Phantasie series

[octavius]

And now my Human Priest had to retire at the tender age of 29.
Looks like only Elves, Dwarves and Gnomes are viable if you want to use the same characters throughout the entire trilogy.
It's quite devious how P1 is just short enough that age won't be an issue...

I think the main reason the ST emulators are easier to use than UAE is because the ST was a far simpler machine (no custom chipsets). It's just a Motorola 68k with a soundchip that's inferior even to the C64's SID, which is why in games where a larger color palette isn't all that important, retrogamers prefer C64 versions over ST counterparts in some cases.

Weird that the Atari ST should have such weak sound, as I seem to recall the ST being favoured over the Amiga for making music.

 

[octavius]

One thing that pisses me off in the Phantasie games is that the game only saves the last dungeon you've been in. So if you explore half of Dungeon A, then save it when exiting, it will still be unexplored next time you visit if you visit a different dungeon in the meantime. Weird that it should not be possible to save all the dungeons you visit.
Also, I found that it's best to rely on save states if possible. If you explore an overland area, and you for some reason quit the game while exploring, the next time you load a regular save the overland area will still be explored even though your characters haven't really been there.
Seems to be some primitive/shoddy mechanics at work.

EDIT: other primitive/shoddy mechanics:

If you have several potions of the same type on one character the Use Potion command will consume them all.

There seems to be a 64K cap on how much XP a character can gain before returning to a city, which is odd for a 16 bit game.

I've had two "runs" where my guys got 64K XP, and they got no magic increase when returning to an Inn, despite burning up a lot of mana. Yet I can get half my guys increasing their mana just from popping out from a city, do one battle and retun to an Inn. The way to get more magic seems far too random.

 

[octavius]

What are the odds? 1 to 365,000?

Fortunately greeting him actually worked.

Is it possible to beat him? I guess so, since people beat Zeus in P1.

I assume Lilura did, since she's no noob.

 

[octavius]

P2 dragged on a bit at then end, with the need to stock up on Healing and Magic potions, and run through a maze of lava to and from the last dungeon.

All in all less fun than P1, and the ability to toss rocks didn't add much, except that Spirits - normally immune to physical weapons - could be killed that way.

Things that annoyed me:

Confusion doesn't work. Even with Confusion IV enemies keep casting spells. Might as well use Sleep, which works and is cheaper. I remember using the spells a lot in P3, though.

The need to divide shares every fucking time you visit a town or even save the game. Very annoying having to withdraw money from the bank when you need to teleport to each city to harvest enough potions for the final runs.

Using Slash never worked well except against weak monsters. So Quickness is a rather useless spell, except maybe if you use the Binding spell to make enemies easier to hit.

From what I remember P3 should bring a noticeable incline to the series when it comes to game mechanics, even though the game was very short IIRC.

 

[octavius]

So I tried to import characters from P2 to P3, which turned out to be a waste of effort.

Worst is that when importing from P2 to P3 the program stops asking which characters to import before reaching the last ones. So only half my party can be imported. Purging characters from P2, or forming a party of "undesirables" and save the game while they are out of the guild, or any other trick to rearrange the character roster fails. Evidently the character roster in P2 is bigger than the one in P3, and the program only asks a set number of characters to import and then stops, and there seems no way to get around this stupidity.
But I can import the same three characters twice. Or import them from P1 instead, but then with slightly poorer stats and lacking the Heroes of P2 title.

Second annoyance is that you can't choose both to import characters and Start New Game. You have to chose Start in Pendragon, where the armoury shows every sign of a game in progress. Of course I can chose to ignore the items, but it's still annoying.

Thirdly characters only get 1000-1200 XP each. All skills, HP, Magic Points and Items are reset to lvl 1 values, which is a bit surprising since I seem to recall the starting overland area being deadly.*

So since I already beat P3 back in the days, I'll skip it this time.

