PROTIP: Don't give your cat to the cat-eating mad-man. Let's Play Phantasy Star!

Do we? I remembered starting with one and swapping it for Myau, but I forgot about Dr. Mad's pot.

Since you asked, the Fly spell can presumably only access towns that the caster has already visited.

Oh, I know from a gameplay POV.
I was just laughing at the absurdity of the spell called "FLY" allowing you to do interplanetary travel.
I'm picturing Alis & co floating up to space to go back to the town they came from, only to die from vacuum exposure a few seconds after leaving the atmosphere (if not earlier from the sudden change of pressure). XD

Wait, when did we FLY between planets?

What I said that phrase in response to:

From Palma to get the flute, back to Uzo in Motavia.

Ah, indeed so! I've been spoiled by the latter games where warp spells decidedly do not allow you warp between planets.

Haha, nah, although I thought the same as a kid. I think the intent is that the artist is saying "this is what all of those little circles I'm drawing around here actually look like up close" versus there being one giant one in the middle of the Ant Lion field.

Yup! We do indeed have our Laconian pot again. The saga of the pot thus far is:

• Alis' brother Nero gave it to her neighbour.
• Said neighbour gave it to us.
• We traded it away on Motavia for Myau.
• The Motavian trader sold it to Dr. Mad for fat bank.
• We beat up the good doctor and took it back again.

At no point during any of that did any of the folks involved give the slightest indication what it's for. (Incidentally, if you speak to the Motavian trader again with the pot back in your possession, there's no special dialogue. I checked!)

The much bigger problem to my mind is that doing this should leave us stranded on another planet with our spaceship parked on the one that we left. I guess Hapsby flies it over to meet us? Let's go with that.

Huh, I thought there were just a bunch of Laconian pots kickin' around.

Didn't you also use the L Pot to hold the Polymtryl?

Nope, it just comes from the store in a vial. They don't, like, get it from a Polymeteral spigot.

Go get that hovercraft and get hovercrafting!



Here’s the cave near oasis, as I labelled the Casba Cave. I did find a few of the hidden doors in other dungeons, but not this one, so I only fought one dragon. It’s hard to make out, but I drew a little picture of it on the map.

It is a Light Saber, not a Lightsaber. Mr. Lucas’ legal team is powerless against that subtle copyright infringement dodge.

So I just discovered this thread after not checking the site in several months, and I am absolutely loving this! You did a great job on Vandal Hearts and this is even better so far. I eagerly await the next update, and if it's not too late to do so, I vote Hovercraft.

I'm going to vote for exploring Motavia, if only in hopes of breathing some life back into this LP.

Yes. Motavia, ho!

In case my vote wasn't clear enough
https://soundcloud.com/marcb0t/motab...enesis-version

Hey, so it turns out that I have a Let's Play. Who knew? Apologies for the delay, but I got hopelessly derailed by discovering a very fun ROM-hack of my other favourite JRPG, and once you fall off the weekly update LP wagon it just gets harder and harder to clamber back on! But I just can't pass up the opportunity to share something I love so much with the rest of the world, or at least this small cool part of it, so clamber back on I did. Thanks to the folks who bumped the thread and gave me the kick that I needed! So, without further ado:

Hello there everyone, and welcome back to Let's Play Phantasy Star! It's been a couple of months, so let's take a quick look at our story thus far. Alis Landale, the hero of our story, came home one day to find her older brother Nero murdered by the soldiers of the evil King Lassic. Nero had been silenced for digging into Lassic's affairs, and with his dying breath entrusted Alis with his sword and entreated her to find a man of great strength named Odin in hopes that the two of them might find a way to put an end to Lassic's tyranny. And find him she did, but there was just one little problem: he had tried to defeat Medusa and had been turned to stone!

