Lufia III Ruins Chaser [PSX - Cancelled]

In early ’98 japanese publisher Nihon Flex announced that it was funding the development of the third game in the Lufia series (known as Biography of Estpolis in Japan ). Lufia 3: Ruins Chaser took place 300 years after Lufia 1. Neverland Company intention was to conclude the popular SNES story line and at the same time begin a new one. There were six main characters and the graphics was said to be isometric 2D similar to past Neverland Company work, Energy Breaker.

At Spring Tokyo Game Show ’98 , held at Makuhari Messe in Tokyo from March 21 to 22, Flex unveiled Lufia 3 for the first time giving out a 12 pages booklet , and a video with it, with preliminary artworks and details. The title was reported to be 20% completed. Natsume , the american publisher, confirmed at E3 ’98 that the game was scheduled for the second quarter of 1999 for Playstation.

However in July ’98 Nihon Flex declared bankruptcy thus forcing the project to be put on hold. In mid 1999 the development was resumed but on the more modest Game Boy Color and completely changing the previous work, the game dropped the III and was subtitled “The Legend Returns”.

Below you can see the original Lufia 3 artworks, the video bundled with the booklet at Spring TGS ’98 and a music video with a song shared by composer Yukio Nakajima thanks to Forfeit Island and SinReVi. Also japanese site RPG Data Library was a good source of information.

Artworks:

Spring TGS ’98 Trailer:

Yukio Nakajima original song:

Edit