* Found some old comments of mine on CRPG Addict's blog:

Damned, I don't remember this game being so brutally hard! Just started my replaying (played it once 20+ years ago) of the Amiga version, and every group I meet either kills my party or cripples them. I can't even go the the nearest city (to buy some better equipment) without being attacked by Devils and Undead Dwarves. One hit from most enemies is either death or removal of limbs.

There is an option to import characters from Phantasie I (Phantasie II was never ported to the Amiga), and I'm starting to think that is what you are supposed to do.
Unfortunately when I played Phantasie I some months ago, I played the DOS version, since the cracked Amiga versions are fully explored.

Oh well, I'll probably replay Phantasie I to get som decent characters to import.

June 4, 2011 at 4:55 PM
In case someone is interested in how the Import Characters functions works:
The level of the characters are reduced to 1, but they get 100 XP for each level they had in Phantasie I [or P2 is using the Atari ST version]. So a lvl 12 character starts with 1200 XP and can usually (depending on class) level up to lvl 2.
All the Amiga versions floating around are cracked versions and comes with characters who have beaten the game, so I transferred the best ones and was able to start with a party of lvl 2 characters, which makes things a bit easier.
So I recommend importing characters if playing this game.

EDIT: Incidentally I didn't finish P3 threee years ago. On my list of games to play I wrote: "More grinding than fun"
P3 was definitely more fun the first time I played a cracked version and had no manual.

 

[Crooked Bee]

I'd advise you to play Phantasie IV since I'd be very curious to hear your impressions of it (since it was designed by Doug Wood himself), but unfortunately it looks like only a partial English translation exists. Maybe Helly could get around to translating it fully some day.

 

[Helly]

PC-98 games are quite annoying to work on but yeah, Phantasie 4 is on my todo list (as are all the Starcraft releases as a matter of fact)

 

[octavius]

Maybe I will try it if/when it's translated.

 

[Helly]

I just had a look, the game works like a charm on my emulator, that's a start

My prixie, ogrillon and dwarfling got killed by traps just out of town and the rest got mauled by undead kobolds :D
I really dig the city art, it's not static; the water flows, cats and people walk around, etc...

 

[mediocrepoet]

Damned, I don't remember this game being so brutally hard! Just started my replaying (played it once 20+ years ago) of the Amiga version, and every group I meet either kills my party or cripples them. I can't even go the the nearest city (to buy some better equipment) without being attacked by Devils and Undead Dwarves. One hit from most enemies is either death or removal of limbs.

I could never get into Phantasie 3 for this reason. It wasn't long before my characters all started looking like Monty Python's Black Knight, even when just starting out. Maybe there's a way to deal with this when you're higher level (I never stuck it out long enough to find out because my party of limbless level 1-2 characters invariably made me rage quit). I always found it really disappointing because I used to love Phantasie when I was a kid.

 

[Luzur]

Well i liked playing Phantasie lots of tactical stuff in combat but as Medio mentioned loosing limbs sucked alot.

also, watch out for the money bug in towns, you may notice that for example you share the gold with the party in town (like give everyone 1000 each) the game removes one coin everytime so each party member get 999 instead of 1000, this happened to me atleast on the C64.

 

[octavius]

Well i liked playing Phantasie lots of tactical stuff in combat but as Medio mentioned loosing limbs sucked alot.

also, watch out for the money bug in towns, you may notice that for example you share the gold with the party in town (like give everyone 1000 each) the game removes one coin everytime so each party member get 999 instead of 1000, this happened to me atleast on the C64.

That's an utterly insignificant "bug" compared to XP you can have before training being capped at 64K, individual bank accounts being capped at 64K, money seemingly (I didn't test it thoroughly) disappearing if you withdrew enough gold that your available party gold exceeded 64K, or the program only being able to have one dungeon saved at a time.
This was with the 16 bit Atari version of P2.

 

[Luzur]

Well i never gamed on an Atari, so i dunno.

 

[index.php]

 

[Harlin]

I'd certainly like to see it!

