Phantasy Star 2 dungeons

[Humanity has risen!]

What were they thinking? I haven't played things like Return of Werdna, but I have never played a game with dungeons like this. The problem is the lack of any coherency, the extreme amount of dead ends, the extreme complexity, and most of all, how everything looks the exact same, making it extremely difficult to find your way around. All with random battles at every 7-8 steps.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Welcome to oldschool dungeon crawling. Why would it be FUN to explore a hostile enemy dungeon/labyrinth/fortress?



Seriously though fuck PS2, the UI and text speed and translation limitations are fucking awful. PS4 is way better (aside from the really cool thing with Nei.)

 

[Invictus]

Are you refering to the Genesis Phantasy Star 2 or the MMO? It if it the Genesis git gud casul and if its the MMO your fault for playing that POS

 

[Jasede]

I like the ending.

 

[eric__s]

Yeah, Phantasy Star 2's dungeons are insanely bad, probably the worst I can think of. In a lot of ways, I think Phantasy Star 1 and even 3 hold up better today. That said, the game was revolutionary in pretty much other way and one of the most formative games on the genre. It also had a killer soundtrack by Tokuhiko Uwabo, one of the most underrated early Sega musicians -

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Music and art design of this game were indeed great, but I never finished it. Too frustrating, too bland, too slow .. heard a lot of good things about PS4 though. Maybe I'll try it one day..

 

[Invictus]

This was the true JRPG begining for me, getting the $80 game on release date (complete with hintbook). Great storyline (complete with the aeris twist almost 10 years earlier) tough as hell gameplay, only saving in towns for the first quarter of the game (there is old school for you; I can still remeber dying 2 minutes away from town because I forgot to buy my escapipe) and doing those hellish drop down dungeons from the last planet.
People talk about Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior beign their first JRPGs but to me nothing matched the combat depth, complexity and storyline of the Phantasy Star games
Too bad Sega is busy milking Sonic instead of getting a competent team to do a big budget Phantasy Star game

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Yeah, Phantasy Star 2's dungeons are insanely bad, probably the worst I can think of. In a lot of ways, I think Phantasy Star 1 and even 3 hold up better today. That said, the game was revolutionary in pretty much other way and one of the most formative games on the genre. It also had a killer soundtrack by Tokuhiko Uwabo, one of the most underrated early Sega musicians -

[music vidjas]

It's especially impressive considering how bad the Genesis' sound was - I can't explain what it was exactly, but its low end just seemed really ugly to me. The baselines always sounded like robots farting. The NES had plenty of limitations, but composers were still able to wring some memorable music out of it. I can count on one hand the number of times I was impressed by the sounds or music of a Genesis game.

Phantasy Star 2 was definitely a pretty memorable game for me. I think it was the first rpg I played with a non-fantasy setting. My sister borrowed it from a friend, but had to return before I finished it. It has haunted me ever since.

 

[Lemming42]

I don't think I ever beat Phantasy Star 2. My patience for JRPGs has worn very thin over the past few years, but I want to try it again some day.

 

[victim]

Music and art design of this game were indeed great, but I never finished it. Too frustrating, too bland, too slow .. heard a lot of good things about PS4 though. Maybe I'll try it one day..

PS4 is cool. I remember being enthralled by it as a kid but I had to rent it from the video store and never got that far in. Later I got on playstation on one of the sega colletions and played it up until the snow world. Actually, its probably much better than I'm suggesting but I sort of have gaming ADD and leave a title unfinished to jump to the next sometimes.

 

[Great Deceiver]

It's especially impressive considering how bad the Genesis' sound was - I can't explain what it was exactly, but its low end just seemed really ugly to me. The baselines always sounded like robots farting. The NES had plenty of limitations, but composers were still able to wring some memorable music out of it. I can count on one hand the number of times I was impressed by the sounds or music of a Genesis game.

There were plenty of amazing Genesis soundtracks, and I don't think the hardware was a problem at all; it's all a matter of taste. If you're into FM synths at all, the Yamaha OPN2 was pretty awesome in capable hands. For instance:



I could list tons of shit, but suffice it to say there are plenty of awesome examples of Genesis/Megadrive music out there. What I particularly like about the type of sound that particular hardware produced is that it sounds pretty raw, aggressive and unpolished, compared to some more traditional wavetable synth-based machine. As I said, it all comes down to personal taste.

 

[Lemming42]

Everyone likes this.

