Starting the Phantasy Star series

[+jeremiahjt]

Finally went a found that cave entrance south of Satera and it let me in without requiring any special equipment.  The cave leads to Elysium, which I only know because the map I looked up told me.  There were three chests with equipment, but all the equipment is stuff that is no longer useful for me.  I wonder if you marry Lena at the end of the first generation if you have to go through that tunnel in the second generation and the equipment is more useful than.

 

After the tunnel I made my way to a castle blocking the way and entered.  A roaming inhabitant said it was Northern Divisia.  It is by far the smallest town in the game so far with nothing really of value. At the bottom of the town another resident says I have to enter the castle to reach Southern Divisia.  I guess the little town above the castle is Northern Divisia and the bigger town below the castle is Southern Divisia. Or maybe the names are for the parts of the land.  I do not know.  She also says a pilot lives beyond the bay past their town.  I wonder if I will finally start to do fast travel.

 

After leaving the town I entered a gigantic castle with only three inhabitants.  We do learn that pilots are almost extinct, but one named Rulakir still lives.  Maybe Rulakir is the pilot that lives beyond the bay.  The guard tells us welcome to Divisia-town.  Maybe both towns and the castle are simply called Divisia-town?  He also tells us Wren can fly, swim, and dive with the right parts.  The king tells us that the people used to pilot the space ship.  So some of the lands in this giant space ship remember that they are actually on a space ship.

 

In the much bigger southern town we learn from a woman that the town (or castle) of Aerone is rumored to have pilots.  She also tells us the sub parts for Wren are in a cave to the west, with some rebels.  And finally that I need to use these to find Laya's treasure in Aridia.  I am not sure if I need to use the sub parts or the sub parts and the rebels to find Laya's treasure.  Good thing that lady knew exactly what we were looking for.  Another lady tells us we need to use Laya's Pendant to reach Aerone.  This town also has weapon and armor shops, but they contain nothing better than what I currently have.

 

I went to the cave to the west, called the Rebel Cave according to the maps.  I found more equipment that was useless to me and the sub parts!  I did not find any rebels though.  I also saw a town I cannot get to right now, presumably Aerone.  I tried using the sub parts at the water, but nothing happened.  I have seen quite a few piers in the various lakes, I would guess I need to be at one of those to use the sub parts, so now I will go searching for those piers to hopefully explore the lakes and oceans.

[+jeremiahjt]

I went walking along every single shore in Elysium looking for a pier, but Elysium does not have even one.  So I headed back to Aridia and found a pier on the way in Landen.  I went to it and tried to use my sub parts, but I can't.  Well there goes that thought.

 

I made it back to Hazatak and checked with the cyborgs and they still said there was a whirlpool southeast.  I headed out and not two steps into my journey I get a little cut scene of Wren transforming into a submersible and we are sitting on that little river just south of Hazatak.  I guess that is where the whirlpool is.  Wren wants to see where it goes which seems kind of risky to me, but it leads to "a world within the world of Aridia" so I guess Wren did not kill us all.  This world has no enemies and only one structure; a Layan Temple.  And this temple actually has people in it.  Apparently Laya's younger sister was cryogenically frozen and kept here for over 1,000 years.  Laya's younger sister happens to also be named Laya.  You can always count on the Phantasy Star series to reuse names.

 

Laya joins the party and says her sister left with a knight who wore a black sword and she wants to find out what happened to her.  I seem to recall Orakio having a black sword.  Did Laya and Orakio elope and leave their people high and dry?  One of Laya's caretakers tells us to go to Mystoke on Frigidia to find a key to truth.  The portal is southwest on Aridia and I am going to guess the Mystery Star Laya is wearing will get us into the cave.

 

I fought a few battles around Hazatak and got Laya up to level 22 or so.  It did not take many fights to get her there, but she did die a few times.  She is the first character I have had that uses a bow, which seems to be a lot like Wren's shots.

 

Next time I am off the passage to Frigidia to find Mystoke.  Hopefully Laya's Pendant is the key to truth and I can go get a pilot on Aerone.  Of course I do not know if I even need a pilot.  I am guessing I am going to find plane parts or jet parts and I will need a pilot to fly Wren.

[+jeremiahjt]

Finding the cavern to Frigidia was straightforward and the cavern only had four chests.  Fortunately two of the chests held equipment for Laya superior to what she already had.

 

Once we got to Frigidia it was a little different.  I use the maps for the dungeons, but I like to explore the overworld.  It took me quite a while before I stumbled into Mystoke.  Once in Mystoke, we find that they have been waiting centuries for someone related to Laya to come get Laya's Pendant from the Castle of Silence, which is quite the ominous name.  All the townsfolk expect to enter the castle and let us know that we will be tested.  One tells us to use the Pendant to hear Laya's final words and then head to Aerone.

 

I found the armor shop first and holy smokes, all five pieces it sells is the top armor in the game for that kind of armor.  Luckily I had enough meseta to buy the best armor for all four of my characters.  I wonder if my fifth member will use the Royal Robe.  I still had almost 100,000 meseta so I eagerly found the weapon shop ready to upgrade everybody, but only Laya found something better than her current weapon.  I really need some better weapons, the enemies I am facing right now are pretty tough.

