When I downloaded Dragon's Curse on Virtual Console and beat it, I was so pleased as almost to mist up, as it was a victory that had eluded me in my clumsy gaming youth. Last night's conquering of Phantasy Star II was even more satisfying. I was fixated on it as a kid, but lacked the mastery of hardcore RPG mechanics -- and the patience for level-grinding -- necessary to get me through those final two bosses. But I did it, man, literally 17 years from the first time I ever picked up the game. The child in me rejoices.There are actually quite a few such unconquered classics in my long, long gaming history. I really lack patience when it comes down to things, and my chronic habit of abandoning the vast majority of games right at the final boss is a topic I'll treat at length another time. But to wind back in time a bit and tie some of those loose ends is enormously satisfying. Also, Phantasy Star II is fucking hardcore. Time to play the third one, now.
10 comments:
Will you be aiming to finish all of PS III (as in, winning with all four 3rd-generation characters), or just looking to finish any one path?
Don't. Take my word for it: PS III sucks goat balls.
Even worse, it was the game I was playing when the Spanish TV started informing about 9-11.
Do yourself a favor...skip 3. It's a steaming pile of crap. 4 is better, but really the first two are the best. For all the talk of Mario 3 and such, the pinnacle of 8-bit gaming was the original PS.
Wow, heavy cautions. Now I've gotta check it out for myself, but don't worry -- the moment a game begins to bore, irritate or frustrate me, I have no endurance whatsoever. It's just occurred to me I own 13 Wii titles, and have not finished a single one (RE4 doesn't count.)
Phantasy Star III isn't -bad-, but it's surprisingly uninvolved with the rest of the series. There is a connection, but in my game it didn't show up until the last generation.
Since they had to fit dialog for what amounts to seven generations into the ROM space(grandfather + 2 possible fathers + 4 final), sometimes it seems like people don't have an awful lot to say. Not that they're really all that talkative in any Phantasy Star game....
PS3 isn't that bad, its just not up to the quality of the rest of the series. And as mentioned, it barely connects to them storywise.
Its an ok mid 16 bit generation console RPG and all that genre entails. (Mostly random combat, more random combat, a few minutes of words to read, and more combat.)
No, it's actually bad. Graphics are bad, dungeons are bad, sound is bad, dialogue is bad. The story is a brilliant idea, though. If you give up on it, at least read about the plot from a guide. I really wish I'd had that idea.
You will like IV though!
Good job.
Similarly I finished Dragon Quest 1 a few years back and had thought of how it took me 15+ years to finish that game from the first time i ever played it. It added to the saga really.
And Phantasy Star 2 is another one that I have started countless times. Im envious:[
I never beat PS2 -- I had the official "hint" book that came with it, and got to the end boss, but couldn't beat him. I ended up calling the Sega tip line, and they basically told me that I'd need to level up some before getting there. I thought that was kinda horseshit (I felt it was a design flaw), and I gave up. Now this post reminded me, and I am sad that I did so.
Better late than never!
PS2 was my 1st RPG and I still think that it stands th etest of time, my PSP seems to think so.
For those who enjoy the game music aspect of gaming, please enjoy the Overclocked Remix to the PS2 boss game music.
http://tinyurl.com/2kkbo2
Not affiliated to the composer, just a simple guy who has at one time listened to this one track on repeat for 6 hours straight, then listened to it the next day (yea, i never get tired of it.)
enjoy.
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