Gameplay is similar to the original Phantasy Star, the first game in the series. Its battle system is turn-based, allowing the player to choose commands for their party of up to four characters. Each of the eight characters has a different set of preferred weapons and armor, as well as techniques, suited to the character's job. The player must defeat enemies in the overworld and in dungeons to advance in the game. The game abandoned the first-person view that the first game used for dungeons and battles. Phantasy Star II instead uses a top-down perspective for exploration and a third-person view in battles.
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It carries over much of the visual style and gameplay from the first. Unfortunately the dungeon crawling and battle system in this game are utterly tedious to the point that they really dampen the entire experience. The silver lining of the whole thing is the plot, which probably had the craziest story told in a video game at the time of its release. If they had just streamlined the combat menus and endless feeling dungeons this could have easily been one of the best RPGs of the 80s.
To gain the ability to save anywhere, you need to recruit a thief into your party, have her hang around luggage check at the airport and hope she randomly steals someone's cell phone. It was the among the best console JRPGs you could buy until Final Fantasy IV came out.
This game's rating would be much lower if all copies didn't ship with a comprehensive and handy hint book, complete with maps. Also, the ending goes so fucking hard that it's almost worth sitting through the kinda bad dungeon design.
This game's rating would be much lower if all copies didn't ship with a comprehensive and handy hint book, complete with maps. Also, the ending goes so fucking hard that it's almost worth sitting through the kinda bad dungeon design.
Lo he terminado abandonando en la mazmorra de Climatrol porque el juego me ha terminado pareciendo insufrible.
Phantasy Star II es un RPG tan mal diseñado que establece objetivos al jugador de manera vaga, por lo que, por lo general, nos estaremos metiendo a ciegas en sitios sin saber ni siquiera si son importantes o no y qué estamos buscando en ellos exactamente (salvo excepciones). Es incapaz de explicar por sí mismo muchos de sus elementos, pues ni siquiera da información sobre qué hace cada técnica que aprenden nuestros personajes o con qué objetos pueden equiparse y cómo estos afectan a sus estadísticas antes de ser comprados. Además, el juego constantemente tiene la manía de esconder información al jugador a mala leche. Ejemplos de ello pueden ser la máquina de la que tenemos que conseguir una grabadora en el laboratorio de biosistemas y que fácilmente se puede confundir con el resto de assets decorativos del lugar, una segunda entrada dentro de la mazmorra de Roron, que está escondida y para llegar hasta ella solo hay que caminar por un espacio en negro bordeando una pantalla, o la entrada a una montaña situada en una isla que ni siquiera es visible en el world map y en la que tenemos que encontrar unas plantas que son clave para avanzar.
La mayoría de los personajes tienen muy poco que decir, pues únicamente Rolf y Nei son los importantes en la narrativa. ¿El resto? Gente que se te acopla sin motivo alguno y únicamente cuando pasas por casa después de cada x acontecimientos a lo largo del juego y sin indicio alguno de que esto vaya a ocurrir, además de que entre ellos no tienen un desarrollo ni conversación alguna posterior a cuando se te unen. En el primer juego, la interacción entre sus 4 personajes tampoco era demasiada, pero estaba mejor justificado el hecho de que se te unieran al grupo.
El farmeo y grindeo es abismal por la cantidad de horas que exige para obtener dinero y subir de nivel a los personajes (que para colmo son 8 y todos se unen al equipo a nivel 1), y las mazmorras en sí mismas son directamente las más aburridas que he experimentado en mi vida en videojuego alguno de este género. Son tan expansivas, vacías y llenas de teletransportadores que terminan siendo abrumadoras, y tampoco ayuda la lenta movilidad de los personajes, que en ellas suela haber una capa de gráficos de tuberías por encima que obstaculizan la visión y que cada pocos pasos puedan aparecer batallas contra enemigos.
Y para rematar, la cámara. ¿A quién se le ha ocurrido que era buena idea hacer que los personajes se posicionen en las esquinas de la pantalla a la hora de moverse? Es incómodo no, lo siguiente.
En resumidas cuentas, Phantasy Star II es una secuela que palidece en todos los sentidos en comparación a la primera entrega de Master System, aunque sí que hay que reconocerle que introdujo algunos elementos que posteriormente tendrían un mejor pulido en la cuarta entrega.
