Retro reviews: Phantasy Star II

Phantasy Star 2 was released in the odd period between the NES and SNES, where it felt like developers really weren't tapping the power of the Genesis at all. The original Final Fantasy is its immediate FF neighbor in the West, and while Phantasy Star 2 is visually more enticing than that, it is so much worse looking than FFIV. It's funny how these games are divided by years, but as a teenager, it never really connected how big the gaps in development were. Graphical quality was increasing in huge jumps, as both the technical development improved and the sprite art improved as well.

Actually it's kinda funny how people in the modern day have zero concept of the gaps between game releases. I read some complaint about how Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle (which is bad, don't get me wrong) made a guy "thankful" he had a SNES as a child. Alex Kidd predates the SNES by like, a year or something. You weren't playing Alex Kidd when the SNES was available, unless you rented it, at which point you were renting an old goofy Genesis game.

In spite of the fact I owned a Sega Genesis - a generation 1 model, in fact, bought almost on the day of release in North America- I never finished PS2. The game was rather unpleasant in terms of difficulty curve, as it never really became super obvious as a small child that 90% of RPG difficulty
could be mitigated with grinding and just drawing maps. The game is already far enough back that my only memory is getting the first new party member, and how awesome the box art is. It also seems to have nothing to do with anything, but hey, whatever. That art owns.

I really miss the era of non-anime box art for western releases of Japanese games. It went away sooner than later, but that is some trippy shit instead of the cool but kinda plain Japanese release art. Stuff like this dying out reminds me why I hate weebs.

RPGs on the SNES and Genesis were more expensive than their less memory equipped cartridge compatriots, owing to the necessity of adding additional physical media within their plastic prisons - the so-called 'battery backup' that actually really was. (I've read some games, however, had flash memory instead) As such, PS2 - and many of its ilk - weren't games my friends and I bought when I was young enough that this game was new, but rented. It's such a weird thing, remember how you'd basically "borrow" these games from a store and you'd often be praying weekend to weekend - or weeks apart - that someone didn't send your saved game off to oblivion.



It's easy to remember how to pick up and play jrpgs, and what makes them both so appealing and so dismal. Phantasy Star 2 is very basic; there are essentially three screens: Overworld, "places" and combat. Places are towns and dungeons, which look the same as overworld but tend to feel more up close. Even going into shops is actually just an encounter, the window goes dark and you're treated to a set of menus. This is even more barebones than Dragon Warrior. The graphical work here is pretty limited stuff; it's not bad, but the animations are low on frame count and much of the game just repeats itself. I don't mind looking at PS2 but the game is mostly menus and text when all is said and done.

Some of the later enemy animations are really excellent work, mind you, but on the most part they're either not or just weirdly gross.

The other side of the experience - the sound - is uh, pretty early Genesis stuff. The sound chips on the Genesis and SNES were capable of some pretty amazing chiptunes. But early programmers either didn't or couldn't get much good out of them, so the game sounds "fine" but not great. On the plus side it avoids one of the weird elements to early, bad chip tunes. Here the music is not great, but it is upbeat and energetic, rather than sounding like some chip produced funeral dirge.

So it doesn't bother you. The one tune on the ice planet is a high point, there's this weird abandoned space port and the music is just an oddly perfect blend of whimsy and sorrow. Sometimes the game really nails its tone, sometimes it doesn't.

I will say the monster designs - crudely animated as they are - do manage to be downright horrifying in spite of their limitations. Most of them aren't, but a couple are impressively creepy. We're talking about like six frames of animation with the same numbers of pixel as half an icon on an iphone.

The thing that makes Phantasy Star 2 really stand out, oddly enough, has less to do with the mechanics and more to do with the box art. PS2 is this bizarre fantasy-science fiction fusion. I don't mean that in the general sense, where you have rocket packs and laser guns but the plot is still mostly about dudes wanting to bone princesses. No, PS2's plot is weird ass shit about a failing climate control system, energy re-direction and exploding planets. It's way further into sci-fi than almost everything around it.

