Phantasy Star Generation II impressions
I originally posted this over at Japanese Gaming. It's got spoilers at the bottom.
Okay, I got this game a little late. I was on the mainland when it was released, and my mate in Japan was in his home country visiting his folks at the time as well. A little mishap with the delivery, and then two weeks later I finally got it. So, here's a quick run down of what I thought.
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Graphics:
You either love them or hate them. I personally don't mind high-res 2D 'painted' stuff, but it needs to be done right. I think the characters were done very well. More frames of animation per move, obviously more effects, and whatnot. Most monsters were given an overall (improving) facelift. Everything else I found a bit drab (especially the characer designs). The towns and overworld, while laid out pretty much the same, just had a rather 'flat' feel to it. They did do a great job on adding backgrounds to fight scenes... a corner I was very disappointed to see cut when the original came out.
Sound:
I actually think they did a good job on this. They kept all the original scores, but updated them accordingly. A lot of the sound effects are the same as well.
Battle System:
They've added a new trick or two to the fighting system. Basically, when being attacked, a ring expands above your head. When it is almost fully expanded, it turns red. At that moment, you're suppsed to hit the circle button. Successful excecution means about 10-15% less damage to that character. A little too slow, and you only save like 5%. A little fast, and I think it actually deals more damage. While it was nice to add a bit to an otherwise plain fighting system, it got a bit old. Sometimes I want to look up a word or something during a drawn out fight... this prevented that.
On the flip side, there are now different levels of attack. 1, 2, and 3 to be specific. The attack level dictates the strength, speed, accuracy, and chance of a critical hit. Attack level 1 is fast, accurate, and has the highest chance of executing a critical hit, but extremely weak. 3 is the opposite on all counts, and 2 is of course in the middle. You may be thinking, "speed?". That's to say, the order in which your attack occurs. There is absoluvely no randomness to the battles. The person/monster with the quickest stat goes first. This does come in very handy. Especially if you've been attacking a very strong enemy, but he managed to squeek by with like 5 HP. Just use an attack level 1 attack, and you'll most likely be the first up to bat. IMHO this adds for more repetition but also makes it easier. Using items and magics also have their own speed factor as well. Something you have to think about in harder dungeons.
Finally at the end of each battle, you're given a grade. This grade denotes how many bonus experience points you will get. Grade E, and you won't get any. Grade S -- you can get up to 50% more. Getting an S-rank is pretty though though. After the fight, it lists your good points and bad. You need X amount of points (good - bad) to get a specific rank. Some of the things the grading system looks at are:
-Failed at escaping? (very bad)
-Party member died? (very bad -- automatic E)
-Didn't use any techniques? (good)
-Used only attack level 2 (or only 3)? (good)
-Finished the battle in one round? (very good)
-Successfully guarded (as explained above w/ the circle) all attacks? (very good)
-Successfully guarded as least half of the attacks? (good)
So, you tend to concentrate on some of these things when you're leveling. This is essentially a way for you to make more experience off of weaker enemies that would otherwise not be worth fighting.
Balance:
Personally, I've always thought this is where PSII sucked, and PSI was much better. It seemd to me that they adopted PSII's mad leveling requirements for the remake of PS Generation I. And as you would guess, it's similar in Generation II. There are quite a few dungeons where you can either take a TON of medicine with you and use it. Or go in, do a small bit, level up, and go back to the town and heal. You do more of this in the beginning as you have no money for medicine. Some dungeons are of course harder than others, but there are very few in the game that I went in, got what I needed, and got out in only one run. To me, that's pretty lame, but is pretty much how it went in the original.
There's also a lot more required to do outside of the dungeons... a few parts are particularly frustrating. For the most part, like the first remake, you have to talk to a series of people. Sometimes, you have to talk to someone 2-3 times before they'll finally spit up what you need. That'll unlock someone else who tells you something, and so on and so forth.
Remake Goodness (?):
This is a pretty faithful remake. The towns are in the same spots, and the dungeons are probably 90% accuarate. It comes with no hint book, so I'm assumig they dumbed down a couple of the dungeons because of it. For the most part, they're the same though. You can use the many maps on the net to get out of tough spots. I never played the Japanese version so may be wrong about this, but there were some silly ass item names this time around. There are also different types of pipes (they're actually ocarinas). A Shinobi Ocarina which will allow you to walk undetected to biomonsters. Very useful. There's another one I never tried which (I think) makes you noticeable to monsters/robots. And then finally a third one (of which I forgot the name) which (again - I never tried it, but think) is used like a Shinobi Ocarina but for the monsters that appear after the robots.
Overall:
I knew the flaws of this game going in (assuming it was like it's predecessor). Long dungeons, lots of leveling, rather pain-in-the-assish events. I also knew the graphics would be modernized, but still budget compared to other games these days. While I think a Phantasy Star nut will jump at the opportunity to see these stories expanded (yes, there is obviously a lot more substance to the story) I dont think this is a good way for someone to be introduced to the series. Maybe I'm getting old, but it doesn't have the same sense of excitement the original had. Maybe that's because the first two PS games were cutting-edge, and these titles retail for $20. :/ Anyways, I did enjoy it. It took me about 32 hours to complete, which I did in a week, and I almost never play RPGs so quick. There was something that kept me interested long enough... I just have no clue what it was, especially with all the bad things I was thinking about it.
I hate giving out grades, so I'm not going to. I will say that this is a cheap game though, so even if you think it sucks donkies, it's not too big of a loss. I just think I would much rather had a proper remake with lots of new elemnts (side quests anyone?) and paid 5800 yen for it.
THIS NEXT PART HAS SOME SPOILERS ABOUT THE STORY. IF YOU'RE GOING TO PLAY THE ENGLISH VERSION WHEN IT COMES OUT SOMEDAY, YOU MIGHT WANT TO SKIP THIS PART
YOU'VE BEEN WARNED
Differences: (Spoilers)
For the most part, everything is the same storywise, except for two MASSIVE changes. The first, is that Nei can be resurrected. Well, that's nice -- except doing it is a massive pain in the balls. First of all, you can only do it if you started with a PS Generation I save file. Second, you can only do it your second time around. Third, it's an extremely cumbersome multi-step process. It involves talking to specific people (in order I think) and even answering some questions. I think you can get a question wrong, and screw the whole thing up. Anyway, there's a picture of the ending floating about the net with her in it. Pretty cool stuff. Just wish I could've done it the first time.
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The character designs did indeed turn me off some though. They just look... drab. If I wasn't up to my ears in RPGs as it is I'd take a closer look, but I'll probably just pass on it due to having too many other games.