 

Mystoke Castle is like most other castles in this game, empty of people and full of monsters and cyborgs to encounter, yay.  The castle is pretty big and takes a while to get around to the dungeon, but the dungeon is not too bad.  Well except for that one treasure chest way out of the way that contains... an antidote.  There are tons of powerful enemies here though.  It is quite the challenge to make it all the way to the throne room and to get Laya's Pendant.

 

After leaving the castle I used Laya's Pendant and Laya's disembodied voice filled us in.  Her and Orakio realized they were being used to cause "pain and suffering" by "an evil force from time beyond legend" and banded together to go fight the cause.  Most likely Dark Force/Dark Falz.  Laya left the Pendant for Laya so she could presumably finish what she started.

 

I wonder if Siren and Lune were not happy about Laya and Orakio joining forces and they had to be removed first.  Well now it is off to Aerone by way of Aridia and Landen.  Hopefully Aerone has some nice equipment and maybe my fifth member.  At the very least I expect to find Rulakir and find out why I need a pilot.

[profholt82]

On 6/3/2022 at 10:38 AM, Tanooki said:

Since this is the active topic on this old franchise, kind of curious what people feel about maybe using the GBA Phantasy Star Collection port?  I know it was horrible they'd confusingly exclude #4, but 1-3 is on there.  Seems like a semi-ideal way to play if you want to go beyond the TV, though I think they're largely just straight emulated or ported to the handheld.  I forget though as I had it back when it was new, but only really did it for the original as I never was huge on the second as it drags and three I just read endless dislike about so I just didn't bother.  Not sure if it's a hot mess to even buy it now, but it did come with some nice poster/map things to help so probably with paper pushing sharks.

 

There is definitely a crashing bug in the GBA cart. I don't think it's just in the first game either, I seem to recall it happening in the second as well. But admittedly, it's been many years since I played it, so that might be off. This happened across the board for everyone if I recall, it was a widespread issue that was discussed on forums at the time it was contemporary. The thing is, the workaround is just to save frequently. Inevitably, you will lose some progress at some point, but frequently saving makes it palatable. It was just a random thing too. Sometimes I'd go hours without the crash, and sometimes 5 minutes. I don't know how they screwed that up so badly that it wasn't caught prior to release. Otherwise, it's great, faithful ports of the games with no notable issues otherwise. 

[+jeremiahjt]

After leaving Mystoke I came across a giant floating, fortress maybe?  Maybe the flying parts for Wren are needed to get to it.  I am pretty sure I am not done with Frigidia though.

 

On my way to Aerone, I came across a Layan Temple near the passage to Aridia.  I decided to go in and when I got to the middle instead of rudely being told to leave I was transported to another temple.  The new temple was in Aridia near the passage to Frigidia.  So I started making my way to the passage to Landen and I came across another temple nearby.  I tried that one and it sent me to Landen near the tunnel exit.  I like this.  I did try one more I found and it sent me to Draconia or Aquatica or somewhere, so not useful.  When I got near the tunnel to Elysium I gave that nearby temple a try, and there I was in Elysium.  I am guessing every single connecting tunnel has a nearby corresponding temple also.

 

I then made my way through Divisia-town and around to the Layan Temple, which led me to the temple right next to it, but across the water.  So now I could visit Aerone.  When I got to Aerone I was expecting to be told about pilots and Rulakir, but that did not happen.  One lady says Aerone is the last home of the pilots, and that is it.

 

We do find out about the attack on Azura though.  The attack could only come from a vast power and that it came from a dome that is said to be a barren land of horror.  So each area is called a dome.  I do not recall hearing them called that before, but maybe I missed it.

 

We are also told that east of the path in town leads to the moon, Dahlia.  I guess the next step is to go to the moon Dahlia.  There is really nothing in-game to tell you where to go though.  I am guessing we need to get a ship, fly to Dahlia, and then defeat Lune.  Hopefully Lune can give us a clue of where to go.  Maybe Rulakir or another pilot is hanging out on the moon.  Or maybe all this pilot non-sense is just to fly to Dahlia.

[ChildOfCv]

The secret of the temples is that they take you to the next area closest to the temple.  You'll appear in the temple that is closest to that edge.

[+jeremiahjt]

I followed the path east and into the passage to Dahlia.  It was pretty short and at the end was a shuttle.  We boarded the shuttle and were off to Dahlia.  When we got to Dahlia I was surprised to find it populated with people.  Three guards are there who warn us of Lune's foul mood, let us know the aero parts for Wren are downstairs and can be used to reach the sky city in Frigidia where we can find strength to battle evil, and the last one lets us know where the aero parts are just in case we missed the other guard.

 

Three members of the royalty are also there.  Sitting on a throne is Lune himself.  I actually thought Lune was going to be female.  He says he fought in Laya's army, but Orakio banished him to this moon almost 1,000 years ago.  He says he bided his time in cryogenic sleep for centuries.  Are you really biding time if you are cryogenically frozen?  I guess if the whole reason to enter cryogenic sleep is to come back at a better time to enact your plans then it could be considered biding your time.  He recently awoke and decided to take revenge, but now regret the trouble he has caused.  Considered he probably murdered many Saterans, I think it is a little more than "trouble."