The original Phantasie is my next project to analyze deeply; it's already well underway. I think it's a great game despite its brevity and being easier that just about another other classic CRPG, and well worth playing even now.

One important thing to know is that it's pretty easy for younger races to age into uselessness if you choose the short-lived ones (random creatures and humans), especially if you transfer to later games.

It turns out there are multiple oddities and outright bugs involved in the way the games handle time (I'm only analyzing the Apple and IBM versions; they're definitely different, YMMV if you try anything else):

• Your characters' ages are, for whatever reason, measured in fortnights. Not what I was expecting.
• In both the Apple and IBM versions, the game does not convert expedition days to fortnights properly. It instead converts to weeks ... so exploration ages you twice as fast as intended!
• Your characters' lifespan is a directly proportional to your starting Luck. (Shame the Apple version doesn't display it when rolling!)
• The time it takes to move outside is terrain-dependent, as you might expect. The unexpected part is that your characters can swim at the maximum movement speed. Even when wearing plate mail!
• This isn't made clear, but learning a spell ages that character by 1 month (2 fortnights). This is definitely deliberate.
• If you try to add a character to your party, and that character is not in the same town, you get a warning that it will take 2 months (4 fortnights) for the character to arrive. That's fair enough, and it only ages that character. The bug (IBM version only) is that your characters are always aged when you add them to the party!
• Also, in the IBM version of Phantasie III, time passes rapidly even in dungeons, which is definitely a bug.

I'd definitely rely primarily on elves and dwarves when rolling characters. (They're long-lived and have good stats.)

The other thing to warn about in advance is that starting statistics are just that important. If you roll low stats at the beginning, you'll be crippled in ways the manual doesn't even hint at.

I also plan to release unofficial patches.

 

[AArmanFV]

Just saw the last post. Good thing that I rolled until getting high stats, although I used a human and gnome race for the sake of variation and experimentation.

Anyway, I jumped to play Phantasie, before that I was thinking on start playing the gold box series for the first time, but I thought it would be a good idea to see at least some of the older catalogue of RPGs that SSI developed and Phantasie is already a "light" game to play for what I knew beforehand. Still I have a question that I didn't know where to ask and since I'm playing Phantasie I'm going to post it here anyway.

For historic perspective, Would it be good to visit first Phantasie and then Wizard's Crown and Eternal Dagger before Pool of Radiance? Would I see influences in the game design?

 

[Harlin]

Just saw the last post. Good thing that I rolled until getting high stats, although I used a human and gnome race for the sake of variation and experimentation.

Gnomes are also quite good. They just don't offer much that either an elf or a dwarf cannot.

Anyway, I jumped to play Phantasie, before that I was thinking on start playing the gold box series for the first time, but I thought it would be a good idea to see at least some of the older catalogue of RPGs that SSI developed and Phantasie is already a "light" game to play for what I knew beforehand. Still I have a question that I didn't know where to ask and since I'm playing Phantasie I'm going to post it here anyway.

For historic perspective, Would it be good to visit first Phantasie and then Wizard's Crown and Eternal Dagger before Pool of Radiance? Would I see influences in the game design?

Phantasie doesn't actually have much in common at all with the Gold Box games. (Well, the packaging and marketing do have a lot of similarities, but I'm guessing you mean game design or programming.)

It actually has more game mechanics shared with the early Wizardry games. (For example, it makes a big deal out of tracking character age, which can absolutely trash your stats; and it has a fundamental rule for avoiding rolling low hit points similar to Wizardry 1/2/3/5/6/7. Though that still won't help you much if you have terrible Constitution/Vitality!)

The main thing Gold Box has in common with Wizard's Crown/Eternal Dagger is the sophisticated tactical combat. Other game rules or design, not really much I can think of.

 

[octavius]

Just saw the last post. Good thing that I rolled until getting high stats, although I used a human and gnome race for the sake of variation and experimentation.