Discouraged but not defeated, Alis obtained a passport and flew to the desert planet of Motavia, and there traded a rare Laconian pot left for her by her brother to a shady salesman in exchange for a talking cat! The cat's named was Myau, and he had around his neck a medicine that could cure Odin of his affliction! So the two of them flew back to Palma, cured Odin, and then went on a harrowing adventure to visit the galaxy's worst cake shop. Cake in hand, they met with the Governor of Motavia, who was sympathetic to their plight and handed them a letter of introduction, encouraging them to seek the aid of the Esper, Noah. One bad dream later, they sought out and added this fourth and final member to their party

Under Noah's sage guidance, Alis and her companions waded through a disgusting spaceport sewer and then busted the world's least grateful rocket scientist, Dr. Luveno, out of jail, who then gave the party endless busywork that included a death march across literal lava fields and a fight against a cat-eating mad scientist, finally culminating in their very own spaceship piloted by their very own robot buddy, Hapsby! They immediately flew this new spaceship to the inhospitable ice planet of Dezoris and got endlessly lost in entirely too many ice caves, finding some sweet Laconian gear in the process but ultimately leaving for the greener(?) pastures(?) of Motavia. There, they beat up a dragon and stole its crystal eye, and then purchased a sweet land rover and did some donuts, which catches us up to now!

Phew! I'd better not go this long between updates again, because summarizing is a lot of work! Anyway, ya'll voted on what to do next, and taking a tank tread tour of Motavia was the clear winner, so let's go rut up this desert!

So, now that we have the run of the entire planet, what exciting locale shall we hit up first?



Well, as it turns out, Paseo is quite close to Uzo now that we can cross Ant Lions, so let's go pay it a quick visit before we explore.



Not much has changed here, but I did want to take this opportunity to demonstrate the one thing that has:



Those jerks stole our passport! We paid good money for that!

We didn't want to go to your dumb Spaceport anyway. We've got our own spaceship now, and it has an adorable robot pilot! Let's get back to exploring.



As we saw at the end of the last update, there are still random encounters while driving the land rover. This Sandworm and Amundsen are the only new opponents that we encounter on this trip. The Sandworm is pretty trivial for us at this point, but the Amundsen hits pretty hard (although not as hard as the icy palette-swap that we've already tangled with on Dezoris). Notably, both of them had different names in Japanese: the Sandworm was called a Leviathan, while the Amundsen was "Barukan". So... "Vulcan", maybe? That's my best guess, anyway! I mean, he does have pretty pointy ears... I think.



Anyway, while there are still encounters, the encounter rate is actually lowered dramatically and we cross ground much more quickly, so it doesn't take long for us to get the lay of the land and thoroughly explore this gigantic desert. The Motavia desert is easily the game's largest open outdoor area, but it's also pretty sparse on locations of interest, so here's a quick highlight reel:



First is this mysterious arrow. As far as I can determine, it's not pointing at anything in particular (maybe Casba, kind of?), but it sure looks like an arrow to me! Young JBear invested considerable effort into unearthing its secrets, but to no avail.



Next is this mountain pass, the mouth of which is carefully blocked by Ant Lions.



Finally, we have some actual grass! Hooray! The trees look like they've seen better days, though... Let's go investigate!



! A town! Let's go say hello!



ohgodwhy



So, um, that could have gone better. Only Alis is still alive, and she's on her last legs. What the hell happened? I suspect that a couple of cloudy GIFs might help clear things up:



Yes, these fields are choked with poisonous fumes. Each step deals massive damage to the whole party. If we were on foot, we wouldn't have even made it this far.

Notice how the gas alternates holes in that first GIF, and how the couple of trees that are outside the gas are healthy in the second? I love those little details.

Suffice it to say, we're steering clear of this place for now. If only someone had thought to warn us!

If only...



I guess we'd better FLY back to town and revive everyone!

Well, it looks like the only remaining option that won't kill us is this pass, so let's investigate further!



No sooner do we cross the threshold as we get attacked by a pair of Nessies, known as "Flame Lizard"s in the original Japanese. Have we seen these before? I have a hard enough time remembering which enemies I've screen-shotted when I don't take two-month breaks. >_< Anyway, both names have their charm.



Before we can even round the first bend, a cave comes in to view. I think I know where this pass is headed!



That said, it's certainly taking its sweet time getting there!