 

Alair, Lune's sister, is also there and gives us quite a good bit of information.  They were frozen in cryogenic pods for 1,000 years.  She was kidnapped by Orakians when she woke up which made her brother furious.  They were the ones who destroyed Satera.  I guess in retaliation for Alair's kidnapping.  She also says they are not responsible for the recent monster attacks and they want forgiveness for their "past errors."  Which of course means the destruction of Satera, but I wonder if they did other things.

 

What Orakians kidnapped Alair?  Is that explained in one of the other lines' quest?  And how did Lune get Alair back?

 

The last royal there has the look of somebody that will join the party.  Her name is Kara, Lune's daughter.  She says Lune is too weak to fight and she must do it.  Which is weird because nobody said anything about Lune possibly fighting.  She borrows the Lune Slicer from her father and joins your party, rather abruptly too.  Fortunately unlike Laya, Kara at level one is pretty powerful and can already hold her own in battle.

 

In the dungeon we immediately find a Force Crown and a Force Headgear.  It has been a while since Wren had an upgrade to his headgear.  Laya also gets to upgrade her crown too.  The next treasure chest is the Laconian Headgear.  Wren did not wear the Force Headgear very long.  We also find a Laconian Bandana for Kara.  We then find a Laconian Crown for Laya, who also does not wear her Force Crown very long.  Finally we find the aero parts for Wren and we are done in the Dahlia dungeon, and on Dahlia altogether.

 

After leaving Aerone, I head south across a bridge and find a Layan Temple, which leads me straight to Frigidia, yes!  I find one of those runways and when we walk across it Wren transforms into an aerojet and we can fly anywhere we want, double yes!  I went to Mystoke first, which has a runway right beside it. When we fly over the runway Wren transforms back.  I went ahead and bought Kara the Royal Robe.  Then we fly to the sky city.

 

The sky city is actually the Castle of Skyhaven and the masters there have waited centuries for us.  The first master tells us that the ultimate evil dwells on a floating city in the barren wastelands of the dome, Terminus.  I believe this is the first time the last dome has been named.  The second master tells us that a word of ultimate power has been lost for ages and this word can empower the weapons of legend.  The third master tells us of the legendary weapons used by ancient heroes: Orakio's Sword, Miun's Claw, Siren's Shot, Laya's Bow, and Lune's Slicer.  Well I have seen Laya's Bow and Lune's Slicer in action and they are definitely not legendary.  I guess I have to find the word of power to make them legendary.  The fourth master tells us to find all five ancient weapons of legend before finding the lost name.  I am guessing the lost name is the word of ultimate power.  The last master tells us the name of power can be found on Sage Isle in Draconia, the land of old Cille and Shusoran.  Well Cille and Shusoran are actually on Aquatica.  He finally tells us that their dungeon holds the aqua parts for Wren and that the aqua parts are needed to "wrest" Orakio's Sword from its watery tomb and to visit Sage Isle.

 

After talking to the masters we head to their dungeon.  Why does every castle have a monster and cyborg filled dungeon?  In the dungeon we find some pretty tough new enemies.  It seems a lot of them have very high defense and they give a lot of experience.  The various treasure chest hold Star Mist, Moon Dew, a useless Hunting Bow, a Royal Crown, a Laconian Ribbon, and the aqua parts.  Laya get to upgrade her crown again rather quickly and Mieu gets to upgrade her ribbon for the first time in a very long time.  After getting everything we leave the dungeon and Skyhaven Castle, probably forever.

 

I happened to see another town west of Mystoke when I look at a map, so I headed there next.  I went into the weapons shop and holy crap those are expensive weapons.  All the most expensive weapons in the game are here.  I buy Wren a Pulse Vulcan, which actually lowers his attack power, but it should let him attack everybody in an entire row.  I also grab a Planar Slicer for Kara and I am out of money.  There are some people standing by some fountains.  We are told that this town is New Mota, wish it were New Motavia, and they remember their history here.

 

We finally find out how this game is connected to the first two games thanks to the historians here.  The Keepers of their People's History have kept the past alive for 1,000 years.  The people of Alisia III are descendants of Palm, not Palma, that circled the star Algo, not Algol.  Palm was destroyed by an evil being that haunts them every 1,000 years.  The evil is known as Dark Force!  So Dark Force is finally mentioned by name.  The Palmans knew of Dark Force's plan to destroy Palm and made preparations to escape.  The Palmans built 400 ships just like the Alisa III and escaped the destruction of Palm.  The set off to find a new homeland.  Somehow Dark Force slipped aboard one of the ships.  Did he do this before or after I killed him?  Or did only an aspect of him stow away?  He destroyed 398 of the 400 ships before Orakio and Laya trapped him on Alisa III.  The other surviving ship is the Neo Palm.

 

It is nice to know how this game is connected to the first two games.  There was a ton of exposition in this section.  I am not sure if I was supposed to go to New Mota here, there might be a reason we are sent here later.  So did Dark Force go to each ship and get them to fight each other until they destroyed each other like with the Orakians and Layans?  Or did he attack other ships with one ship?  Did he destroy one ship, go to sleep for 1,000 years, wake up and destroy another ship, and so on?  Because that would take a really, really, long time.  I cannot imagine these ships are still functional 399,000 years later.

