Lufia 3: Ruins Chaser. It was a cancelled PSX game from the Lufia series. It would have been an SRPG similar to Energy Breaker for Super Famicom. But the publisher Nihon Flex went bankrupt and we ended up with the GBC game The Legend Returns instead.
https://www.unseen64.net/2010/12/19/lufia-3-iii-ruins-chaser-psx-cancelled/
Supposidly Ruins Chaser was 20% complete at the time of the bankruptcy.
A design booklet and artwork ended up being auctioned off. There is a single piece of music and a trailer whick only contains sketches and txt, no in game graphics or gameplay.
I heard rumors years ago that in-game footage does exist. But I have never seen it. I have also heard differing reports of just how much of the game was finished. These are likely just rumors since so far nothing has surfaced other than what has already been seen.
It's a shame because Energy Breaker is a really good game. There is a fan translation available but it never made it out of Japan officially.
Speaker of Energy Breaker, The Lufia 2 remake for DS references energy a lot although it does not have a skill system that is identical to that game. But the linking of pieces on the skill board could be seen as somewhat similar. The energy flow thing in The Legend Returns is also in the same vein. But it is more elaborate that the Energy Breaker system. If I remember correctly that one only affects your ability to learn skills and not the stats of adjacent party members. But it has been a few years.
Energy Breaker actually went through a lot of deveopment changes. Originally you could pick a main character to start as and it would give their story some more content. That was dropped due to time constraints but there are fragments of it still left that you can see via hacking.
This would explain why some characters like Star have a half assed character plot and it feels like something is missing.
I think this game may have had issues being officially released in the West anyway due to
Parasite literally going into a woman's womb and trying to abort Dorothy, who he no longer remembers is his own daughter. He and Dorothy's mother were childhood friends ostracised for having dangerous powers. So angry pro-lifers and "please think of the children"
Also, big bad is
the fucking pope!
The entire plot
is a time travel mindfuck. There's a very lowkey hint of this in an early scene.
Anyway, I have mixed feelings about the Lufia 2 remake and I think it would be better if it was just an original title. I would have preferred a remake of Energy Breaker that actually got an official release. With Neverland gone I guess the whole series is dead now.