After a number of twists and turns, we actually come across a coast. Motavia only has one major body of water (that we saw the east coast of back on our first trip to the planet), so this puts us somewhere south-west of Paseo.



Annoyingly, this narrow patch of beach requires us to disembark in order to progress further. Maybe getting our treads wet would void the warranty?



Fortunately, our destination is just around the corner, so we don't have to walk far.

(We could have clambered back aboard for this final short journey south, but I couldn't be arsed to do all that menuing.)



Welcome to... ? The game continues to punish us for shelling out to buy a magic lamp, as this is the second cave in a row that is already fully lit. *grumble*



Around the very first corner we already find a treasure chest. Perhaps this cave is just a loot cave and we're about to become filthy rich?



Initial signs point to "no".



A number of twists and turns later, we find more exciting treasure. You might recall this WOODCANE as Noah's starting weapon, with the unique distinction of being the weakest weapon in the game. Phantasy Star loves chests like this. At least it wasn't trapped!



The encounter table in here so far seems the same as every other Motavian cave, which means nothing that poses any risk to us at this point, and mostly encounters that we're able to resolve peacefully besides.



We still do have to fight occasionally, though, and one such fight brings with it an important level-up for Noah.



The OPEN spell allows us to open magically sealed doors! I wonder where we might find a use for that...



Taking a right at the next fork leads us to this chest which contains Noah's starting cape (which he is actually still wearing). I'm beginning to sense a theme in the loot here...



A few corners later, we come to another fork, and taking the left leads us to this empty dead end. But if we pivot left and push up against this entirely unremarkable section of wall...



Another cave, another unclued secret passage with large quantities of money. Never change, Phantasy Star.



And that brings us to the end of the first floor. Apparently this cave has multiple levels. Onward!



B2 is rather confusingly laid out, with a number of interconnected loops that make it easy to get lost. I'll spare you all the details, but rest assured that I got turned around at least twice while taking screenshots of this floor.



The enemies down here are also more dangerous, skewing closer to Dezoris levels of difficulty, although nothing that we haven't seen before.

Not pictured: several chests. They all sucked. One of them exploded, and then sucked.



On to B3! The loot can't be any worse!

(Spoiler: it can.)

Do not adjust your set-- yes, that was 3, count 'em, 3, empty chests, all of which were also trapped. Fortunately, by this point I was getting wise to this bullcrap and having Myau obsessively check each one for traps.



The encounters down here have gotten notably more difficult. In addition to jerks like this...



Red dragons are now regular enemies. Eep.



This does, however, provide me with a great opportunity to correct an error I made in the last update. I've been waiting months to fix this! When we were fighting the Casba dragon, I said the following:

This is incorrect! While WALL is indeed entirely useless...



PROT is actually super effective versus dragon breath!



A single cast of PROT gives us several entirely safe turns in a row, effectively neutering the encounter. That said, PROT remains pricey, and Red Dragons are otherwise still punching a bit above our weight class, so we'll be running from any others that we find down here.



Not all of the chests down here are entirely useless, although 500 MST isn't exactly exciting at this point.



Finally, there's one other secret passage down here, leading to...



...some pretty disappointing loot, all things considered. Oh well, I guess every secret passage can't be a winner.

So is there any point to coming down here, or what?



Presenting: the point.



It's Noah's master, Tarzimal*! And he's adorable. Can we keep him?

* - aka Tajima, just to get out in front of that one.



But he wants to fight! I don't want to beat up an adorable old man! Odin might pulp him!



Except that Odin isn't here! Yes, this is an actual duel. Good thing we made sure to save Noah's MP throughout this dungeon! What happens if we didn't, though?



In a surprising show of generosity, losing this duel is not a game over! In fact, it returns Noah to full health afterwards!

Even still, most players, upon meeting Tarzimal for the first time, have to hoof it back to town to heal Noah's MP and then go through the whole song and dance over again, unless they have bags full of hamburgers to nurse him through. Good thing we're not most players! So let's beat up an old man!