 

Next I am going to grind for some more meseta before heading to the sunken temple by Ilan and Yaata to get Orakio's Sword.  I guess in the sunken palace we will get clues to where to find Siren's Shot and Miun's Claw.

[+jeremiahjt]

I have been wondering for a while how this game is connected to the first two, and up until I got to the town of New Mota, there was nothing in the plot that connected them.  Now, if the Alisa III was supposed to be the Alis III, that might have been a little something.  I am not sure if it was a good thing that any connection was hidden for so long.  This game might be more fondly remembered if it was obvious from the beginning that all the characters were descendants of Palma.  Honestly New Mota should have been called New Camineet, or more likely New Cami.

 

I am happy that I finally know how the games are connected though.  Seeing how the Alisa III is a city ship, it makes sense that the residents of the ships were from somewhere that no longer exists, not just part of some exploration.  It would have been nice if there were some more clues to the connection littered throughout the game, instead of just towards the end.  And right now I am not sure New Mota is required to visit.  If I would not have seen the town on a map I might have missed it and never seen the connection.

[zylon]

PSIII was my fave of the series. I've gotten all 4 endings. 

[+jeremiahjt]

I did a little bit of meseta grinding, just enough to buy Mieu one Planar Claw.  Then I headed out to go to Landen and retrieve Orakio's Sword from the sunken temple.  On the way there I fought a little bit with my new weapons. I am very happy with the increased damage Mieu and Kara are doing.  I am extremely happy with Wren's Pulse Vulcan.  The damage is slightly lower than his Pulse Cannon, but he does not attack a whole row, he attacks every single enemy on screen!

 

Using the aerojet and Laya's Pendant makes getting all the way back to Landen a breeze.  I found a pier and walked onto it and Wren turned into the aquaskimmer, a jet ski looking thing.  I piloted to the sunken temple and when we got close Wren changed into the submersible again.  The sunken temple is not a sunken temple, it is a sunken palace.  I used the submersible to make my way around to where a sword was sticking out of the ground and pinning something to the ground.  When you get close Sean pulls Orakio's Sword from its "stone sheath."

 

After pulling the sword, you read an engraving on the floor that says "I hold Dark Force."  Then Dark Force's disembodied voice appears and says he is free at last.  For being held against his will he sure accomplished a lot.  He then boasts about being free and says he has other things to attend to before taking on the heroes.  I wonder if he is going to go to the Neo Palm, or try to destroy it.  You are then told you learned "Megido, destruction incarnate."  I tried to use Megido during a fight but it did not even show up.  I guess it can only be used in the final battle.

 

I was told to get all five legendary weapons before heading to Sage Isle.  I figured Miun still had her claw, so I went to her on Aridia.  When she saw Orakio's Sword, she thought Sean was Orakio and died happily knowing that Orakio had returned.  She then transformed into a treasure chest which held her claw.

 

I had no idea where I could find Siren's Shot, so I headed to Aquatica and to Sage Isle hoping to run into him there.  As luck would have it, he was there.  He learned that Layans are not evil on Sage Isle and then he to passes into the cyborg afterlife leaving a treasure chest with Siren's Shot.  I guess when cyborgs die they all turn into treasure chests.

 

There are some new enemies in Sage Isle.  And I do not mean new palette swaps, brand new enemy designs and most of them are quite nice.  I like the dragons and the wraith quite a lot.  They are also definitely tougher than most previous enemies and they give a ton of experience

 

The cave is filled with some good equipment, but some of it is useless.  You get the Royal Sword for Sean and the Vulcan for Wren, but they both have their legendary weapons already.  You also get the Royal Shield and Royal Emel.  Considering the two males both use two handed weapons, the Royal Shield could be considered useless too.

 

There are five sages to be found, but some of them do not sound too sage like.  Since we brought the legendary weapons together we are deemed to be worthy to hear the ancient word, Nei.  I should have known.  They also teach Grantz to Mieu, but again I could not use it when I tried to.  They then tell us to go back to Skyhaven to empower the weapons.  On the way back to Skyhaven I stop by Rysel and pick up Sean a pair of Royal Boots.  He is a king, he should not be slumming it in Force Boots.

 

Back in Skyhaven, our weapons are unequipped by the masters.  The masters say to reequip the newly named Nei weapons.  The stats for these new weapons are impressive.  The masters tell us we might be ready for what's next.  I guess the next step is to enter the Terminus dome.  I am going to guess the floating city has a castle attached to it and I will have to traverse the castle using the dungeon below to move forward.  Just a guess.

[+jeremiahjt]

I made it to Terminus, the "barren land of horror," and it looked like every other non-desert/non-frozen dome.  If it was supposed to look barren, they did not convey that.  It was green and blue.  The floating city is the only thing in that dome.  I scoped out the rest in the aerojet and there is nothing.

 

Once I made into the floating city there were actually people in the city.  The first one tells me the name of the city is Lashute and that my death awaits me here.  Is that a warning or a threat?  My game was almost over here and she would not move out of the way so I could pass.  The next person said they wanted Siren and Lune to start another war, so they needed Rhys to bring Satellite back closer to Alisa III.  So the citizens of Lashute are evil.  All of them are evil.  Lashute is also filled with random battles.  Very difficult random battle with some new enemy types.  We also find out that Laya locked all the passageways between the domes, but Rhys and Ayn opened them allowing Lashute to spread their evil.  I do not think any of the passageways to Lashute were opened, so I am not sure how the opening of other passageways helped them.

