The Phantasy Star games have been arguably the best role playing series available on the MegaDrive platform. The Phastasy Star series stand apart from the biomass of RPG romps, featuring character development throughout the game, and pertaining a unique, futuristic flair. Phantasy Star II was the first PS game on the MegaDrive, the original PS game being on the Master System.
"The Algo system has three planets...Palma is the first planet from the sun, a rich planet of tropical climate that enjoys this all year round.
Mota is the second planet, and due to terraforming, its been changed from an almost inhospitable place, to the lush green agricultural planet, with the help of 'Motherbrain'.
Dezo is the furthest planet from the sun, an ice covered ball, not much is known of this place...
People have enjoyed 1000 years of peace since the ancient heroine Alis defeated the evil Lashic, but the people of Mota have grown weak from this serene time. Bio-monsters have started to appear and people cower in fear...the unknown force, known as 'Motherbrain', the entity maintaining the planet has seemingly malfunctioned and someone has to find out what going on..."
-Game Introduction
Phantasy Star II is a sequel game, but playing the first of the series isn't required to understand the dynamics of the game. There is an obligatory reference at the very start as to the sequel-esque nature but the game functions well as an independent title.
The flow of the story has some degrees of anime-related roots. Situations and events aren't sugar coated in the PS universe, sidestory characters die tragic deaths, and towns are razed by evil tyrants butchering the townsfolk. In no way are the events of the game childlike. This is the solid part of the game, as it slows leaks away the evolving theme of the game, revealing the mystery of the bio-monsters on Mota. Check out all the character faces in town stores to see the resident manga artwork.
PS II has functional graphics for an RPG. Use of bright colours contrast, towering azure structures set against the green grass. The game sets itself within a futuristic realm; a fresh change from the excessively used medieval Europe setting present in far too many RPG's. Frivolous visual extras usually accompanying modern CRPG's are omitted, thus PS II suffers somewhat if put in direct comparison to later games in terms of graphics.
The world outside the techno-villa's of Phantasy Star II is one of green countryside and mountain peaks, euphemistic speak for sparse features on the outdoors maps, not that this detracts from the game but all the green gets a tad same-ish after a while. The ever-popular top-down perspective is used for general movement between locations.
When the action switches to combat, the perspective changes to a turn-based style view, the front of the enemies twitching in front of you and the characters situated further down the screen facing the enemy. For each character in the group there is a unique attack animation to liven up the combat. Attack animations vary, some look extremely cool, and others are quite dull. The subdued magic effects leave a lot to be desired, when in comparison to other games.
Monsters twitch around on the screen, and usually have interesting attack sequences, though the game suffers from different monsters using the same sprites, while switching the colour palette. For example: There's about 4 or 5 different bees, all-varying in strength, yet all that separates them graphically is a different shade and name.
The sound in the game is bog standard digitised tunes. The main music, battle music, town music, plot music, event music; all the cliches evident in the sound department are here. Sound effects are fairly woeful, yet tolerable. Personally, I never usually play RPG's with the sound on, since in instances of chronically long gameplay bouts, monotonous music tends to irritate rather than enhance the experience.
Despite all its merits, one thing truly hampers the game: its menu system. The menu system in PS II is clunky and very frustrating to use, as having to continually wade through the various screens to do multiple actions eg. Healing characters multiple times can take much more time than it should. This can detract from the game as some screens disallow going back one screen, mainly the shop screens when view item descriptions, causing the characters to have to continually go in and out of stores for no reason apart from a shoddy system design.
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Seemingly, there are a lot of negative issues about PS II, but these petty things are outweighed by all that this game provides. An RPG fan shouldn't think twice about getting this game but console gamers new to the RPG genre should keep in mind that PS II was an early MegaDrive release, and isn't user friendly to the novice. Beginners will also enjoy the last game of the PS series, Phantasy Star IV: End of the Millennium, which refined the woes of the previous games into one superfluous package. |
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