Tarzimal has two similar and equally delightful attack animations, depending upon whether he decides to attack with FIRE or whack Noah with his staff. Neither hits very hard.



This is obviously a difficult fight if Noah is low on MP, but our Noah is anything but, so we just slam WIND down his throat until we can't afford to any longer.



At which point we switch to FIRE.



Bam! The fight was over in five turns. Tarzimal can't step to this.



Phat loot! Tarzimal, it's just what I've always wanted. How did you know?



We've actually heard about this particular garb from a townsperson previously. Let's try it on!



And just like that, we've gone from Noah's worst armour to Noah's best. Not bad! He's still got our lowest defense, of course, as he was lagging quite far behind, but he's nipping at the heals of Odin, who is currently rocking our next-lowest Defense score of 156. Given how hard Noah was getting hammered in that dungeon, it's a very welcome upgrade.



Because of how hard he'd been getting hit, among other things, we've actually blown through most of our MP reserves on CUREs, which means that no one can afford to cast EXIT!



It's a good thing that we picked up this new toy in our previous update, then. This will be our first time putting it through its paces. Let's hope that it works as advertised!

Before we go, though, let's check in with the master one last time...



I love you too tiny grand-dad!



We out!

So where to from here? We've done about as much as we can on Motavia at the moment (it's technically possible to brute-force your way through the poison clouds with a lot of healing, but that's obviously not intended and entirely unnecessary), and the second-place vote was to go find the rumoured hovercraft, so let's head back home to Palma!

We'll fast-forward a bit past some boring admin to get us back to Palma. Alis flew everyone back to Uzo with the last of her MP, and then we rested up at the hospital, sold a bunch of junk (including the second set of Noah's starter gear from the previous dungeon, which I thought was a neat hint), and had Hapsby fly us back to Gothic. Next stop: Bortevo!



Oh, you didn't think we were going to walk there, did you? Like some kind of plebes? Walking is yesterday's news. We're land rover people now.



With the landrover, what used to be an incredibly long journey just flies by.



However, I am unhappy to report that the lava fields still damage us as we drive through them.



And before you know it, we've reached our destination. The entire trip took only a minute or two of real time. That still leaves us with just one problem, though.




Where the heck is this supposed hovercraft?

You would be forgiven for thinking that we have to go fetch another bottle of Polymeteral and go through that whole song and dance again, but recall that the reason that worked was because our good robot buddy was made of Laconia (which Polymeteral will not dissolve), and we don't have any reason to believe that the same is true of this hovercraft. We don't want to melt our new ride!



No, we just have to start searching trash piles. I genuinely don't recall which pile is correct, so I'm just as lost as any of you.

We eventually make our way to the correct pile, and...



Hapsby, you're my favourite.



Well, it's time to try out our newest sweet vehicle!



The fuck it won't! What gives?

As you might have guessed, the hovercraft can only be used to cross water, not land. So why not just make it a boat instead? It is a mystery. I mean, there's no disputing that a hovercraft is way cooler, though!



Is this good enough for you, you picky game?



Wheeeeee!

Can we just take a moment to appreciate how rad the vehicles in this game are? Because they are pretty rad. Note that the hovercraft has a fun engine sound effect that is distinct from the land rover, but equally delightful. It also has one other undocumented feature that most players never find:



Wheeeeee?

Yes, the hovercraft can be used on lava, and unlike the land rover, it completely insulates us from any damage. Certainly a fun bit of trivia, if nothing else.



Well, now that we have our run of the Palman seas, where to?



I'm making an executive decision for our first stop. We passed up on the opportunity to buy Noah a shield ages ago, and we'll never have a more convenient chance to stop by this neck of the woods again (and even now it's a bit of a drive), so I'm going to go do that now.

As you may recall, this was also where we fought Dr. Mad, and this is the point where many parties who weren't able to handle him before return and wipe the floor with him to reclaim their Laconian pot.



We have our eyes on a different prize, though.



Noah now has the second-highest Defense score in the party, and isn't far off of first. Between this and the OPEN spell he's had a very productive update!