 

We finally get to the end of the city a find their ruler on a throne.  The ruler is Rulakir?  The pilot from Aerone?  There is nothing in the plot leading up to Rulakir being Dark Force's lieutenant.  He says his heart went black 1,000 years ago when his family died in the Laya-Orakio war.  He is over 1,000 years old?  Every other human of advanced age in the game has been cryogenically frozen, was Rulakir frozen too.  When people talked about him they made it seem like he was an old pilot, like an 80 year old, not a 1,000 year old.  I wonder if there was some dialogue about Rulakir lost in translation.  Rulakir says Dark Force owns his soul and then attacks you with three Murafires and three Azufires.  The fires go down quick, but Rulakir puts up quite a fight.  His Tsu technique packs a punch.  He eventually goes down and says the party has freed him and to finish off Dark Force.  I guess Dark Force was controlling Rulakir like he did to the governor of Paseo.

 

I was pretty beat up at this point since I was searching all through Lashute.  I did not want to miss any potential dialogue so I checked every nook and cranny.  I decided to leave Lashute to head back to Mystoke and rest up.  Every single character in Lashute disappeared.  I guess once Rulakir was defeated they ran away.

 

After resting up I went back to Lashute and made a beeline to the dungeon entrance.  I did pick up all the chests in the dungeon first.  The best chest was the Royal Headgear for Wren.  I never found the Royal Ribbon for Mieu.  Did I miss it or do you have to play as a different final character to find it?   This last dungeon had some new enemies, but overall I do not think as tough as Lashute.

 

The last thing left was a treasure chest, and when I opened it Dark Force appeared.  He had a pretty cool sequence where he transformed to his fighting self during his evil monologue.  He has his body and two hands that deal damage and can be attacked.  I tried to use Megido and Grantz again, but could not.  I used Fanbi to increase attack power on pretty much everybody but Wren, some people got multiple castings of it.  I used Ner to increase speed a couple of times, but everybody seemed to be going before Dark Force so I did not use it much.  His left hand liked to use GiRes a lot and his right liked Foi.  His body attacked or used Tsu, which like Rulakir's was quite powerful.  A lot of times I had both Mieu and Laya casting GiRes, with an occasional Res if somebody got real low.  The fight really did not take too long.  It was much easier than the Dark Force fight in Phantasy Star II.

 

After his defeat Dark Force says he regrets only smashing one moon and that he will return in 1,000 years to visit our descendants.  He then signs off with a very weird, sarcastic line that seems out of place.  I wonder why he did not say he regretted only destroying 398 ships instead of 400.  I would think the spaceships are more important than the moons.

 

Sean gets mad and uses Megido to destroy Lashute because it is too evil.  So that is what Megido is for.  Mieu of course uses Grantz to save them.  As Lashute falls into the lake, the Neo Palm shows up to offer help.  The Neo Palm sends the Alisa III a message and somehow the party hears it.  The explosion, Lashute being destroyed?, got their attention and they came to assist in case Dark Force had returned.  So the Neo Palm knows about Dark Force and never bothered to come to the Alisa III and let the people know?  Somebody says lets get Dark Force for good when he returns in 1,000 years.  It would be nice if the next time he comes back he finds people waiting on him instead of finding people who have completely forgot he exists.

 

I liked the little ending sequence, but the writing was subpar.  Poor writing seemed to be a common problem in this game, but especially near the end.

[+jeremiahjt]

I have not seen everything Phantasy Star III has to offer, but I think I have seen enough of to give a pretty good opinion on the game.  Obviously I like it, or I would not have finished it.  I do not think it lives up to the previous two games though.  The biggest feature is of course the generation system and I honestly do not know if I like that.  Part of me wants to go back and marry Sari to see what the game would be like playing with their son, but another part of me is annoyed that there are three more endings.  I would have to give the generation system a wash right now.

 

The music was pretty good, if a little out of place at times, but I do not pay too much attention to music in games.  I liked the story quite a bit, it just did not feel like Phantasy Star until the very end.  And if I would have missed New Mota, I would have not known the games were connected at all.  The combat was pretty good.  No parts felt unnecessarily hard like the previous games.  The fast travel was nice, but only available at the very end.

 

The battle animations seemed superfluous.  The battle animations in Phantasy Star II involved your characters moving in and attacking.  These animations involved a slash, or three, or some bullet holes.  The enemy animations were completely unneeded.  A hand gesture there, a finger wave here.  The battle techniques were pointless.  I hardly ever used them.  The only time I really used them was when I had a smaller party and I knew I could take out a bunch of enemies in one round with techniques.  Otherwise they were ignored.  Speaking of techniques, Anti only working sometimes was ridiculous.  As was the amount of times I was poisoned.  Some of the dungeons were entirely too long and convoluted.  Particularly the castle dungeons.  The sameness of the towns wore on me too.

 

Now I have to decide if I will go back and marry Sari and play through with their son or head to Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium.  I was going through the guide book after I beat it and saw they the guide suggested going to Sage Isle before you had all the legendary weapons and going the Lashute before having them also.  I guess going to Sage Isle early would give you a reason to use the Royal Sword and maybe the Vulcan.  Apparently Lashute is not hostile until you empower the legendary weapons and you can talk to Rulakir.  Finding that out is kind of pushing me towards playing that last generation again with the different main character.

