The story actually starts not with CIMA, but with its older cousin, Lufia. When I was a kid, my childhood best friends were also big gamers and had just purchased the game for themselves. Since I was also an RPG fanatic, they were telling me and my sister all about it when we were hanging out one day; since the one girl was my age and her sister and my sister were the same age, we were close all throughout elementary school. Later on, after they beat the game, they told us the entire story of what happened, and I began to get curious; I didn't care that I already knew every plot twist, I was inspired by the game. I wanted to play it, but as it was only one player, we really couldn't play when all four of us were hanging out.
One day, us older girls were having a sleepover when our sisters were at a sleepover birthday party for one of their friends. The SNES was in her parents' room, so we couldn't play video games, but we were able to play Lufia nonetheless. With her pretending to be the characters of Lufia, and me pretending to be the character from Arcana, one of my favorite RPGs, we created a silly game of pretend that, along with its less RPG inspired spiritual successor, kept us entertained until we graduated elementary school. The story, crossover mix and OCs of those two games would eventually become part of the basis for the Muse Universe.
Between that one simple game and an attempt to start playing Lufia the next morning, I became fascinated with the series as a whole. So when the second game came out, I had to snap it up as soon as I had the money...or rather as soon as I was shopping for my birthday present. I watched the information on the failed Ruin Chasers game, and followed the creation of The Legend Returns after that blow up. Though I didn't like them as much as the first two, I did have fun with The Legend Returns, and Ruins of Lore after it. Back when this was first written, I was eagerly awaiting Curse of the Sinistraels, and now I have beaten it and had my fun there as well...and still need to find time to go back and do some Ancient Cave Blue Chest searches before heading for the New Game Plus.
Skip ahead a few years, as the era of the PS3/360/Wii has come. During the heydays of the Spring of '08, I was playing all my favorite SNES RPGs again, as well as some of their Japanese counterparts as a part of my language studies (I like to see how characters use honorifics and referential terms...though it's harder with games lacking voice acting since I don't read Kanji that well and sometimes the graphics squish it). One thing led to another, and I began searching for websites for the games in order to find fanart and fanfiction, as well as other interesting things. While Arcana came up empty, leading to my decision to create a shrine for that, Lufia had a decent amount of hits. And in those searches, I came across some interesting information...another game made by Neverland Co. That game was CIMA.
With an odd name like CIMA: The Enemy, I was sure it was probably another quirky Japanese title that I wouldn't get to play. However, curiosity got the better of me in the end and I began to research exactly what it was and what system it was for; with any luck, it would be for something that wasn't region locked and I could import. To my great surprise, I found there was an English release, and I began looking deeper and deeper into what it was about. Though the fact that it was action oriented worried me--I was known as the Zelda Klutz for years--I decided to try it out anyway. After all, I may have been bad at them, but I did enjoy the action genre. Plus, it was only in 2D; I ignored the fact that I'd spent at least five years and a ton of tries to beat A Link to the Past back when I was a kid.
So in August, I got ahold of the game and started to play it. The diverse cast of characters excited me, as did the fact that Ark and Ivy reminded me a lot of Wain and Seena from Lufia: The Legend Returns due to their red-hair/blue-hair dynamic as well as argumentative interaction. Even being ass kicked by Bruton over and over again, including after learning the Lightning trick, didn't dampen my spirit; after all, nothing could be as masochistic as playing Card Master without adequate kanji knowledge to tell me which Attribute spell was which and having to memorize the positions of my characters' magic. And by the time I finished...I was much better at playing the game.
By the time the year was out, I'd played CIMA: The Enemy through four times--including two late year ones to get data for this shrine, one of which was finished on New Year's Eve--and its Japanese equivalent, Frontier Stories, through once. And to finish the shrine, I played Frontier Stories through three more times early in 2009 to do some experiments and get Japanese version data. And I'm still not tired of the game in the least! It's a short game--I clock in at under 15 hours for the most part even with Majesty/Trust farming sessions due to my perfectionist nature--but not too short as to not give me enjoyment. After all, fifteen hours can easily be banged out in a single weekend...which is all I need sometimes.