Thread 11978573

>play Phantasy Star 1
>decent dungeon crawler for 1987
>finish it within a few days without EXP/money trainers
Oh boy can't wait to start 2
>instead of a dungeon crawler its a top down with an off-center camera so you can slowly walk into many dead ends
>game opens on a miserable grind through 2 dungeons
>dungeons with enemies than can stunlock you with paralyze if you're unlucky
>battles have a bunch of obnoxious flashing and shit going on in them
>retarded auto-battle for fights
>can only save in one place to start
>music is somehow worse than the first game
>your house, which was useless in 1, is now central to getting party members in 2
>in 1 getting another party member meant more enemies in encounters=more EXP
>in 2 getting more party members = less EXP
>stats gained on level up are noticeably random
>can barely motivate myself to play 2 over the course of weeks
How do I force myself to get into this, do the stats even out despite being random or is it like FE where characters can become useless overtime if you're unlucky?

>>11978573 (OP)
Honestly, just stop right there. If you don't like it now, you're going to hate it later on. The dungeon design just keeps getting worse and the only interesting thing about the game is trying to find the most efficient team, which is a time sink considering how under leveled and late some of the party members join

>>11978580
as long as I don't actually have to monitor my stats very closely I can push past all my other issues, I DON'T want to feel the need to try and manipulate level ups to make character not-useless and everywhere else I look I see people saying things like
>some level ups are so bad you might as well reset

for further context I've been using this
>https://twilkitri.fewiki.net/PS2/ps2levelupdata.txt
to see how random stat ups can be and right now at levels 10-11 Rolf is lagging behind in every stat except HP compared to this .txt

>>11978587
>everywhere else I look I see people saying things like
>some level ups are so bad you might as well reset

That's just the usual FAQ writer autism, the kind that always recommends to grind 10 more levels than necessary. You can't ignore that.

I love Phantasy Star but 2 also made me take a long break due to the slog of it. Also, I am guessing you use guides to an extent if you beat 1 in a few days. A few parts in that game took me forever to figure out.

>>11978587
>everywhere else I look I see people saying things like
>some level ups are so bad you might as well reset

That's just the usual FAQ writer autism, the kind that always recommends to grind 10 more levels than necessary. You can* ignore that.

>>11978629
>You can't ignore that.
I assume you meant the opposite and that's all I really need to hear, I just don't want to be thinking that my protagonist is going to be screwed by shit level ups like a bad lord in FE

The dungeon design in this game is pure madness

>>11978632
>I am guessing you use guides to an extent if you beat 1 in a few days.
only a few times, like finding the hovercraft which was total nonsense. I have a good sense of direction so navigating dungeons without a map wasn't a huge deal.

>>11978639
that reminds me
>teleporters use going up and down stairs as their SFX
why would they do this

>>11978639
this is actually a very short and simple gimmick dungeon that takes like 10 minutes to get through. If you look at it closely and trace a path through it you'll see it's not a big deal at all and it only looks intimidating.

None of the dungeons actually need a map until you get to the second planet in the last third of the game where they become genuinely nonlinear. Before that every time they branch it's fake nonlinearity where one way leads to treasure and a dead end and the other way is forward.

>>11978645
because the teleporters are really just staircases going to the same X,Y coordinates in the next level up or down. You look at the arrows on them to see which direction. Later in the game in ruins type maps they just directly use staircase graphics.

>>11978701
OP here and that dungeon doesn't look too worrying. I've played Strange Journey and there's some hellish teleporter puzzle dungeons in that game.
I just think the beginning grind in 1 was a lot more pleasant and getting Myau/Tyron felt like real progress while right now I'm jumping through hoops to bypass some guy and get on with my mission which seems like it'll be the main point of a good portion of the game at the moment
I actually had thought that the vandal hideout was the bio-lab I was looking for until I found those corpses