Phantasy Star II es un RPG tan mal diseñado que establece objetivos al jugador de manera vaga, por lo que, por lo general, nos estaremos metiendo a ciegas en sitios sin saber ni siquiera si son importantes o no y qué estamos buscando en ellos exactamente (salvo excepciones). Es incapaz de explicar por sí mismo muchos de sus elementos, pues ni siquiera da información sobre qué hace cada técnica que aprenden nuestros personajes o con qué objetos pueden equiparse y cómo estos afectan a sus estadísticas antes de ser comprados. Además, el juego constantemente tiene la manía de esconder información al jugador a mala leche. Ejemplos de ello pueden ser la máquina de la que tenemos que conseguir una grabadora en el laboratorio de biosistemas y que fácilmente se puede confundir con el resto de assets decorativos del lugar, una segunda entrada dentro de la mazmorra de Roron, que está escondida y para llegar hasta ella solo hay que caminar por un espacio en negro bordeando una pantalla, o la entrada a una montaña situada en una isla que ni siquiera es visible en el world map y en la que tenemos que encontrar unas plantas que son clave para avanzar.
La mayoría de los personajes tienen muy poco que decir, pues únicamente Rolf y Nei son los importantes en la narrativa. ¿El resto? Gente que se te acopla sin motivo alguno y únicamente cuando pasas por casa después de cada x acontecimientos a lo largo del juego y sin indicio alguno de que esto vaya a ocurrir, además de que entre ellos no tienen un desarrollo ni conversación alguna posterior a cuando se te unen. En el primer juego, la interacción entre sus 4 personajes tampoco era demasiada, pero estaba mejor justificado el hecho de que se te unieran al grupo.
El farmeo y grindeo es abismal por la cantidad de horas que exige para obtener dinero y subir de nivel a los personajes (que para colmo son 8 y todos se unen al equipo a nivel 1), y las mazmorras en sí mismas son directamente las más aburridas que he experimentado en mi vida en videojuego alguno de este género. Son tan expansivas, vacías y llenas de teletransportadores que terminan siendo abrumadoras, y tampoco ayuda la lenta movilidad de los personajes, que en ellas suela haber una capa de gráficos de tuberías por encima que obstaculizan la visión y que cada pocos pasos puedan aparecer batallas contra enemigos.
Y para rematar, la cámara. ¿A quién se le ha ocurrido que era buena idea hacer que los personajes se posicionen en las esquinas de la pantalla a la hora de moverse? Es incómodo no, lo siguiente.
En resumidas cuentas, Phantasy Star II es una secuela que palidece en todos los sentidos en comparación a la primera entrega de Master System, aunque sí que hay que reconocerle que introdujo algunos elementos que posteriormente tendrían un mejor pulido en la cuarta entrega.
The first Phantasy Star on the Sega Master System was a surprise to me. Maybe it's a feeling I had that because it was the oldest one in the series on an earlier console it would be bad? It's dated in many ways but bad? Not even close. Impressive art, music and technical feats on the system made it a really fun little game. The second Phantasy Star title is equally a surprise to me but literally in the polar opposite direction. I assumed because it was on the megadrive it and a sequel it would be an improvement on everything laid before it.
I was wrong.
I actually kind of actively hate this game and I just didn't expect that going in. The story starts with an interesting premise. Set 1000 years after Phantasy Star the Algol star system is ruled by a super computer called Mother Brain that has made every decision for it's residents. Controlling everything to make their lives easy but when something goes wrong they are not equipped to deal with it. As an agent of the governor you are chosen to find out the cause behind a new wave of monsters appearing due to Mother Brain not taking action. I like the idea a lot of people becoming too dependent to act on their own though the game never feels like that in the actual world.
The 80s/90s anime sci-fi visual design is still quite striking. Characters have mixture of, knives, boomerangs, magic, laser swords and plasma pistols in a mixture of high fantasy and sci-fi. It's a great blend the game works well cohesively with the character designs of shoulder pads and big hair dos with obvious Star Wars influences. Whilst I like the art and atmosphere I did find it actually less impressive from a technical standpoint than it's predecessor. The dungeons losing their first person view into the more traditional top down exploration with that was disappointing though, but that's the least of the dungeons problems.