I really love the just weird theme of the game. There are elements that feel aggressively low tech and anachronistic, but most of those are either concessions to the genre or the result of the weird story in place. I'm not entirely certain - all old RPGs are pretty vague due to limitations of the medium - but it feels like there's a certain ambiance and the weirdness pumps through it. I like the weird stuff like how you "clone" dead allies and "save your memories" instead of saving the game, and how the weapons are a weird mix of mundane swords and guns and esoteric oddities like whatever a "Slasher" is supposed to be.

I mean beside what it says on the tin. It does in fact Slash. The air. Slashers the air.

The story is different and strange, and while the world is harshly limited by how much they had to work with, it is still quite interesting in this vague background sort of way. The idea of monster hordes overrunning a stagnant utopia due to power being redirected from one high tech system to another is a little silly, but it's very "70s sci-fi" in a way I find charming. The planet exploding bit is so weird, it's a major milestone for the series but it happens while you're passed out and I think it's the planet from the first game.

So here's the point where we talk about if this "classic" is a good game or not.

The metric by which RPGs are considered a classic is a very different one from games like Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Castlevania or Mega-Man X. Whereas you can go back and play those games, and on the most part enjoy many elements of them - in some cases even better than modern games, I'm looking at you time to actual gameplay threshold - old RPGs are actually like weird skinner box brainwashing. I've had arguments with peers of my own age about the original Final Fantasy, which I tried replaying in 2006 or so and found utterly mediocre. In that case there's very little story and the game was just one long grinding session with the "accomplishment" of beating bosses through the power of grinding.

Phantasy Star 2 is such a weird mix in this way. The game feels designed in essentially three steps, with the other elements filling in. First, NPCs are actually very informative in this game and talking to everyone will usually give you a good idea where to go if it isn't obvious. Second, then you get to dungeons and the dungeons in this game are horseshit. I mean the Roron dungeon seriously has a fake entrance you have to walk around to get to the real entrance, and the dungeon doesn't even have a boss!

Or an ending! You talk to an NPC who mentioned an item you want which ends the dungeon, but the game doesn't tell you this. If you aren't reading a walkthrough you will have literally no idea you're done, you just reach a room with a pair of NPCs and a box full of garbage. No, I mean seriously, a box full of garbage. The new water vehicle you need appears outside with what seems like no announcement.

Three, it feels like it was tuned around wandering said dungeons forever. I'm playing the game modded to double XP and it is still mercilessly grindy. The game is however many hours long, and 75% of that is spent fighting enemies. The game seems to know this, so combat is a randomized auto button press affair. You hit auto and your party does its thing. It is grinding in the purest sense. Boss fights are pretty rare, and grinding solves everything.

The other weird thing is just how lifeless the early dungeons are. You find almost nothing in them, hours into the game, they're just bleak mazes without loot you care about. Enemies drop nothing but money (I've read this might be a bug?) so it's just wandering around and wandering around. Later dungeons are a bit more interesting, since there's some loot you can actually use and loot of even a small improvement is valuable over the pure attrition of grinding, but later dungeons are also ridiculously complicated and hard to follow even with a map.

Anyway, basically, there's a point where you go far enough back and RPGs don't really feel like anything but skinner boxes with bad combat systems. I mean, that is really harsh and I like PS2, but it is essentially impossible to recommend. I have no idea if other people are going to dig on the weird dystopian utopia setting or the anachronisms or how it feels inspired by Dune mixed with probably some Anime mixed with having its own neat little setting.

I got very, very close to the end of PS2 but ultimately it just got way too grindy to be enjoyable at all. Even with the game modded to pump the XP and gold values up, the dungeons simply require too many fights and are frustratingly hard to navigate. It feels like a good game to get high to, or something weird like that, but after a while you've seen what it has to offer and just get exhausted.

Much like playing Sonic Heroes, there's a core of a good game here, one I hope one day sees a Sonic Mania like reproduction, but it probably won't. There's supposed to be a remake of it, but it's not on Steam and probably requires using an import friendly PS2 or who knows. I'm not big on emulating games, it never feels quite right for anything past 16-bit.

Anyway, in conclusion, it's a pretty interesting game hampered by the era it was made in. If you're into brutally difficult to navigate dungeons and loopy sci-fi into fantasy RPGs, it's a pretty good, but I think for most people the grind is just too much to handle. I played this on the Mega Drive Hub on Steam, which allows modding, which I recommend anyone looks into whether or not you plan to play PS2.