>>11978701
>takes 10 minutes to get through
Yeah okay, dude. I remember doing this shit. This would take more than ten minutes even directly using the maps and the battles alone probably take more than 10 minutes not to mention you may need to leave and recover if you aren't grinded to fuk and guidemaxxing or savestated out of your mind. I don't know how fast you're working the Etch 'n' Sketch if you are even trying to claim you can map this shit and do it in ten minutes, especially when you don't immediately get the correlation between the warps being aligned and can be completely thrown off if you go in one warp then come out another and trying to map it you can fuk up the general outline and need to fix it. On top of that you might need to figure out what you are actually doing In that dungeon, and might want to check it all for treasure, which would take a long time. IIRC this dungeon also has two little tricks in it you need to figure out, one at the start and one near the end.
Overall, once you get it, you get it, so it is one of the more sanely designed places in the game, but then you still need to explore it and deal with encounter and not fuk up the map by realizing it is a 1:1 overlay, then guessing correctly where you are when you come out a second or third warp in terms of the graph paper you are using because it is hard to convert the games field to perfect equal divisions on paper.

>>11978776
that shit is from many many hours into the game, no one doesn't realize teleporters are stairs by that point

>>11978573 (OP)
That game is coded hell. I beat it as a kid because you got one game per year, and it took me nearly two years, because I was happier with my other games. The day I had the idea to replay it past year I remembered why I hadn't revisited it ever, and beat it again to not be a bitch.
The PS2 version has ugly anime cutscenes and changes a lot of things to make the game less agonal.
In the Sega genesis mini two Rofl walks faster and you get twice the XP, not sure if the rom is somewhere else.
Maybe you can find a mod for the original that does the same.

>>11979096
there you go, anon. you can get it here.
https://archive.org/details/md-mini-2-patched

>>11979096
Based. But fuk mods, we do it the hard way, and fuk captcha 120 seconds up.my.ass not.fixing the random.periods.from mobile keyboard, I want to post while I.smoke this.cancer stick tax me motherfuker. Sega fucked up not.supporting Phantasy Star more yeahh I said it, devs hand you kino and you don't do shit, finna pull a timemachine ouf my ass and save thr Saturn just to spite you.

Yeah I just gave up on the game because I wasn't enjoying my time with it at all. Apparently 3 is even worse and 4 has story connections to 2 so I'm not even sure if I should play it

>>11978573 (OP)
There is a reason why no one really talks about this or celebrates it like a lot of other mid-tier RPGS.

It's very flawed and even the most rose tinted retro gamers see that and quickly move on.

>>11978573 (OP)
Download the hack that removes flashing and increases walk speed. It keeps the rest of the game unchanged except for very minor balance changes.
Otherwise be prepared that the mazes get 10x crazier and you likely will need to map them

>>11979216
I dont actually care about the walk speed that much and the screen flashing hack doesn't function with the bugfix hack. I don't think any of the hacks for this game are compatible with each other.

>>11979219
for what i can gather, the genesis mini 2 phantasy star 2 changes are:
>Faster walking speed
>2x exp and meseta on easy mode
>No more red flashes on getting hit
>Enemy's appear on the screen immediately
>Turbo Battle speed
easy mode is optional, of course.
so you may want to try that version.

>>11979219
if hou want to combine hacks you need to fix the rom checksum. use this.
https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/342/

>11979150
Trying too hard to fit in.

>>11979219
You only need the PSII improvement hack https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/925/
Removes flashing, fixes bugs, faster walk speed and minor rebalancing
Optional 2X exp/money only if you enable it
Also small note: weapon attack stats in this game are messed up and often plain wrong. Early game you want daggers on everyone, yes including your main.
Regardless, this game is more like a dungeon crawler, prepare that you will have to keep track of money, fill every item slot with healing items and so on. It's either your thing or not, it's hard but surprisingly not unfair. Stunlock / paralysis only is annoying early on.

>>11978573 (OP)
Phantasy Star 2 is not a particularly difficult game, it just has that reputation because people try to play it like other top-down JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. If you just play all the dungeons, get all the treasure in them, and make sure you're trying to build your end team from the beginning of the game, you can beat the game without ever grinding and a party of like level 30 characters.