They. Are. Terrible.
Initially they aren't too bad but as the game progressed further and further my drive to continue lessened with my progress. Each dungeon is a giant sprawling maze filled with warp points zooming you from floor to floor. It's full of unrewarding dead ends and twists with no in game map to help you navigate the labyrinthine nightmares. It's no wonder on release the game came with a guide book with a walkthrough and maps, they knew. I followed an online walkthrough in the end because I couldn't see myself brute forcing through without one. At one point the guide describes a new dungeon you come to as: "The first floor has no less than 69 chutes leading up to the next floor (No, I'm not kidding. There really are 69 chutes. Stop laughing.)" and many later are even worse. In an interview in 1993 whilst promoting Phantasy Star IV the game designer Kotaro Hayashida discusses Phantasy Star II and when asked about the dungeons he is translated as stating:
"Another issue was related to the dungeons, which were created by a new employee. Because he was new, he put a ton of effort into the maps and kind of overdid it… the game became more about the complex dungeons than anything else. I think you really see that on the Dezolis dungeons. They were really well done, and when Chieko Aoki saw them she didn’t want all the new employee’s work to be for naught, so we ended up using those maps… albeit with some mixed feelings. They contributed to the latter half of the game being unbalanced"
I agree with this though think Phantasy Star II being generally unbalanced from the get go. Due to the huge twisting warping bland looking dungeons and encounters every two steps the amount of combat in the game is kind of staggering. The amount of experience you get from them though is pitiful to the point that grinding and battling over and over just to gain one level up that does little towards improving your overall strength made the experience of playing extremely tedious. (Fans have created a double money, double experience hack due to this) I was even using fast forward playing this on the Playstation 4 Megadrive collection so god only knows how it would have felt at the original speed. To compound matters the games combat feels slightly unwieldly but to it's credit also a little ahead of it's time in some ways. There is a button to fight where the party will just auto combat each turn. In between you can manually select orders to the team to make them use spells, items or defend but it means going through extra menu steps each time unnecessarily. The menus generally feel kind of poorly implemented and equipping items, giving them to each other or using healing spells outside of battle was irritating every time. Despite all of this I did continue on as I wanted to see all the game had to offer only to reach an ending that actually made me think all the effort flat wasn't worth it.
In the same interview mentioned above on shupcompilations they discuss the game originally being made on the Master System then changed and ported in an extremely short amount of time. It sounds like it was a miracle and hard work the game came out at all to which I respect them greatly. I'm glad I finally finished the first RPG released on the Sega Megadrive and such a pillar of gaming history I was missing. It doesn't change my opinion though that Phantasy Star II is actually pretty poorly designed and not actually very fun to play.
As a Sega fan, retro gaming fan and RPG fan, this hurt to write. Half a star for the art design though, especially the cover art. Hitoshi Yoneda's work is stunning.
+ I like the story premise.
+ The ingame art design and promotional artwork is wonderful with a blend of high fantast and tech heavy sci-fi.
- It has possible the worst dungeons of the nearly 150 JRPGs I have played. Extremely tedious. Every one made me want to quit.
- It's a huge grind but feels unrewarding with it.
- Story is generally unsatisfying.
I was wrong.
I actually kind of actively hate this game and I just didn't expect that going in. The story starts with an interesting premise. Set 1000 years after Phantasy Star the Algol star system is ruled by a super computer called Mother Brain that has made every decision for it's residents. Controlling everything to make their lives easy but when something goes wrong they are not equipped to deal with it. As an agent of the governor you are chosen to find out the cause behind a new wave of monsters appearing due to Mother Brain not taking action. I like the idea a lot of people becoming too dependent to act on their own though the game never feels like that in the actual world.
The 80s/90s anime sci-fi visual design is still quite striking. Characters have mixture of, knives, boomerangs, magic, laser swords and plasma pistols in a mixture of high fantasy and sci-fi. It's a great blend the game works well cohesively with the character designs of shoulder pads and big hair dos with obvious Star Wars influences. Whilst I like the art and atmosphere I did find it actually less impressive from a technical standpoint than it's predecessor. The dungeons losing their first person view into the more traditional top down exploration with that was disappointing though, but that's the least of the dungeons problems.
