Phantasie series

[Null Null]

Bit OT but I'm amused the hacker picked his party names from Dungeon Master default characters and the bad guy from Bard's Tale I.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Prestigious!

 

[Rincewind]

The only advantage to transfering seems to be that a character gets 100 XP per level he was at the end of P2 (or P1). So for the Amiga version it should make no practical difference if you transfer from P1.

Seems like this is something that belongs here

Transfered my party to P3 (ST version) and took it for a test drive, and it looks like the overworld is always already explored in P3, even when starting a brand new game.
Or does anyone have different experiences?

Haven't actually played the games on the Amiga yet, but just realised that the WHDLoad versions were created using the original uncracked copies (this is true for the majority of WHDLoad conversions, btw). So that means the wilderness must be unexplored. I believe you must have tried a cracked ADF version before octavius.


Speaking about WHDLoad, and I know some of you are new to emulating the Amiga, here is some important info that people usually learn the hard way (and I've just fallen into this trap again about an hour ago):

When you save your progress in a WHDLoad game, 99% of the time it *does not* actually save it to disk, but only to memory because of caching reasons. Which means if you just reset your virtual Amiga or quit the emulator altogether with Alt-F4 or something, your progress *will not* be saved.

You must explicitly exit the game with the "quit key" to cause the save in the memory to be flushed to disk. The quit key is specified by the author of that particular WHDLoad conversion, and it is usually mapped to F10, but not always (it's a bit all over the place).

It's possible to define a global quit key, which I have just mapped to F10. It it still possible to override this per-game if a game uses F10 for something important.

Details about how to configure it can be found here:

http://whdload.de/docs/en/opt.html

The relevant parts:

For example you can set a global QuitKey as default for all installed programs and set an individual QuitKey for single installs in their icon via a Tooltype.

The global configuration file is "S:WHDLoad.prefs". It is a usual ASCII file and contains one option per line. Empty lines and comments are ignored. A comment is line based, starts with the character ";" and goes up to the end of line.

(Well, and you might need to also look into it how to edit files on the Amiga, how to configure Tooltypes, etc...)

EDIT: Oh, and here are the raw key codes: http://whdload.de/docs/en/rawkey.html

The first character must be a dollar sign, for example:

QuitKey = $59

This sets the quit key to F10.

 

[Ladonna]

Phantasie 3 has the overland already explored.

 

[octavius]

When you save your progress in a WHDLoad game, 99% of the time it *does not* actually save it to disk, but only to memory because of caching reasons. Which means if you just reset your virtual Amiga or quit the emulator altogether with Alt-F4 or something, your progress *will not* be saved.

You must explicitly exit the game with the "quit key" to cause the save in the memory to be flushed to disk. The quit key is specified by the author of that particular WHDLoad conversion, and it is usually mapped to F10, but not always (it's a bit all over the place).

I remember with Amiga Forever I had to manually copy the save files from the Temp folder to not lose all progress. There was probably a more elegant solution, though.

 

[unseeingeye]

If anybody is looking for a WHDLoad preset like what Rincewind is talking about already configured to map the quit key to F-10, there is a copy you can easily download and then overwrite with available here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7...WU0/view?resourcekey=0-Ms2mV3pjsPVX4WCaxw5NxQ

 

[octavius]

Grrr...Every time I try to read Scroll IV (for sale in the starting town armoury) the game crashes.
And for some reason I can enter the Town Archives with my party as long as they have not trained, but as soon as one of them has trained the game crashes.
Bloody annoying.

 

[Rincewind]

Grrr...Every time I try to read Scroll IV (for sale in the starting town armoury) the game crashes.
And for some reason I can enter the Town Archives with my party as long as they have not trained, but as soon as one of them has trained the game crashes.
Bloody annoying.

That's P2 on the ST?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Isn't is P3? P3 will be a real different beast. It is one that I would love to see compared to P4.

I still can't find that one Japanese site that was basically a walkthrough of Starcraft games. It listed much of the text and all of the maps. I probably have it saved on a harddrive somewhere. When i find it I can hit the wayback machine to link it.

 

[octavius]

Grrr...Every time I try to read Scroll IV (for sale in the starting town armoury) the game crashes.
And for some reason I can enter the Town Archives with my party as long as they have not trained, but as soon as one of them has trained the game crashes.
Bloody annoying.

That's P2 on the ST?

P3 on ST. And the characters are imported characters.
I'll try the process again in case I didn't do it correctly.

 

[octavius]

Finally got it to work (except still crashing when reading scroll IV).
Turns out I need to use the Data Disk to play with.

 

[mondblut]

The only advantage to transfering seems to be that a character gets 100 XP per level he was at the end of P2 (or P1). So for the Amiga version it should make no practical difference if you transfer from P1.

Both P1 and P2 have a few opportunities to raise base stats above the original stat cap. In P1 stats change with 3 water pools, and in P2, using 6 Filmon's wands you are awarded after finishing the game. These carry over. So, on Amiga it's an equivalent of playing BG2 without using those tomes from BG1 to beef up stats.

 

[octavius]

ST version of P3 is significantly harder than the previous games.

So very fair of the game pitting you against nine Dark Dwarves in the very first dungeon. They must at least 50 HP, maybe more than 100, and they ignore our pitiful begging for mercy.

Axes grind and maces clash as wounded fighters fall
To the ground, severed limbs and fatal woundings, bloody corpses lay
All around, the smell of death and burning flesh, the battle weary fight
To the end, the party have been overpowered, victims of the mighty Dark Dwarves.