The key problem with this game is people try to build teams around the casters and spells they don't learn until after you're 20 levels overlevelled. That's a beginner mistake. Your team should always have Rolfe, Rudo, and Shir on it. Every single time. The 4th slot is kind of up to you, but those other 3 are just better than the rest of the available characters. Beginners almost never use Shir because of her bad attack, but she outspeeds every enemy in the entire game with shuneboots. Then you just give her and one other party member Storm Gear and have them use it as an attack every turn.

If you don't explore the dungeons and find Storm Gear/Shuneboots/Laconian Dagger/Truth Sleeves for Shir and the equivalents for the rest of your team the game is absolutely brutal. These aren't exactly obscure facts, if you google "shir equipment phantasy star 2" the ai chatbot will even tell you to do this, because there are hundreds of posts on the internet describing this strategy. All this said, you don't enjoy walking around the dungeons fighting stuff listening to the bad Michael Jackson ripoff music this might not be the game for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StCBMaVWgHY

>>11979606
You're overestimating how good Shir is beyond the Visiophone easter egg. I've used her, it's fine, but Anna is just a little slower and even if you don't use either of them the overall drop off in viability for all the non-RolfundRudo shitters is small.

>>11979385
I did find this fix but it did not fix it, depending on the sequence I apply hacks the game either doesn't load or locks up on the first combat

>>11979768
Yeah, there's other viable stuff for beating it in that level range, and Anna even comes online in combat a little bit earlier because she doesn't rely as much on Storm Gear.
There are just too many people who play the game with Rudo, Kain, and Shir benched trying to grind their way to Level 40+ for some reason.
The main thing is just understanding how the spellcast items work, because there's no reason to level until you get megid, gigra, and gizan at level 35-50 if you are equipped properly.

>>11979606
>>11979825
I think everyone will have their own "perfect" team and that's a good thing.
"Optimal" is probably what everyone said already, but then again more casual players will often pick Anna/Amy and think they are objectively the best combo.
I just used the optimal combo plus Hugh. Gave him double shield and put him 2nd to tank damage, he had insane defense stat while casting instakills and using storm gear. Rudo was 3rd with a healing helmet (or whatever, I forget). Shir cast magic defense shield at the start every time.

>mfw manipulating Rolf's 12th level and seeing the vast difference in stats
>sometimes half the stats get a few points
>sometimes all stats get 10+ points
for what purpose

>>11980487
Again, if you need to max out all your stats to see big damage numbers, this isn't the game for you. You will be using items to attack at the end of the game on 2/4 of your characters anyway.

>>11978573 (OP)
I'm probably the only person who enjoys Phantasy Star 1 and 2 more than 4. The music, characters, and story are just way more appealing to me for some reason.

>>11979606
>Phantasy Star 2 is not a particularly difficult game
Tell me another RPG where the final boss doesn't get easier with max level due it's gimmick and that has something like the Dezo dungeons.

>>11978573 (OP)
>do the stats even out despite being random or is it like FE where characters can become useless overtime if you're unlucky?
you dont have to worry about characters becoming shit because the game basically forces you to use specific characters if you want to use the best weapons. The best slicers can only be used by 1 character, the best guns can only be used by one character etc. team building is pretty simple.

>>11980519
I don't think that's what he saying, anon.

Having wildly random stats creates a very uneven experience regardless of the item use and strategy, especially because the stat gains can compound over time.
Getting 25 bad rolls to start and then 25 good ones doesn't matter when the level to finish the game is 25. You miss out on those important HP and Speed thresholds that, especially in a game as unforgiving as PSII, are necessary at points. This all leads to pointless grinding.

I think certain level of randomness brings some fun, seeing levels that give sudden big gains after a couple bad levels is exciting. DQ3 uses a system of baseline+variance to create that feeling, PSII either doesn't or the variance is way too broad.
Games like PSI and DQ2 feel really tight because of the deliberate rates of growth along with items and spells being treated as resources rather than win buttons. Well DQ2 falls off the wagon at the cave to Rhone but before that it's really great.