I kind of get why people would hate Genesis music, but I can name a lot of examples of good soundtracks.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Since we are talking about soundtracks now, I might as well post this beautiful orchestral version of the SHF2 soundtrack, in case you don't already know it:

 

[TheGreatOne]

There's a definite "metallic" sound in Mega Drive music, but in knowing hands (mostly Japanese developers) it could produce some really catchy tunes, Hydrocity Zone act 1 of Sonic 3 and this being great examples. And if you embraced the fact that it sounded metallic, you could make songs like this

It's especially impressive considering how bad the Genesis' sound was - I can't explain what it was exactly, but its low end just seemed really ugly to me. The baselines always sounded like robots farting.

Sega was just ahead of it's time, just call it proto electro house and douchy hipsters will eat it up.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

OK, I stand corrected. Those are all pretty sweet.

 

[agentorange]

Anyone played the somewhat-remakes of these? Phantasy Star Generation. I believe the first one has been translated. I've never played any Phantasy Star games and am trying to figure out what system to get them on, and these remakes apparently add a lot of new character dialogue and such.

 

[Kruno]

Anyone played the somewhat-remakes of these? Phantasy Star Generation. I believe the first one has been translated. I've never played any Phantasy Star games and am trying to figure out what system to get them on, and these remakes apparently add a lot of new character dialogue and such.

I've played all the PS games from PS1 to Generations of Doom. The remakes are actually a nice improvement.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

No they look horrible, avoid.

 

[A user named cat]

FM Synth can either sound awesome or like tinny robots buttfucking and vomiting. If you ever want to play with it yourself, check out Native Instruments FM8. I used to use it for some tracks in FL Studio, pretty fun just to play with and manipulate. Easy to recreate just about any Genesis sound with it.

 

[Machocruz]

The music in Strider was kind of inspired and unique at the time. The whole game is pretty visionary for an arcade side-scroller. Every change of music within a stage corresponded to a different set-piece in the game, like some kind of electronic opera.





moar Gauntlet. Evocative, atmospheric, immersing. Playing this level with this music going was really something else. Felt like you were really in a tower of wind.

 

[eric__s]

FM Synth can either sound awesome or like tinny robots buttfucking and vomiting. If you ever want to play with it yourself, check out Native Instruments FM8. I used to use it for some tracks in FL Studio, pretty fun just to play with and manipulate. Easy to recreate just about any Genesis sound with it.

VOPM is even better to use. It's a recreation of the YM2151 soundchip, which was in X68000s, lots of arcade machines, the FM Towns, probably lots of other stuff. The Genesis used the YM2612, which was capable of playing the exact same sounds as the YM2151 but had fewer channels of FM. It took me a couple years to figure out but I use it regularly now and have done whole soundtracks with it.

 

[A user named cat]

FM Synth can either sound awesome or like tinny robots buttfucking and vomiting. If you ever want to play with it yourself, check out Native Instruments FM8. I used to use it for some tracks in FL Studio, pretty fun just to play with and manipulate. Easy to recreate just about any Genesis sound with it.

VOPM is even better to use. It's a recreation of the YM2151 soundchip, which was in X68000s, lots of arcade machines, the FM Towns, probably lots of other stuff. The Genesis used the YM2612, which was capable of playing the exact same sounds as the YM2151 but had fewer channels of FM. It took me a couple years to figure out but I use it regularly now and have done whole soundtracks with it.

That's pretty great, never heard that one before. There are probably tons of FM plugins out there nowadays since the VST market has become flooded. I just came across another one that could be worth checking out as well.

 

[Keldryn]

Yeah, Phantasy Star II's dungeons were brutal. I remember having to plan my route through each dungeon ahead of time -- particularly some of the later dungeons -- as every level had sections which were only accessible by going up and/or down several levels. It was a pain in the ass WITH the included hint book; I can't imagine doing it without.

I did really enjoy playing it at the time (1990 or 1991). I would not have the patience for it today, with the overly complex dungeon layouts and insane level of grinding.

 

[victim]

Yeah, Phantasy Star II's dungeons were brutal. I remember having to plan my route through each dungeon ahead of time -- particularly some of the later dungeons -- as every level had sections which were only accessible by going up and/or down several levels. It was a pain in the ass WITH the included hint book; I can't imagine doing it without.

I did really enjoy playing it at the time (1990 or 1991). I would not have the patience for it today, with the overly complex dungeon layouts and insane level of grinding.

I only played a little of II so I wasn't scarred by the difficulty but, on the flipside, IV was super easy.

 

[felipepepe]

Never played the game, but I'm curious on how bad can they reall-

Okay, they are damn brutal.