[ChildOfCv]

I used save game slots and the game save state slot strategically in order to play all the generations with as little repeat as possible.

 

Megido was a weird spell.  Yeah you learn it, but it just seems like he uses it to throw a temper tantrum after DF is defeated anyway... I didn't understand the point of it.

[+jeremiahjt]

After much internal debate and a few months off I decided to play Phantasy Star IV next.  So far all I have done is read through the manual, which did divulge some new aspects of this game compared to previous games.  There are now Skills in addition to Techniques.  Skills seem to be special attacks that hopefully are enough of an upgrade over regular attacks that will warrant their use.  There are now macros you can program to do specific actions, these may be useful.  There are now combination attacks that are special attacks when two characters do certain actions back-to-back.  It sounds like if another character or enemy has an action in between the two combination actions then the combination attack will be ruined.  Right now it sounds like these will be rare occurrences.  When you are in a vehicle, the vehicle now gets to attack, which is how it always should have been.  I guess there is no more character deaths, unless the entire party is killed.  Once a character is at zero hit points there are "near death" and have to been healed or sleep it off at an inn.

 

The main character Chaz's first companion looks to be Alys, but Alys is not a Nei/Mieu clone.  She uses boomerangs and slicers for ranged attacks instead of claws or bars for up close attacks.  Rika seems to be a Nei clone.  She is one year old and uses claws.  Hahn looks like he could be like Hugh.  Rune is a wizard, which I do not think a wizard has ever appeared in another Phantasy Star game up to this point.  There is the android Wren, who I assume is not the same Wren form Phantasy Star III, but could be the same type of cyborg/android.  Gryz might be a Rudo-like tank.  I think Raja is the first priest character I have seen in the series. Kyra is an esper, the first one since Noah in the first game.  Telepipes also make a return after an absence in part three.  Most of the techniques are from previous games, but there are a few that are brand new to this game.

 

From the introductory story, we learned that Mota is now Motavia again and Palm is now Palma again.  No mention of Dezoris or Dezo.  Although Algol is still the Algo system.  It also says Mother Brain exploded on Palma and destroyed the whole planet.  That is not how I recall it.   The way I remember it happening is that Giara, the prison satellite, fell out of orbit on to Palma and that is what destroyed Palma.  Then after Palma is destroyed, you still have to go defeat the still functioning Mother Brain.  I am not sure why they changed the story, maybe a translation error.  Or it is meant to signify that it has been so long since Mother Brain was defeated and Palma was destroyed that now the people of the Algol, I mean Algo, system conflated the two events.

[Flojomojo]

Jeremiah, you are very patient. 
 

did anyone mention that there’s an easier version of Phantasy Star 2 on the Sega Genesis Mini 2?

[+jeremiahjt]

22 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

Jeremiah, you are very patient. 
 

did anyone mention that there’s an easier version of Phantasy Star 2 on the Sega Genesis Mini 2?

I am purist. First time through a game should always be the original release.

[Flojomojo]

Good for you — and obviously you have the staying power to finish these games. 
 

I find em hard to look at and resent how they don’t respect my time (VERY grindy) but someday I must play thru the Sega Ages version of ps1 on switch with embedded maps, or the easy version of ps2 on genesis mini. I played thru ps3 long ago and that felt like enough. In theory I want to play ps4 someday, “only” like 25 hours after all. 
 

https://howlongtobeat.com/game/7001

[Flojomojo]

In addition to you, this is also inspiring https://venturebeat.com/games/the-retrobeat-phantasy-star-iv-is-the-perfect-classic-jrpg-experience-for-switch-owners/

[+jeremiahjt]

Got to start the game.  The intro before the game start screen seemed more like a poem than an informative introduction.  The intro after the game start screen was a little better, but they misspelled Palma as Parma, or so I thought.  The intro did make it seem like Palma's destruction and Mother Brain's were separate events.  One of the first people you talk to calls it Parma in dialogue.  So the original Palma was changed to Palm, and then changed to Parma.  Another character mentions Dezolis.  So Dezoris became Dezo, which then became Dezolis.  I think Motavia is Motavia again though.

 

I did not get very far.  Alys, Chaz's Hunter mentor, promotes Chaz to full Hunter partner and he takes his first assignment from the Hunter's Guild.  Alys leads Chaz to the Motavian Academy in the town of Piata.  After leaving the town or castle, a short little cutscene plays, which is pretty neat.  The cutscene seems to set up the game as far as some people wondering why there have been so many monster outbreaks and who is behind it.  I guess Alys is one of these "elites" who are looking into it.

 

At the Motavian Academy Chaz has become lost and must find Alys, who is within eyesight of Chaz at that moment.  The search button lets you search almost anything.  I assume at some point you will start finding important items with it.  After reuniting with Alys, you get to control Alys.  After talking to some people I found the principal and got the scoop on the commission.  The principal seems sketchy, and Alys even says so after the dialogue.  This game is not being very subtle at the moment.  The principal gives you access to the basement, where the monsters are.  I guess this is my next stop.

 

At this point my girls ran in so I switched over to the 2600 and played the children's series games.