>>11980519
>You will be using items to attack at the end of the game on 2/4 of your characters anyway.

This, but also occasionally item on a third character

For me it's the harem team

>>11980487
is there any real difference in rolfs by the end of the game? I imagine the central limit theorem BTFOs whatever dice rolls happen on the scale of a single level

Phantasy star 2 comes with a fuckhuge full color book that holds your hand for the entire game. It tells you what item is found on each floor and marks the up/down teleporters gor every dungeon. The book also says which items can be used as free spells in combat.

Enulator people seem to not know this book came with the game, the same way they never knew the first zelda game came with a world map.

>>11981079
Almost every single RPG release in the west came packed with a strategy guide of some sort, but not the original versions in Japan

"Emulator people" are just pretending to be Japanese

>>11978573 (OP)
Honestly I don't blame you anon. Even official releases of Phantasy Star 2 have movement speed hacks because of how glacial it is.

That said, once you get Shir she can steal a visiphone (save anywhere) from the storage room in Paseo.

>>11978639
Control Tower is actually nowhere near as complicated as it looks. A lot of it just loops back to the first floor or a dead end.

>>11981189
>Almost every single RPG release in the west came packed with a strategy guide
Not really, no other console rpg came close to the book phantasy star 2 came with. It was more detailed than the $20 Bradygame guidebooks released a decade later in the playstation/ps2 era.

>>11981471
>RPG actually puts effort on dungeons, making them feel like real mazes
>"Oof yikes, I just discovered the ickiest ick in the world"

>>11981079
I played on console and borrowed them from friends and still wonder why tf I didn't have the book for this or Earthbound, and still wonder how I figured out the waterfall part and Poo meditiation part in Earthbound by myself as I even got stuck there replaying as an adult.

>>11981484
>>RPG actually puts effort on dungeons, making them feel like real mazes
Yeah this is probably the main reason why almost everyone prefers to Phantasy Star 1 to 2

>>11981484
>take a big square
>chop it into a bunch of smaller squares
>don't bother actually coming up with a physical path through the "maze" because it's just a bunch of completely separate individual spaces
>just put teleporters in every room instead and bounce the player around in a completely arbitrary pattern

Oh yeah, fucking maximum effort

>>11981509
It's up and down, with each level having the walls in different places.
If they had a separate sprite for stairs and teleporters the dungeons and the game would be a lot more ergonomic.

>>11980519
>>11980961
yeah, I don't care about having ultra OP characters with max stats or anything, I just prefer to know what I'm dealing with mechanically. I'm also still very early in the game.
You all keep mentioning these attack items and I still don't know what you're talking about, but I will.
>>11980786
Good to know
>>11981402
VERY good to know, I had seen that there's a thief type character and was planning on spamming steal on everything when given the chance
and just because I feel like listing them, the times I had to use a guide for Phantasy Star 1 are
>Hovercraft
Said "no" to the 1 NPC who gives you all the info and used a guide to know you need to say "yes" after wandering around Palma for a hour or so
>Laerma Tree location
Didn't actually look up the exact location, I just needed to know it was actually through an ice wall somewhere and I wasn't wasting my time trying to check every one
>the anti-Lashiec jewel from the fortune teller
I did talk to the NPC who mentions it and tried to keep it in mind, but still got to Lashiec and was obliterated my first time. Couldn't re-find the NPC and ended up spoiling its location while trying to spoil myself on re-locating the NPC themselves

>>11978573 (OP)
I loved PSII, actually
I'm surprised you're, or anyone else, are finding the dungeons to be more annoying than 1. In 1, after just the first two you HAVE to map the dungeons because traps starts appearing. However, in 2, despite the labyrinthine and "layers of hell" design, I had no problems finding my way, even through this one >>11978639 and I used 0 "strategy" at all. The only dungeons that needs to be mapped are the final few
Otherwise it's really classic JRPG formula of the era. You explore until you're starting to run out of resources, go back home, heal and restock. Now with what you learned and explored of the dungeon, go further and rinse repeat. The enemies that steal mp and items from you makes sure that you can't just always rely on an easy out

>>11981484
>>11981509
https://shmuplations.com/phantasystarii/
>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.
That's a big reason the dungeons were the way they were.

