Hello, rm2k and rm2k3 players!
Chronicles of Tsufanubra is one of these old classic games, such as Everlong, Legends of Illarion, Seraphic Blue and other good old rm2k and rm2k3 epic fantasy adventures. This game was made by Ephiam (with help from others developers like Dyhalto (Sprite Editor), Desertopa (Co-Writer), Yellow Magic (Tester/LPer) and Trihan (Battle Animation Design)), autor of the Boss Project and Dragon Fantasy game series, and of a single adventure I reviewed three years ago, Eternal Paradise.

But let's talk of this Chronicles of Tsufanubra, originally titled Dragon Fantasy Remade, Chronicles of Tsufanubra, a game that took me about 26-28 hours to complete. A big game but still probably more accessible than the other huge games I mentioned before due to the presence of a smaller party and a bit less overwhelming (there are no optional sidequests, just optional bosses), but still an epic journey.


YES! We've finally a party of four! As it should be, well you saw the pic of the heroes on the main page, don't you?

This journey starts with Celes, the woman with purple hair in the cover, that is raised from childhood as the prophesied Savior, someone that is fated to protect the world. She is trained by elder Evan to help people and fight monsters, and later she is received by the king for an important reason: Princess Lifa disappeared and the Archmage Vladimir with her... did he kidnap the princess? This is just the first task and the beginning of a long journey for Celes, that will bring her to confront a mysterious man that is opposing her mission.

Chronicles of Tsufanubra, as I wrote before, is a classic, epic fantasy journey, but do not worry, this does not mean that's predictable: the game has no real through-and-through evil villain except in the backstory, the conflict sees in fact characters of various motivation but not real "big evil overlord" that is a total bastard. There are many twists, the dialogues are well written and also the cutscenes are really well made! Interesting isn't it? Well play and see!


This is the classic world map... but heyyy what's that big thing over there? Something bad is gonna happen!

While gameplay is also classic (wander the main map, explore dungeons, solve puzzles, battle monsters, complete quests, etc), typical of many others rpgmaker 2000 games (the battle system is nothing new, there are no battlers, so it's your standard rpgmaker fare), there are some cool new ideas: for example the enemies are visible and avoidable, but wiping out every enemy in the dungeon will net a bonus often consisting in unique supplies or gear! On the main map it's different, there you will have random encounters, but the gains are little also in term of money, so there is really no need (nor a real possibility) for grinding here. Game is normally saved at save points that are glowing swords, but there are also glowing healing points, and both are found inside the dungeons. Clearly there are also boss battles, but the difficulty is fine (provided that you do not skip too many encpounters!) even if some have really nasty attacks, and yes, there are also some optional bosses!

Visually the game is really beautiful: I like how the assets are used, there are many different locations and dungeons, and some of the maps made by Corfaisus are really pretty. On the other hand there are some dungeons that require backtracking and are also filled with enemies, so it's not all perfect, but still this is a solid and professionally made game. Music is also well selected and appropriate, so nothing else to say here!


One enemy, but a really big one! This clearly means a thing: it's time for a boss fight!

Final Verdict
Chronicles of Tsufanubra is good. That's it, there are some minor imprecisions and not every part is as good as the others (I hated the cursed castle and my favourite parts are probably the early and final sections) but still, considering the length of the adventure, it's a pretty good game, the story is surely one of the aspects I liked most together with the aestetics and the cutscenes. A classic, solid rpg done well, really recommended.