Anyway, I jumped to play Phantasie,

In case I haven't mentioned it, I recommend getting the Atari ST version. It is very nice looking, and you can transfer your characters through all three games. And the Atari ST emulator - Steem - is much friendlier and easier to use than an Amiga emulator.

 

[octavius]

Heh, Lilura is such a sad Amiga fantranny. :D

 

[AArmanFV]

The Amiga is like a gorgeous woman who dies at 23. You know she was special, but eventually got replaced like every human being... Anyway, I'm playing the apple version and surely you can transfer parties, so I'll stick with that.

I have another question, I read in the manual that once you leave a dungeon this may change depending the time gap, I assume that changes enemy types and maybe traps, because I was exploring the temple and in the third expedition started to appear more barbarians and magic users, goblins, etc. Also I encountered 2 times in a row a dark knight and I was lucky enough to escape them and not losing my earning by begging mercy. So, it's level scaling or are the changes from every visit?

 

[Luzur]

The Amiga is like a gorgeous woman who dies at 23. You know she was special, but eventually got replaced like every human being... Anyway, I'm playing the apple version and surely you can transfer parties, so I'll stick with that.

I have another question, I read in the manual that once you leave a dungeon this may change depending the time gap, I assume that changes enemy types and maybe traps, because I was exploring the temple and in the third expedition started to appear more barbarians and magic users, goblins, etc. Also I encountered 2 times in a row a dark knight and I was lucky enough to escape them and not losing my earning by begging mercy. So, it's level scaling or are the changes from every visit?

Bwah?!...Amiga never died!

Also IIRC dungeons reset and randomized abit, but its been....20+ years since i last time played Phantasie, on C64.

 

[AArmanFV]

Bwah?!...Amiga never died!

Sorry, still lives indeed. In the form of furry cartoons.

Spoiler

Just kidding.

 

[AArmanFV]

I continued my playthrough and I got 6 rings.

I couldn't enter the temple of the evil priests, I thought it was because the level of my party (I read the scrolls referring the temple), so after a lot of thinking I ended up looking a walkthrough and the answer was so simple but at the same time difficult to imagine, and it always happen to me in old CRPGs, the games are very unique and also the "puzzles" are. For example in Wizardry 6 I couldn't solve the cheese puzzle but I could solve the rest with no problem because they were very similar. I think it's a thing of getting used to the style of each developer, back then it was only one designer making the game, thus a lot of experience in other games wouldn't be enough, because different authors had different styles of "puzzles".

Now that game design is more standardized and development teams are larger I don't see this anymore.

 

[AArmanFV]

Since I started my playthrough I thought the game had the overworld always visible, but I discovered that the easiest image you can find for apple II is "already used" or maybe is a corrupted piece of garbage, but luckily I found a website with the real stuff.

So this thing happened, I was in possession of 8 rings and I couldn't find the 9th one, then I went to the Black Knights fortress and I couldn't enter, the only thing to do was teleport to Olimpia, I reach the dungeon there and I ended up traped around walls, something wasn't right. My instinct said that I should look the walkthrough again and yes, you had to buy the ring. I went to the armory to buy it and it wasn't there (and neither when I went there the first time), then I remembered what happened to me with M&M therefore I searched other disk images until I found the good ones, I did some disk swaping and the ring was there.

The good news: I didn't lose my playthrough.
The bad news: I wasn't experiencing the game in the proper way, the overworld exploration wasn't really there in the first disk images I tried.

 

[octavius]

Same thing happened with me; it was impossible to find an Amiga cope where the overworld was not explored.
But I found a "virgin" Atari ST version (or maybe the ST version have a "reset" function, I can't remember), which is another reason the Atari ST versions are the superior ones, the others being the superb audiovisuals and that all three game are available for the ST, unlike the Amiga which misses the second game.

Although I recall there was some problems importing into P3 due to the character roster in P2 and P3 were of different sizes.