Phantasy Star
I played the Playstation 2 remake (Phantasy Star Generation 1). Random thoughts, since this was also some time ago:
- yay scifi setting! Yay female protagonist! Yay first-person dungeon exploration with an atlas system in case you are lost!
- the consult system is SO HELPFUL. forgot what you were doing after some time not playing? just press L1 and hear Myau be like “it’s time to go to the corona tower!!!!” You still have to write stuff down because consult doesn’t tell you WHERE anything is, just that you have to find it next. Also it’s cute to see the characters banter!
- the difficulty is not too bad, especially with some grinding. However, the encounter rate is ASS. I did do some early leveling on Dezoris when I got the spaceship, but other than that, I naturally leveled up as I was walking around because I would hit an enemy every few steps. Also, as with FF1, once you get the Caduceus, the game gets way easier because you have free healing. Paired with heal crystals for everyone, you end up at full health after most fights. (Admittedly, I did finish the game at level 96, so I was also benefiting from taking less damage. I think the PS Cave walkthrough recommended running from everything in the last few dungeons and then beat the boss at level 60…)
- fights get repetitive. Also, attack animations fairly slow. Before the Caduceus, my strategy for most fights was to spam AoE from Lutz/Myau/Tyrone (w/gun) and Alisa awkwardly hits one enemy. When I ran out of MP, I would teleport back to nearest city, heal up, and try again. After the Caduceus, my strategy for most fights was to just attack with everyone except Lutz and have Lutz heal where necessary. Boss fights become “Myau casts Warla and Mawarla on loop because their effects expire after 3 turns, Lutz heals when needed, Alisa + Tyrone attack” and praying that this is the last turn I have to repeat those actions. I guess if the game were harder, I would have needed more of a brain and that would have its own set of problems, but whatever.
- I never actually use the collabo system because I was too scared of my crystals breaking. Apparently you can use it to cheese some bosses if you buy enough crystals, but w/e
- Because of how damage is calculated, at the end of the game multi-hit weapons are the way to go – you’ll have so much base attack that it pays to attack twice with a weapon with like 90 less attack than the single hit!
- Unsurprisingly, I went from “how am I so poor” at the start to “I am sitting on piles of money with nowhere to spend it” at the end.
- Item management SUCKS. Items DON’T STACK. I just want to keep 99 potions. I was pretty conservative with item use, then I ran out of inventory, so I started using items as soon as I got them to accommodate.
- Music was fairly good, not too repetitive.
- Story was a bit anticlimactic – Baya Malay onwards is fairly linear, you beat La Shiec, and are unceremoniously dropped into a new dungeon with pulsating flesh walls that is entirely linear. Dark Falz has no villain monologue, you just yeet him. I enjoyed the pre-Baya Malay parts way more – getting to talk with all the townspeople and learn about the planets, running around fetching items (the Dezoris sequence especially, adding the liar/truth teller trick was fun). Alisa’s reveal as princess was not really foreshadowed?? You’re just like ah yes, I see she was a royal all along, that doesn’t change anything and beat La Shiec. Kind of annoying that you have to repeatedly talk to people and in the right order to trigger more story events.