Originally titled Dragon Fantasy Remade, Chronicles of Tsufanubra is an SNES-style RPG incorporating elements of the earlier Dragon Fantasy games by the developer Ephiam.
The game follows Celes, a woman raised from childhood as the prophesied Savior, who embarks on a mission to fulfill her destiny and protect the world. But she soon finds herself at odds with a man with a mysterious investment in her mission, and learns that there may be more to her role than she bargained for.
Although the game appears at first to adhere strictly to classic RPG plot conventions, the game exploits the separation between “conventional” and “predictable” to weave a narrative meant to evoke, and not just imitate, the character of classic role-playing games.
This video game provides examples of:
- Anti-Villain: The Archmagus Vladmir. He only serves as a villain at all for most of the game due to Veryl’s magical influence, and most of his innate personality still shines through. However, he doesn’t live to see more than a brief return to his true self.
- Bad Powers, Good People. The Archmagus Vladmir is the world’s greatest living practitioner of the dark arts, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a nice person.
- Black and White Magic: As per RPG convention, attack and healing magic are divided like this, but the “dark arts” are a separate matter entirely.
- Cap: The maximum level is 45, around the point you’ll reach if you kill all the non-regenerating dungeon monsters.
- Chosen One: Celes is established as this from the very beginning of the game.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Veryl, unsurprisingly, although other characters have their fair shares of baggage as well.
- Defend Command: Designed to be more useful than in most RPGs, it approximately quarters damage for the turn, and can make some battles much easier to win.
- I Let You Win: Vlad has no intention of wielding his full powers against Celes in their battle but fighting her at all still causes him to play into Veryl’s hands
- Mass Monster-Slaughter Sidequest: The player receives bonus treasures for clearing the monsters from a dungeon.
- Money Spider: The main source of income in the game. Regenerating world map encounters provide very little money though, discouraging grinding for arbitrarily large amounts of money.
- More than Mind Control: Veryl’s primary mode of operation.
- No Hero Discount: Flaunting her status as the Savior for cash discounts is probably beneath Celes’ dignity.
- Nonstandard Game Over: If you choose not to oppose the final boss in the last confrontation.
- Older Than They Look: Veryl is exactly the same age as Celes’ “grandfather” Evan.
- Pre-existing Encounters: In dungeons. Random encounters only exist on the world map.
- Status Effects: Plus some additional HP drain variations including Acid and Bleeding.
- God's Hands Are Tied: The Three Kings don’t seem interested in intervening in the day to day struggles of mortals, so it’s up to Celes to set things right. Celes herself is subject to this after her ascension. The gods don’t interfere with the fates of mortals unless the beings under their charge are faced with annihilation, and once she assumes divinity, Celes is bound by the same restriction.
- Trauma Inn
- Treacherous Advisor: Celes’ Grandfather, Evan
- Useless Useful Spell: Averted for all the standard status effect spells, which are designed to be genuinely useful both for regular encounters and against bosses. However, Lifa’s Mega Death spell (chance of killing all targets) is almost never worth the cost.
- White-and-Grey Morality: The only through-and-through villains in the game’s conflict are in the backstory.