>>11981626
>after just the first two you HAVE to map the dungeons because traps starts appearing
I'm a big fan of first person dungeon crawlers, I just vibe with them and nothing in Phantasy Star 1 even comes close to the bullshit in other ones like older SMT games. I would just remember where the traps are and disarm them, you usually aren't dropped very far.
I don't want my thread to come across as super critical of 2 since I haven't been through the whole game, I just think going directly from 1 to 2 is very jarring.

>>11981079
what if you get the game used like most normal people

>>11981638
Was my first first person dungeon crawler, so maybe I'm just not used to them. That one seaside dungeon early on had a trap with a drop. Man, it wasn't even big, but I somehow managed to get stuck and eventually die. So I started mapping things out. I don't think that I would have fared well in the late game without that, as every goddamn floor looks like each others even if the layouts aren't that complicated actually
But then again, I had no problems with 2's dungeon designs when most people seems to have issues with then. Go figure

>>11981626
The traps do very little damage, I just tank them and heal. Or, you could just save right before opening a chest, and if it’s a trap, reload it. Built-in save states.

>>11981638
You can also save anywhere in PS1 which is nice. Though some people softlock themselves inside dungeons because of that apparently

>>11981663
Yeah being able to save anywhere was very surprising and beneficial to the experience. I imagine people soft-locking themselves aren't wise enough to use multiple slots.

>>11981660
It wasn't about damage but more about being dropped somewhere else and completely fucking over your internal mapping (if you weren't mapping on paper)
Also I wasn't saving in dungeons due to how potentially dangerous that was, but maybe I should have played that way instead?

>>11981674
The game gave you like 6 slots IIRC so you were definitely intended to abuse them

>>11981673
I actually completely forgot this game had multiple save slots, been a while since I last played it, thought there was only 1. Yeah if it's an RPG from the 80s and you are allowed to save inside dungeons you better fucking use multiple slots

>>11981674
There are like, 9 save slots from what I remember, so you could save in the dungeon and keep a save from before you entered if you choose.

>>11981679
>>11981684
Well, that's definitively what I did wrong then. I only saved when I was safe outside of a dungeon or town, so I really played it like a classic JRPG, thus, I really needed to map the dungeons

>>11981643
Loose cart? Most genesis loose carts on the market today came from video stores when they blew them out for $5 each to make shelf space for new games
The game came in a clamshell that secured the book and game nicely, so if your copy came from a perosnal collection it should be intact. Video stores photocopy the cover to put out on the shelf and then toss out the clamshell and book.

Buying loose from a retro store who got it from a guy who bought it from a guy who stole it from another guy who never returned a store rental is sadly the state of the modern collector I guess.

>>11981559
the absurd thing is that the teleporter pads do have little triangles on them that tell you whether they go up or down
this seemingly innocuous decision to have up and down elevator teleports with an easily missed tipoff telling you whether it's up or down instead of staircases (and stair sprites are actually in the game already and is used on the ice planet) is probably half the reason people think PS2 has difficult mazes

>>11981623
>and was planning on spamming steal on everything when given the chance
Yeah I know I said thief but she is more accurately described as a shoplifter who skips town.

>>11981627
That's very interesting. God bless the new employee, Phantasy Star 2 is my favourite 16-bit RPG.

Today I will remind them

>>11978573 (OP)
just skip the slop and play phantasy star 4 instead.

>>11981559
everything isn't made for you

>>11981484
Average SMTIVA/Strange Journey enjoyer

>>11982802
Looking at this somehow triggered my Golden Sun dungeon ptsd
fucking Air's Rock.