 

As far the changing names, I am going to guess that is partly due to translation errors.  Maybe Palma was always supposed to be Parma, it will always be Palma to me though.  Is that poetic intro some kind of prophecy for the game?  It felt out of place.  The intro music also felt out of place to me, but once the game started I tuned out the music.  I cannot even remember if it was the same tune.

[jhd]

On 12/22/2022 at 2:20 PM, jeremiahjt said:

As far the changing names, I am going to guess that is partly due to translation errors.  Maybe Palma was always supposed to be Parma, it will always be Palma to me though.  

 

I am no expert, but I think that L and R are considered interchangeable in Japanese; e.g. "Engrish".   

[+jeremiahjt]

Got back to playing and first explored Piata.  I found an item shop that sold monomate and only monomate.  Whoohoo!  I also found some houses and a school dorm where not one resident does any work.  There was one resident missing, so I expect we will stumble upon them soon.

 

Back at the academy the person blocking the entrance to the basement now wants to join the team.  Alys extorts him for 100 meseta and lets Hahn join.  He is pretty weak as a fighter.  I am guessing he will end up a lot like Hugh from Phantasy Star II.  Hahn says he is an assistant to Professor Holt and that Professor Holt went missing in Birth Valley.  The party then jumps to the conclusion that Holt's disappearance and the monster in the basement are connected.  I do not now how that connection was made though.

 

In the basement there are only two types of enemies and they look almost the same.  After three floors and a couple of treasure chest we get to a room full of containers with monster in them and the first boss fight.  The boss spends all his time doing Fission, which just spits out the weaker of the two types of enemies in the basement.  This is a pretty easy battle.

 

After the battle Alys presses Hahn, but he professes ignorance.  They go back to the Principal and he tells all.  Holt discovered that Birth Valley was the breeding ground for all the new monsters appearing.  He brought back the containers and then went back to Birth Valley.  I guess Holt's disappearance in Birth Valley and the monsters in the basement were connected.  The Principal says a black magician named Zio threatened him, and then the next part was confusing.  I am not sure if Zio appeared right there or the Principal was relaying what Zio told him about not entering Birth Valley.  I think it was the latter.  It was a little confusing.  Whatever the case, next stop Birth Valley.  With an extra 300 meseta that Alys extorted from Hahn for traveling to Birth Valley with him.

[zylon]

I last played through 4, few years ago. In many ways, it seemed the best of the series, full of surprises, and few re-visits to prior events.

[Tanooki]

I agree I think, but I really really do enjoy the very first one.  In part the story stands well alone as it wasn't a series yet so it stood as possibly an epic one off, and it's not overly long to overstay the welcome either.  Yet IV in all these years up until 2022 I never owned or touched before, it feels most like the closer quality to wanting to compete with the efforts of Square, Enix, Natsume(Lufia), and Capcom(BoF) on SNES and notches well into that tier as the quality leap is huge.  I now have a Sega Genesis Mini 2 though, which means I have Phantasy Star II again loved and hated it as it was an utterly slow and overly painful grind to progress, even Sega realized it as the default on there is a mode where much more gold and xp are dished out (like how FF1 on GBA/PS1 got that correction) so I'm very tempted to re-approach it.  It also helps I got for the cost of shipping a damaged but intact Sega Hint Book in the mail for PS2 a week ago which is so well done I'm surprised for the time.  I do have three though the same way I have one, the nice GBA collection but I don't see ever bothering.

[+jeremiahjt]

Phantasy Star IV seems to move faster than the previous entries.  I have done some meseta grinding, but I do not think I had to, I just wanted to buy the best equipment available.  Outside of that, it seems that just progressing through the story is giving enough experience for the party.  This game seems to be more direct with what you should do next too.  It really makes it obvious what to do next with no ambiguity about it.  At least so far.

 

On the way to Zema, the party comes across the town of Mile.  Mile is being consumed by quicksand, most likely thanks to the castle across the quicksand that appeared overnight recently.  A villager says a new strange religion is spreading, led by a man names Zio.  There is some new equipment to buy here, which I did, but not much else.

 

I made it to Zema and Birth Valley and found the entire town turned to stone and the professor and his party turned to stone inside the cavern.  Of course Alys knows what to do.  Alshline can return the people to flesh, which can be found in Molcum, "far to the south."  And by far, I mean it takes two minutes to get there.  I think Molcum is actually closer to Zema than Piata is.  Alys extorts another 500 meseta out of Hahn for the trip to Molcum.  Where is he getting all this money?

 

Locusta make an appearance around here, and they are not nearly as deadly as Phantasy Star II.  In that game, they could kill in one shot, here they are pretty much a pushover. Thankfully.

 

Molcum has been obliterated, but the party finds an old friend of Alys, Rune.  Rune lets you know Zio destroyed Molcum, and then he joins up.  The cut scene that plays here is pretty bad.  The weird antagonism that Rune and Chaz have with each other is childish and not well done.  Probably the low point of the game so far.  Rune also points the group in the direction of Tonoe to get the Alshline.  During the directions to Tonoe, the village of Krup is mentioned and Hahn does not want to go near.  At first I thought he might be wanted or something, but it turns out it is just his hometown.