With that errand out of the way, it's time to hit the open seas. Let's see what's out there!



Almost immediately, we come across this mysterious tower on an island. Spooky!



Then we spend a lot of time wandering aimlessly. As it turns out, there's not actually that much of interest that we haven't found already! Note that we can still encounter enemies while on the hovercraft, but they just pull from the old Palman coastal encounter set and are thus trivial.



Eventually we find and dock at the only other thing worth finding: a new town!



Let's check it out!

This town is so tiny. You're looking at all of it! So where the heck are we, anyway?



Hey, that's my line!

Let's see what the other locals have to say:

• "You are daring to have found your way here even though the sea lanes are closed to ships."
• "There is a magic sword in a tower on a forgotten island."
• "The top of the hill called Baya Malay is always hidden by clouds. Something must be up there!"
• "Long ago, I saw a giant rock float through the sky."

Not a whole lot here in the way of useful information, and that last piece sounds... suspect.



We still have this conspicuous dungeon entrance waiting to be explored, though.



Welcome to what I am going to refer to as the Drasgow warehouse, since the similar dungeon in Camineet was also called a warehouse. It's a big confusing mess of twisty passages, but it is blessedly free of encounters. So what the heck is down here, anyway?





I see. This is very relevant to our interests! Let's start searching, I guess!



A couple of minutes of confused wandering takes us to this dead end. Might this be our destination?



Ka-ching! Well that wasn't so bad. There's a cake shop owner that I'd like you talk to; I think that he would benefit from your advice. Oh, and one Gas Shield, please!



. . .

No jury would convict us, right? This is a justifiable homicide if ever I saw one. Besides, I don't see any witnesses down here, do you?



Cooler heads ultimately prevail, and a couple more minutes of wandering eventually brings us to this door? Surely the game wouldn't troll us twice, right?

Right?



Probably not as surprised as you're thinking, buddy. We've seen some things. Dare I ask if you have a Gas Shield for sale?



...Yes. Yes we will.



Well that seems pretty straight-forward. However, young JBear found it to be anything but, because calling it a "shield" is a tad bit misleading. It's a neat design, but I think something like a gas mask would have been much clearer. Suffice it to say, this just sits in our inventory and passively protects our party. It cannot be used, and it certainly cannot be equipped, although that never stopped me from trying back in the day.



I sincerely hope not.



A quick flute tune takes us back outside. There was no danger, but this saves us the trouble of finding our way back out. I think you all know where we're headed next, so let's take a quick break and join Alis and crew again when they get there.

Here we are again, back at the gas fields on Motavia. It was actually a pretty quick trip, as Alis still hasn't visited any churches this update, allowing us to FLY straight to Uzo and skip any travel on Palma or space flight entirely.



Also, Myau got a level up on the way and picked up a new spell! His final spell, in fact. The HELP spell is a buff spell for our physical attackers. For the cost of 10 MP, it increases the target's accuracy and damage for the duration of the battle (although it of course has no effect on gun damage). We probably won't be using it outside of boss battles, but it's very effective!



With the Gas Shield in our inventory, we're now able to pass through the gas harmlessly.



We can still be attacked, though! And by some pretty tough enemies, at that-- we've already had some very harrowing encounters with their tougher cousins on Dezoris! If you're trying to sequence break and limp through here without the gas shield, an untimely battle like this is very likely a death sentence. The gas fields make for a pretty neat battle background, at least.

In fact, it was stumbling upon this great GIF that partially inspired me to up my GIF-ing game for this LP in the first place, because I thought it looked super cool! This game just has so many rad animations that need to be shared with the world! Before I started this LP, a Google Image search for a GIF of the Vampire Sonic Spinball attack came up empty, which I absolutely could not stand for.



Anyway, let's head into town! I bet they don't get many tourists here!

And yes, we can just drive our land rover straight into town. Who has time to worry about a few crushed buildings when you're saving the galaxy?



Welcome to Sopia! Man, these towns just keep getting smaller, don't they?

It's Talking Time!

