Phantasy Star II for Genesis
Review #4432
Phantasy Star II
Fantasy with a PH
Gameplay
So much grinding!
Random battle rate might be more frequent than Secret of the Stars. I didn't think that was possible.
Battles are a bit strange but work ok. Each turn you can define a "strategy" per character and then you choose fight to end the turn and issue your commands. It's novel.
The biggest problem is that you can't target a specific enemy. Your characters often attack twice and randomly select who to attack which often results in the waste of powerful attacks. This just lengthens the too-frequent battles and makes them less interesting to engage in.
Very slow walk speed made me want to tear my hair out.
Also worth mentioning that most text is shortened into 4 letter words so a lot of items and such are unintelligible. It's not as bad as Breath of Fire, but it's close.
Level Design
Dungeons are large and difficult to navigate without a map or any visual cues that you're going the right way. I got lost a lot and gave up to use a guide.
I didn't see much of the game but I wasn't terribly impressed.
Theme
Final Fantasy in space. Love it!
Art Style
I like the character designs, especially the enemy sprites, but the over-the-shoulder view is a turn off and the overworld is pretty goofy looking. I prefer the chibi style of FF and Dragon Quest to the tall, lean sprites here.
The battle view has this weird vector lines on an all-black background as if the battles are taking place in a digital world or something. It's...not cute
Audio
Underwhelming music, especially for an RPG.
I found this game to be inferior to Phantasy Star 1 on Sega Master System and Phantasy Star 4. The thing about this game that irks me the most is the puzzling lack of boss battles. There are only 3 bosses in the entire game, and one boss fight is partially scripted! Even the first entry to this series had more!
ReplyDeleteBoss battles are generally necessary for an RPG’s story beats. In a good RPG there is a boss that concludes each subplot, and usually finding the macguffin in whatever dungeon involves a boss battle. But in this game, you get to the treasure chest at the end of the dungeon, open it, and take the item. It’s way too anticlimactic. Imagine if Indiana Jones just took the treasure at the beginning of Raiders without having to dodge all of the traps! There would be no excitement!