The Phantasy Star series

[muteKi]

Protip: grinding in the early game usually pays dividends but beware of the blasters which are very evil enemies and show up on the top floor of the second dungeon. they can wipe you, fast. don't be afraid to make multiple trips in that one especially

 

[Kazin]

Yeah, I've been playing a good amount, and got the Jet Speeder thing and the 8th character, Shir. This is just about as far as I've gotten; Uzo Island is really annoying to navigate. I'm pretty sure I got to Neifirst like 15 years ago but couldn't beat it. Probably was underleveled/undergeared.

I've been trying to figure out equipment without looking anything up, but Rudo's guns confuse me. He had a shotgun that hit multiple enemies, but I got another gun with "shot" in the name (LASERSHOT, I think?), but it only seems to hit a single enemy, not even any others in the group. May have to look that up tomorrow along with an Uzo Island map (because it seems like the caves don't take you to the "other side" of the mountain, but function basically as warps).

 

[FelixSH]

Is that the mountain with something like 20 entrances? God, that is such a confusing mess, the best map won't help you there, I think. I followed the route that was mentioned in a let's play, I think.

 

[Kazin]

That's the one! I think I'm going to download a map I found, and literally draw a path to the plant I need to collect with MS Paint lol

EDIT: Yeah, look at this mess ffs:

There's not even any treasure chests at the end of any of those dead ends. Sheesh.

EDIT EDIT: Got the plant. Looked ahead to Climatrol. Fucking LOL good lord.

 

[Kazin]

Red = walking path, green = where stairs go

God. GOD

 

[FelixSH]

You are better than me, I couldn't read that map. And with thae small screen, with seeing only a small part of the mountain, it's even more confusing in game.

Are you enjoying the game, in general, at least?

 

[Kazin]

I am, actually. The vibes - aesthetics - are incredible. The music and graphics are extremely unique. The enemies are strange.

Just gave Neifirst a shot, her single target attack can one shot my party, sheesh. I need to grind up aome cash and levels, I think. Which is fine, I didn't expect to be able to beat her first try.

 

[FelixSH]

I guess that's PS II in a nutshell. Everything is great, except for the dungeons, which make up 90% of the playtime.

The bosses are brutal. I beat Neifirst after doing some grinding (and I might have abused savestates a bit, not sure). For the other bosses, I just cheated, giving my party invincibility. It's not like I didn't try, I grinded quite a few levels, iirc. I hope you will fare better.

 

[Peklo]

I respect and am in awe of Phantasy Star II's dungeons as a work of naive art that makes them unlike anything else in the genre.

 

[Kazin]

Holy crap, I beat Neifirst on my second try after a bit of grinding. Barely. Rudo was the only survivor; she killed Kaz on turn 2, Amy on turn 4, and then I had to heal twice with Rudo with Trimates he had after doing some damage, but he got the job done. Her single target attack is no joke. It's all new stuff for me from here on out... Apparently I have to go to the dams, next. Whew!

 

[YangusKhan]

Chiming in as someone who also ended up referencing maps for this game when I beat it years ago. I was also playing on Japanese PS2 collection, which came with IIRC faster walking/battle speed, and optional multipliers to money/exp.

 

[Kazin]

I'm on original cart, just to get the full original experience. So far, it's fine, mainly because I'm referencing these maps, because wow are they bonkers. Increased walking speed would be nice, but to be honest the only thing that kinda annoys me about the game is Rolf walks almost to the edge of the screen, and the camera won't recenter on him until after a battle, so it can be hard to see where you're going. I have similar issues with Secret of Mana, I don't know why games did that back in the day, I find it pretty frustrating. Having maps largely mitigates it, though.

 

[Kazin]

Oh hell yes:

Never gotten that before. That'll come in handy... Grinding up levels for Kain now to try to make the robots less dangerous. He seems to be pretty well outfitted, I think, from cash I already had. I assume, now that I've stolen the Visiphone, I no longer need to level Shir up? She's fairly useless, right? The party from here on out is Kaz/Rolf, Rudo, Amy, and Kain. Are any of them dead weight, for those who have beaten the game?

 

[FelixSH]

Is the Visiphone that thing that let's you save anywhere? Am I remembering that right?

I can't tell you who I used, except that I never used the thief (who is Shir, I suppose).

 

[Kazin]

Yep, had to look up how to get it (get Shir - who is the thief, yes - to level 10, go in and out of the item storage until she steals the Visiphone). I kinda figured she'd be largely useless in battle.

 

[Peklo]

I never remove Shir from the party once she shows up simply because she's among the coolest RPG characters in existence.