• "You are brave to penetrate the gas."
• "Before Lassic came to power, even our town had plenty."
• "I've heard that the Palma is a beautiful planet. Is that true? I'd like to go somewhere the air is more clean and fresh."
• "There is a monk named Tajim in the mountains to the south of the lake."

Between the manual and the game itself, this is the third name that we've heard for this guy. Noah's master sure is mysterious!

There are a few more townsfolk that I'd like to highlight. First is this guy:



If we refuse:



Typo or pun? You decide!

If we give him a Cola:



lol

He'll gladly hoover up all of your spare Colas if you're so inclined! I fed him the three sitting in our bags because why not?



Next we have Miki's house. Most folks in this town are pretty understandably bummed out, but not Miki! No, Miki is special.



The fourth wall, she is shattered.

If we say "NO":





Miki just don't understand.

If we say"YES" instead:



Miki is wise.



Finally, we have the village leader. What does he have to say?





Perhaps, but you are rich in Miki, and isn't that what really counts?



He would like us to make a small donation to the town's coffers.



If we refuse, we get a guilt trip, but if we instead part with a paltry 400 MST then he gives us this hot tip:

"According to our legends, the very shield, Perseus used to overcome Medusa, is buried on the small island in the middle of a lake."

This guy sure likes his commas, but he just gave us a good lead, so I'll let it slide. As was just discussed earlier this update, Motavia only has one major body of water, and guess what we have now that we didn't have when we explored the planet earlier?

Sure enough, it doesn't take long for us to find a small island at the centre of the lake. We quickly get off and Search and find...



Huh. Well... that's disappointing.

As it so happens, we need to search one specific square in particular. Have fun combing the island!



Search the space that we're standing on in this screenshot and...



Pay dirt!



One of the main monsters, eh? However will we figure out which one? HRM.

Also, that "strongest shield" bit is actually a lie, in that Odin can also equip the Laconian shield and it is 25% stronger, but since only Odin can equip the Mirror shield that would leave Alis with a much worse shield and that would be pretty foolish.



With this defensive bump, Odin narrowly reclaims his place as the second-best defender in the party, with both Myau and Noah nipping at his heels.

And with that, I think this is a good place to call this update! We got a number of good defensive upgrades this week, and several choices for where to go next. I could summarize the major options here, but I think I can trust you all to tease out what doors are now opened to us. Let me know which of them you'd like Alis to kick down next!

Things that we know:

• Some cats, if they eat a certain type of nut, become huge and can fly.
• Laconia is the hardest, strongest metal, and Lassic fears its holy power. There exists a sword, shield (check), axe, and armor (check) made of it.
• Medusa, who resides in a tower in the Gothic mountains, has a mystic axe.
• There is a magic sword in a tower on a forgotten island.
• Lassic lives above the sky.
• There exists a certain crystal that will block Lassic's evil magic.
• There is a dangerous hill named Baya Malay to the north of Scion bordered by an imposing ziggurut to the south. Apparently the top of the hill is always hidden by clouds.
• Laerma trees grow on the Altiplano plateau on the planet Dezoris, at the top of an ice mountain.
• A nut of Laerma needs special light to glow, and a Laconian pot to be stored in.
• An eclipse occurs on Dezoris once every hundred years. A torch lit during an eclipse is called an 'eclipse torch' and is regarded as holy by the Dezorians.
• An Aeroprism allows one to see another world.

Outstanding roadblocks/mysteries:

• There are places in the mountains of Dezoris where the ice is soft and impassable to those on foot.
• There's a mysterious locked door at the entrance to the ziggurat south of Baya Malay.
• There are places in the sky where even spaceships cannot go.
• What's inside the Corona tower?
• What's inside the island tower on Palma?
• Ice Diggers are expensive, ya'll!

Can we unlock the mysterious locked door now?

Miki made me laugh when I first encountered her. Later I learned that she's a bit of a Sega easter egg, and apparently the Japanese version of Phantasy Star was all Pokemon Dragon Quest, peppering various Sega staff throughout the world:

I want to know more about the tit sword you found. Can't believe that got past Sega's censors!

Being medusa is suffering