They. Are. Terrible.
Initially they aren't too bad but as the game progressed further and further my drive to continue lessened with my progress. Each dungeon is a giant sprawling maze filled with warp points zooming you from floor to floor. It's full of unrewarding dead ends and twists with no in game map to help you navigate the labyrinthine nightmares. It's no wonder on release the game came with a guide book with a walkthrough and maps, they knew. I followed an online walkthrough in the end because I couldn't see myself brute forcing through without one. At one point the guide describes a new dungeon you come to as: "The first floor has no less than 69 chutes leading up to the next floor (No, I'm not kidding. There really are 69 chutes. Stop laughing.)" and many later are even worse. In an interview in 1993 whilst promoting Phantasy Star IV the game designer Kotaro Hayashida discusses Phantasy Star II and when asked about the dungeons he is translated as stating:
"Another issue was related to the dungeons, which were created by a new employee. Because he was new, he put a ton of effort into the maps and kind of overdid it… the game became more about the complex dungeons than anything else. I think you really see that on the Dezolis dungeons. They were really well done, and when Chieko Aoki saw them she didn’t want all the new employee’s work to be for naught, so we ended up using those maps… albeit with some mixed feelings. They contributed to the latter half of the game being unbalanced"
I agree with this though think Phantasy Star II being generally unbalanced from the get go. Due to the huge twisting warping bland looking dungeons and encounters every two steps the amount of combat in the game is kind of staggering. The amount of experience you get from them though is pitiful to the point that grinding and battling over and over just to gain one level up that does little towards improving your overall strength made the experience of playing extremely tedious. (Fans have created a double money, double experience hack due to this) I was even using fast forward playing this on the Playstation 4 Megadrive collection so god only knows how it would have felt at the original speed. To compound matters the games combat feels slightly unwieldly but to it's credit also a little ahead of it's time in some ways. There is a button to fight where the party will just auto combat each turn. In between you can manually select orders to the team to make them use spells, items or defend but it means going through extra menu steps each time unnecessarily. The menus generally feel kind of poorly implemented and equipping items, giving them to each other or using healing spells outside of battle was irritating every time. Despite all of this I did continue on as I wanted to see all the game had to offer only to reach an ending that actually made me think all the effort flat wasn't worth it.
In the same interview mentioned above on shupcompilations they discuss the game originally being made on the Master System then changed and ported in an extremely short amount of time. It sounds like it was a miracle and hard work the game came out at all to which I respect them greatly. I'm glad I finally finished the first RPG released on the Sega Megadrive and such a pillar of gaming history I was missing. It doesn't change my opinion though that Phantasy Star II is actually pretty poorly designed and not actually very fun to play.
As a Sega fan, retro gaming fan and RPG fan, this hurt to write. Half a star for the art design though, especially the cover art. Hitoshi Yoneda's work is stunning.
+ I like the story premise.
+ The ingame art design and promotional artwork is wonderful with a blend of high fantast and tech heavy sci-fi.
- It has possible the worst dungeons of the nearly 150 JRPGs I have played. Extremely tedious. Every one made me want to quit.
- It's a huge grind but feels unrewarding with it.
- Story is generally unsatisfying.
it's grindy and i think you really benefit from a map or guide to get through (i think it came with one). the characters are all pretty cool even if they don't really get any character development. that said it's really great setting, great story, and one of the best endings i've seen in a video game
I found this more interesting than fun, it's pretty divorced from the stuff I'm used to enjoying in RPGs- dense story, character, tactical combat. Instead there's a lot of slow journeys of attrition, fighting dozens, maybe hundreds of random encounters on auto, watching your HP tick down until you have to warp back to town and start over again. I think there's something interesting there that I've never been able to enjoy, but I don't know if this is the game to sell me on it.
Shelved it after many hours but I had only just got the aqua scooter. Real highlight was the people who love junk, just some funny little guys who love living in a dump. More power to them.
Shelved it after many hours but I had only just got the aqua scooter. Real highlight was the people who love junk, just some funny little guys who love living in a dump. More power to them.