new.
- I Need You Stronger: Erim's plan to train a group of heroes strong enough to defeat the Sinistrals, including herself.
- Item Farming: Hi Bombs are what you need to defeat Gades for the Disc-One Nuke equipments. Twice. To get them, you must wander around a randomly generated dungeon for hours.
- Kleptomaniac Hero: Not only can you loot stuff from barrels, cabinets and drawers, but you can also take stuff from graves, dining tables, fireplaces, random candles, statues of Buddha, and you can outright grabs stuff in a shop and get away with it because they are simply hidden in the suits of armor that are on display.
- Lazy Backup: Your party's max number in a battle is 9, but only 3 from each row can attack, and if the frontline characters are knocked out, it's game over, regardless of the others still being up.
- Lethal Joke Weapon: The Bunny Blade, which gives a 500-point boost to attack...but only inflicts 1 or 2 damage when attacking. However, it possesses its full power when using IP abilities.
- Limit Break: IP abilities function as this once again, though they are learned by characters from Ancient Texts instead of bound to weapons.
- Mama Bear: The Ancient Dragon (Mother). After beating the Ancient Dragon in Mista Cave, she'll follow you back to town, blinded by rage from her baby's death. At your hands. Oh, and it's a Hopeless Boss Fight. Have fun.
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Nintendo Hard: Never mind your party's numbers, bosses still hit very hard and can wipe you all out easily if you don't play well. - No Mouth: The character profile portrays characters without any mouths in the menu screen including Wain and his allies.
- One Stat to Rule Them All: While increasing all characters' Spiritual Force is important for IP abilities, yellow S.F. is easily the most valuable due to providing an increase to speed, which increases far less than other stats from leveling. Slower characters become much more viable if Dei, Ruby, and/or Isaac are in the same row/column to boost their speed.
- Percent Damage Attack: Several IP abilities which reduce a target's HP by a varying fraction. Bosses are not immune to these abilities; they're practically necessary to defeat some bosses before you're supposed to be able to.
- Permanently Missable Content: If you don't recruit the Egg Dragon before Seena reveals herself to be Erim the Sinistral of Death, he will be gone forever.
- Personality Powers: Downplayed. There are personality trends for Spiritual Force colors.
- Red S.F. tends to make someone passionate, and firey. Wain is always eager to fight, Randolph is fiercely protective of Melphis, Deckard literally slices ships in half with his own, and the Egg Dragon joins after being bested in combat.
- Blue S.F. denotes an empathetic, caring person. Melphis is a sympathetic princess, and Yurist is motivated to join you when his lover is killed. Seena seems like an outlier, but she's trying to end the cycle of the Sinistrals reviving, and willing to give up her own life in the process.
- Green S.F. indicates stoicism and an iron will. Aima is a disciplined martial artist, Mousse tries to fight you multiple times before joining you, when he realizes you're an ally, and Milka is Artea's sister, and an experienced adventurer.
- Yellow S.F. means you can expect snark or eccentricity. Dei is a career Robin Hood thief, Ruby is a seductive gambler, and Isaac is an inventor.
- Pretty Princess Powerhouse: Melphis. Dei notes he didn't expected a princess in captivity to be able to fight such a huge monster on her own.
- Randomly Generated Levels: The dungeons have no pre-set designs.
- Recurring Boss:
- Gades is fought three times in the early game. The first two times are Hopeless Boss Fights, where after a few turns, Gades buffs himself and uses Spiritual Force of Destruction to cause a Total Party Wipe. Should you deplete his HP using Hi Bombs both times, you get the very powerful Gades Bracelet (first battle) and Gades Blade (second battle), followed by a cutscene where he defeats you anyway. Only in the third battle can you defeat him properly.
- Much later on in the game, during the Fante Continent potion, Daos is fought four separate times. Much like Gades, the first three battles are Hopeless Boss Fights, though the way it's handled is slightly different. Rather than ending with a Total Party Wipe, both battles simply end automatically after 10 turns. Deplete his HP in each of them to get the Terror Armor (first battle), Daos Stone (second battle) and Daos Ring (third battle). You're only meant to win the fourth battle against him.
- Reincarnation Romance: Seena and Wain, from Lufia/Iris and Hero/Maxim from the previous games.
- Sarcasm-Blind: Wain usually doesn’t pick up on sarcasm.
- Superboss: The Egg Dragon is only fightable after collecting the eight Dragon Eggs, which are hidden around the game world as rewards for exploration or completing side quests. Once you collect them all, it takes them and scatters them around the game world in random chests… and if you get them all again, it does so a second time. When finally fought after collecting them all three times, it proves to be the most vicious opponent in the game outside of the Ancient Cave.
- Super-Deformed: How characters look in the status screen.
- Sword of Plot Advancement: The Dual Blade.