 

In Krup, we get to meet Hahn's parents and his fiancée, Saya.  His father says he is disinherited for leaving for the academy, rough punishment.  Unfortunately being disinherited means no discount at his father's armor shop, but I upgraded equipment anyway.

 

The entrance to the cavern to Tonoe was caved in, but Rune used real magic, much to Hahn's surprise, to open the way.  Some of the NPCs made Valley Maze seem really daunting, but it was not too bad as a maze or as a dungeon.  Rune does have a lot of technique points (even though he uses magic) and his magic attacks are quite powerful.

 

Tonoe is a village of Motavians.  Some of them have no problem with Parmanians, while others are terrified.  Tonoe has quite a bit of armor and weapon upgrades and I had to do a little bit of grinding to afford everything, but not much.  The villagers point the party in the direction of Grandfather Dorin.  Dorin somehow knows Alys's measurements, which he freely gives.  This starts a humorous cutscene with Alys knocking the crap out of Dorin.  Dorin and Rune are old friends and Dorin is keeping something for Rune.  Rune leaves the party to go retrieve the item with Dorin.  I am going to go out on a limb and say we meet up with Rune again and that item plays an important part in the plot.  Rune does break the fourth wall while giving Chaz a hard time about going after Zio.  I think this is the first time the Phantasy Star series has ever broken the fourth wall.

 

The Alshline is in a basement warehouse full of monsters, and the Motavian Gryz joins the party to lead the way.  The warehouse basement is the hardest dungeon so far, but nothing too hard.  At the end with the Alshline, there is an Escapipe, which is nice.

 

Getting back to Zema took a little bit of time.  Once there everyone is treated and returns to flesh.  Holt returns to his exploration and Hahn has to make a report back at the academy.  Before the party can leave, their old pal Igglanova returns and this times goes down really, really quick.  After the battle Alys charges Hahn 1,000 meseta to continue the quest and we learn where Hahn has been getting his money.  It is his wedding fund for him and Saya.  Poor Hahn, hopefully Saya loves him for who he is, and not his money.

 

I guess next I will go report back at the academy.  One of the people in Zema reported that the bridge north of town is out, but that it is being worked on.  I bet it gets finished real quick.

[+jeremiahjt]

I went back to the academy and the principal was like maybe don't hang around Professor Holt anymore.  So I went back to Birth Valley to check on him and found his two assistants barely alive.  Going through the door that you could not go through before leads to a futuristic science fiction lab.  Now that is the Phantasy Star we all know and love.  We get to fight our first cyborgs, or robots, instead of the monsters.  Most of the cyborgs are pretty easy, but they pack a little bit more of a punch than the monsters so the party's hit points deplete quicker.

 

At the end of the lab you find Professor Holt and his protector, Rika.  Rika is a Nei clone for sure.  You get a little exposition from Rika and Professor Holt.  This lab, a Bio-Plant, was created by a thousand year-old civilization.  I am not sure if that puts the plant during Phantasy Star II, or all the way back at the first Phantasy Star.  Story wise it makes more sense to be from the first game.  Rika takes you to Seed, an artificial intelligence controlling the lab, for more exposition.  The party must shut down Nurvus, the computer maybe, that supplies power to all the systems that are running amok.  First we have to find the android Demi, and of course Demi is being held by Zio.  We discover that the castle near Mile is Zio's Fort.

 

Seed gets the party to take his "daughter" Rika with them, and the first android/cyborg/robot/whatever joins the party.  The party leaves with Professor Holt, but there is no sign of his assistants.  Did Holt just leave them in Birth Valley to die?  Seed then sacrifices itself to stop the spread of monsters, which of course leads to a very poorly done cutscene showing Rika's reaction to Seed's destruction.  Holt heads back to the academy and I decided to follow him to check back with the principal, who wants to keep things hush-hush.

 

The bridge above Zema is complete, so I traverse it and find a near destroyed village called Nalya.  Apparently a meteorite landed nearby and destroyed much of the city.  The city does not have much to offer.  Nearby is the meteorite's landing spot, a dungeon called Wreckage.  I decided not to explore it yet and ventured on.  The way to Zio's Fort is blocked by mountains, but I did find the Hunter city of Aiedo.

 

Aiedo is huge!  There is a giant, and near worthless, market.  Along with a cemetery, a prison, and the large Hunter's Guild.  Oh yeah, and Alys and Chaz's house.  The weapon and armor stores inside the Hunter's Guild has very expensive stuff.  I will have to do some grinding to equip my party.  You also find out there is a passageway past the mountains nearby, and that it is being used by an army, probably Zio's.

 

Inside the Hunter's Guild there is a job posting.  At the moment there is one posting, apparently the sandworm farmer in Mile has bitten off more than he can chew.  He is offering 5,000 meseta to take care of the problem.  That is what I am talking about.  I immediately head there to take care of the problem.  Instead of the multiple Mini Worms I was expecting, there is a damned super Sand Worm.  This Sand Worm absolutely decimated my party.  Killed every single character without breaking a sweat.  I do not know what level I should be at to defeat this thing, but it is not my current level.

 

I think I might do a little bit of grinding to get some of that new equipment.  After that I can decided to try that Sand Worm again, go through the tunnel, or explore the Wreckage.  Actually I thing I will explore the Wreckage first and see how much meseta I can get naturally.  I might even find some new equipment.