 

[FelixSH]

I just remembered, a grim detail that I really like is, how you just die. What you can get back, is a clone, a perfect copy of the fallen person. But nothing more than a copy, the original is still dead.

 

[gorha]

Oh, man, that mountain. I've beaten Phantasy Star II in the distant past, a couple of times even, so I must have muddled my way through it, but the last time I tried to play that part, I was just running in circles for hours, finally broke down and looked up a map, and still couldn't find the right path, so I gave up. There's definitely a part of me that wants to give the dungeon designer props for making them so hard to navigate even with an overhead perspective. Ironically, the late game dungeons are substantially easier just because they have stairs that actually look like stairs.

Rudo and Amy are great and I think you'd make the game a lot harder for yourself by leaving either of them out. Kain is good for the dams. Anna is probably better after the dams, but if you used Kain for them you'd have to level her afterwards. Shir can steal at any shop, and always goes back to Rolf's house when she does, even if it's on another planet, so you'll want to save scum before doing any shopping if you use her. But her stats and techs are good. The only one who might be dead weight is Hugh, and even he can use his techs again after the dams, so he's not that bad.

 

[Kazin]

I never remove Shir from the party once she shows up simply because she's among the coolest RPG characters in existence.

Huh, okay, maybe I'll pop her back in then after the dams and level her up some more. Though her leaving every time she steals from a store sounds like it could be a pain... And I have yet to travel between planets yet (which is wild because you change planets like ten minutes into Phantasy Star 1).

I just remembered, a grim detail that I really like is, how you just die. What you can get back, is a clone, a perfect copy of the fallen person. But nothing more than a copy, the original is still dead.

Leveling Shir up took a while, since she kept getting killed against the high level monsters I was fighting to level her to 10, so she's like three or four clones deep lol. But yeah, there are a lot of cool details like this in Phantasy Star II. The dungeon with Neifirst in it has more and more cat-like biomonsters around the closer you get to her, which makes sense considering what Nei and Neifirst are. Even that hellish mountain I gorha mentions below (Uzo Island) has zero treasure chests in it, which is good environmental design since yeah, no one lives there, why would there be any trace of civilization on this remote island up a mountain (I ignore the stairs being built there, since in my head they're more like slopes or something rather than perfectly straight manmade stairs lol).

Oh, man, that mountain. I've beaten Phantasy Star II in the distant past, a couple of times even, so I must have muddled my way through it, but the last time I tried to play that part, I was just running in circles for hours, finally broke down and looked up a map, and still couldn't find the right path, so I gave up. There's definitely a part of me that wants to give the dungeon designer props for making them so hard to navigate even with an overhead perspective. Ironically, the late game dungeons are substantially easier just because they have stairs that actually look like stairs.

Rudo and Amy are great and I think you'd make the game a lot harder for yourself by leaving either of them out. Kain is good for the dams. Anna is probably better after the dams, but if you used Kain for them you'd have to level her afterwards. Shir can steal at any shop, and always goes back to Rolf's house when she does, even if it's on another planet, so you'll want to save scum before doing any shopping if you use her. But her stats and techs are good. The only one who might be dead weight is Hugh, and even he can use his techs again after the dams, so he's not that bad.

Yeah, that's why I've been pulling up maps on my laptop and drawing on them, because navigating these places is tough. Getting the keycards at the Control Tower would have been hair pullingly annoying had I not used a map, it's just chock full of stairs. Heck, even mapping it out on my computer takes a few minutes, since it's not exactly obvious where the heck to go lol.

I'll probably keep leveling up Anna after Kain becomes useless. I used her for a while so she's not at level 1, but it's been a while (Rolf/Nei/Rudo/Amy was a beast of a team. I miss Nei's healing already). Meanwhile I haven't touched Hugh because I vaguely remember that old Retronauts episode where someone said he's kinda useless.

Has anyone played the fan translations of the Game Gear games that star each character from Phantasy Star II? Are they worth playing? I'm always happy for an excuse to play Game Gear games, so if they're even halfway decent I might poke away at them.

 

[Patrick]

I have them on my Vita, but I haven’t gotten around to playing them yet.

 

[Kazin]

Got through the dams. Uh, what happened on the ship where some random dude named Tyler picks me up? The satellite prison I was on crashed into a planet? How did that happen? We didn't do it. Was the planet destroyed? How did we survive if so? The heck? This screams translation difficulties to me, because something clearly happened, but I'm not entirely sure what.

EDIT: Oh, those text adventures were Mega Drive games, apparently? I had no idea.