Archipelago/worlds/lufia2ac/docs/en_Lufia II Ancient Cave.md

Lufia II - Rise of the Sinistrals (Ancient Cave)

Where is the options page?

The player options page for this game contains all the options you need to configure and export a config file.

What does randomization do to this game?

As you may or may not know, randomization was already a core feature of the Ancient Cave in Lufia II, basically being a whole game within a game. The Ancient Cave has 99 floors with increasingly hard enemies, red chests and blue chests. At the end of the Ancient Cave you get to fight the Royal Jelly... if you make it that far. You cannot lose the Royal Jelly fight as it kills itself after giving you three rounds to try and kill it (or manage to vanquish your own party, whichever one you can manage).

The Randomizer allows you to set different goals and modify the game in several other ways (see below).

What items and locations get shuffled?

In general, all Items can appear in the red and blue chests, the blue chest items are items you get to keep after you die in or escape the Ancient Cave using Providence. Archipelago Items can also appear in said chests. Iris Treasures are always in your local game.

Which items can be in another player's world?

Any of the blue chest items from the vanilla game may be placed into another player's world.

What does another world's item look like in Lufia II?

Items belonging to other worlds are represented by an AP icon and are called AP items.

When the player receives an item, what happens?

Your Party Leader will hold up the item they received when not in a fight or in a menu.

Changes from the vanilla game

Customization options:

• Choose a goal for your world. Possible goals are: 1) Reach the final floor; 2) Defeat the boss on the final floor; 3) Retrieve a (customizable) number of Iris treasures from the cave; 4) Retrieve the Iris treasures and defeat the boss
• You can also randomize the goal; The blue-haired NPC in front of the cafe can tell you about the selected objective
• Customize the chances of encountering blue chests, healing tiles, Iris treasures, etc.
• Customize the default party lineup and capsule monster
• Customize the party starting level as well as capsule monster level and form
• Customize the initial and final floor numbers
• Customize the boss that resides on the final floor
• Customize the multiworld item pool. (By default, your pool is filled with random blue chest items, but you can place any cave item you want instead)
• Customize start inventory, i.e., begin every run with certain items or spells of your choice
• Adjust how much EXP and gold is gained from enemies
• Randomize enemy movement patterns, enemy sprites, and which enemy types can appear at which floor numbers
• Option to make shops appear in the cave so that you have a way to spend your hard-earned gold
• Option to shuffle your party members and/or capsule monsters into the multiworld, meaning that someone will have to find them in order to unlock them for you to use. While cave diving, you can add or remove unlocked party members by using the character items from your inventory. There's also an option to allow inactive characters to gain some EXP, so that new party members added during a run don't have to start off at a low level

Quality of life:

• Various streamlining tweaks (removed cutscenes, dialogue, transitions)
• You can elect to lock the cave layout for the next run, giving you exactly the same floors and red chest contents as on your previous attempt. This functionality is accessed via the bald NPC behind the counter at the Ancient Cave Entrance
• Multiple people can connect to the same slot and collaboratively search for Iris treasures and blue chests
• Always start with Providence already in your inventory. (It is no longer obtained from red chests)
• (optional) Run button that allows you to move at faster than normal speed

Quality of death:

• Blue chest items that you received from the multiworld are kept, even if your party dies. (I.e., you do not need to use Providence to make them permanent)
• Similarly, but in the opposite direction: All location checks you make are immediately sent out to the multiworld and don't require Providence for persistence.
• (optional) Death link support. (I.e., if your party is defeated, everyone else participating in death link also dies)

Bug fixes:

• Vanilla game bugs that could result in anomalous floors, softlocks, or save file corruption have been fixed
• (optional) Bugfix for the algorithm that determines the item pool for red chest gear. Enabling this allows the cave to generate shields, headgear, rings, and jewels in red chests even after floor B9
• (optional) Bugfix for the outlandish cravings of capsule monsters in the US version. Enabling this makes feeding work like in the JP and EU versions of the game, resulting in more reasonable cravings