You'd better scatter and run
The battle's lost and not won
You'd better get away
To fight another day

If only Fleeing didn't repeatedly fail.

 

[octavius]

Dark Dwarves are becoming my arch enemies in P3.
I restarted the game, and playing very carefully I've avoided party deaths so far, and heeding the words from scroll VIII the party performed a strategic regrouping in the Archives.
But at Kilmor's funeral there was another group of them. Only ("only") eight this time, but I managed to defeat them with only one gnome down, which of all had to be my Priest.

 

[mediocrepoet]

P3 is a bitch. I couldn't get into it because of all the limb removals and such at low levels. It irritated the hell out of me having a party of cripples, I assume hopping around on crutches or crawling with their arms only, etc. (If ever a game would've actually benefited from combat wheelchairs, it was this one.)

It also didn't help that I had the IBM compatible version which is ugly as sin. This Atari ST version looks really nice though.

 

[octavius]

Healing IV heals missing limbs and it's available quite soon. It's worse when your Priest dies and you try to level up your Ranger in the power trio that remains of your party, to level 13 to get Resurrection. It would probably have been easier to created a new Priest. (Or I could abused the system and made myself an Undead lvl 20 Priest).

I think two Priests is a good idea in P3, instead of a Monk. The Monk is rather weak in P3 since the Ninja II spell doesn't really make him into a fighting machine. He'll do more damage, but unlike Fighter and Ranger never hit with Slashing.

All in all I think it's the best Phantasie game, at least for Amiga and ST, with a much improved combat system, and being quite a challenge to survive.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Healing IV heals missing limbs and it's available quite soon. It's worse when your Priest dies and you try to level up your Monk in the power trio that remains of your party, to level 13 to get Resurrection. It would probably have been easier to created a new Priest. (Or I could abused the system and made myself an Undead lvl 20 Priest).

I think two Priests is a good idea in P3, instead of a Monk. The Monk is rather weak in P3 since the Ninja II spell doesn't really make him into a fighting machine. He'll do more damage, but unlike Fighter and Ranger never hit with Slashing.

All in all I think it's the best Phantasie game, at least for Amiga and ST, with a much improved combat system, and being quite a challenge to survive.

Nice. I may have to try it again, just not on the IBM version. I can't deal with so much yellow and green alternating with cyan and magenta (depending on the screen).

 

[Sinatar]

The problem with Phantasie 3 is that there isn't enough content to carry to you to a high enough level to clear the final dungeon, so you have to grind levels. Grinding levels is very annoying in P3 due to limb removal, you could be level 10 fighting a level 1 goblin and it can (and will) still lop off limbs willy nilly. So unlike most games where you can grind only paying minimal attention to the game (and say watch something on netflix or whatever) you have to focus on what you're doing the entire time, which is *dreadfully* dull.

It's a shame the game is so short, both P1 and P2 had more then enough dungeons you get you naturally high enough to beat them, but P3 has like half as many dungeons. Why they didn't make the final dungeon lower level I'll never know.

 

[Rincewind]

So unlike most games where you can grind only paying minimal attention to the game (and say watch something on netflix or whatever) you have to focus on what you're doing the entire time, which is *dreadfully* dull.

"Unlike most games"? Come on, bro...

 

[Sinatar]

So unlike most games where you can grind only paying minimal attention to the game (and say watch something on netflix or whatever) you have to focus on what you're doing the entire time, which is *dreadfully* dull.

"Unlike most games"? Come on, bro...

Games in which you grind. I mean if you are grinding levels and sitting there focused entirely on picking the same menu options against the same enemies over and over again, well hey more power to you.

 

[octavius]

Further into Phantasie III.

My Ranger still needs 100,000 XP to get to lvl 13 and the Resurrect spell and a full party. In the meantime my remaining power trio has explored every dungeon they can, except for the battle field (tent icon on the map) NE of Lansing where there's wall-to-wall High Devils and tougher creatures. That's the one place I remember most vividly from my playthrough on a cracked Amiga version back in the days; the insane grind before finally reaching Lord Wood.

I didn't get far in the Chronos dungeon, since none of my guys can pick the lock an early door.

Oh well, I think I'll try the Gnome dungeon again. First time I tried the Viper's Egg puzzle I failed (something about foul air).

 

[octavius]

Looks like I'll have to get a new Thief. My current one is lvl 12 Gnome Thief with Dex 20, but his Pick Lock skill is only 112, and it's no use grinding him further up since he'll only improve by 3 now.
112 is just not enough to get get further than the entry hall in Chrono's dungeon (I've checked walls for secret doors).
This is most exasparating.
(EDIT: Never mind; the locks are random, so I just reset the dungeon and could proceed.)

And somehow the Elementals have disappeared; none of them are available in the Guild. I really hope that is not going to be a problem down the line...

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I never used the elementals. They don't replace mrmbers do they?

 

[octavius]

No. You can add one of them at the guild, but they will not actually show up until you cast the Summon Elemental spell in battle.

 

[octavius]

Seems like my quest in P3 is over...I didn't pick up the Wand of Nikademus in the Archives since a scroll said it was cursed, and Filmon never sent us to find it either. Not loading the saved dungeon didn't help; the pedestal is now empty except for some gold.
But I need to break the wand in the Castle of Darkness in order to gain acces to the second level of the Netherworld and face old Nik.
So unless I've missed something obvious, I will have to find a way to back up my characters and start a brand new game with them, and just the speed run the game.