Well that's thirty-nine down...

So after finishing the last 4 side quests (two of which the party didn't make any money on), I bought a whole bunch of super healing items (at up to 20,000$ each) and sent the arty into space to find whatever it is they were looking for. It turns out that it's a 4th hidden planet that contains the knowledge of an ancient civilization, but before it can tell the arty what is happening they first have to kill a couple of boss monsters. The fight against these bosses is really hard and frustrating since not only are they super powerful but also immune to magic, so my mage is useless in the fight and I only had 4 out of 5 party members as it was. Since my mage can't heal, all he could do during the fight it give out all the potions i just bough in order to keep the other 3 alive and constantly fighting, so by the end of the fights all the stuff I bought to fight the big bad was used up fighting things on my side!

The big powerful intelligence at the heart of the planet then explains the back story of what is going on. Billions of years ago a massive power of light and a massive power of darkness fought, and in the end the light won and sealed the darkness in another dimension. To make sure that the darkness couldn't get out it placed a solar system of 4 planets over the gateway as a lock, the system that the story takes place in. once every 1000 years though the lock becomes weak enough to let a little bit of the darkness through, and this bit takes to from of Dark Force. To counter this the 4th planet's orbit brings it close to the other planets also every 1000 years and it's proximity spurs on heroes to go out and destroy Dark Force. But since the last time Dark Force showed up it managed to destroy one of the planets, weakening the lock, so this time the whole darkness can escape and the Party must stop him.

Chaz then asks where is the power of light during all this, and he's told that it basically just left for parts unknown, leaving this mess behind. He gets pissed off about learning his whole existence is just to clean up after a neglectful being and says he's not going to jump through hoops for it. They then leave for the ice planet and Rune tells Chaz to look in the basement of the sage mansion, there he finds the sword that Alis from the first game used and it contains the memories of all that fought Dark Force in the past. With this Chaz then decides it's worth fighting for his own reasons and not what some light force says (duh). The party is then told that a big black it has opened in the center of the main world and is killing everything around it, so they fly back and are meet by all the previous party members (now leveled up to the same range as the party).

Before the final battle I have to chose which of the previous party members I want in the 5th space, and since the arty has been hurting for healing since he left, I picked the Raja. The fight with the darkness was in 3 forms and not as hard as the test fights I had to do since it was vulnerable to magic and Wren's barrier spell actually worked on it (first time so far). The first from was a chaotic mass of fanged mouths and eyes, and not all that threatening since it didn't seems to have any way of moving in that chaos. The second from was a pile of thorns and claws, looking more like a plant than anything, but it did look more intimidating since all the thorns were pointed at the party. The final form looked like a humanoid female with metal spiked wings and huge green hair, what's with all these games that make the personification of all evil be a woman?

So in the end the party wins and with the darkness killed the dimension it in begins to collapses, but the power of Alis' sword protects them. Everyone then says their goodbyes, but at the last moment Rika decides to stay with Chaz.

So that's the end of the original Phantasy Star series, and the end for now of Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection. I might come back to it later to play the shining force games, but I have a lot more games to get through, and what better way to start off 2011 than with a game that mostly takes place in 1911!

So Dark Force, we meet again... and again... and again...

So the party flies off to the other space station, and after fighting their way through they find Dark Force embedded into the main control panel. After a massive fight they finally destroy Dark Force and regain control of the environmental systems, saving the world.

Well it was a little shorter than I expected but still a fun game... Oh, the weather on the ice planet is still going crazy.

So the party returns to the ice planet and Wren digs up an ice digging vehicle in order to get to previously blocked areas. After checking the local weather control building they find nothing is wrong with it and Raja insists that the freak storm is coming from the big evil tower that recently showed up. While exploring the group find a clan of the cat like beings that Myau from PS1 belonged to, and a giant winged one that might be Myau himself. In another village they find that something is causing everyone to get sick and eventually turn into zombies (zombies in my JRPG? it's more likely than you think). once again all signs point to the big evil tower, but before Raja can say "i told you so" he's stricken with the illness too and bedridden.

The party hears that Kyra, a local sage, has gone off to try and take down the tower herself, so they agree to go save her from the carnivorous forest (not coniferous as you would expect) surrounding the place. They show up and find her fighting the trees, and after escaping an unwindable fight (took me 10 minutes to figure that out) she joins the party. Kyra then suggests that they all go to the sage mansion and try to ask their 2000 year old leader Lutz (again, Noah in the first game) for advice. When they get there they soon discover though that even with cryo-freezing Lutz couldn't live 2000 years, instead he transferred all his memories to a psychic ball that would then transfer to a worthy successor. That successor currently is none other than Rune! So the whole time the arrogant Rune was actually the arrogant Lutz (more or less, Rune seems to be his own person, just with all the memories of the previous Lutz), much to Kyra's disappointment.

The head of the sages suggests using the Eclipse Torch (another PSI item) to burn away the evil forest. The party heads over to the temple where it's held and while trying to convince the locals to let them have it, some evil wizards steal it and taunt Rune/Lutz to come after it in the air castle. It seems that after 2000 years Lassic, the big bad from the first game, is not as dead as he once was and is out for revenge. The party find that the air castle some how survived the planet exploding and is hiding in the resulting asteroid belt. They fly off to the castle and after dealing with the 3 wizards they face off against Lassic in another long and tough boss battle. They retrieve the torch and fly back to the ice planet to use it on the evil trees (only you can cause forest fires).

After climbing the gross squelching living tower they face off once again against Dark Force, and in a very hard battle in which only the mages remained standing by the end (ironic since they are the weakest) the party defeats the evil monster! They escape the crumbling tower, Kyra says her goodbyes, they begin to celebrate... and a huge evil beam from nowhere nukes the place they got the torch from!

Looks like their job is not done yet.

The party returns to what's left of the place they got the torch from and find some priests managed to survive. The head priest tells the group that Dark Force, or some even grater evil, must be searching for a long lost place and only the Aero-Prism (another PS1 item) can show it's location. Rune says that Lutz knew the location of the Aero-Prism and it's on an island on the main planet. So the party returns to the main planet and on the way Wren arranges for them a hover craft that can travel on land and water.

After exploring the now assessable water locked areas, the party head off to the island where the Aero-Prism is located. At the entrance of the cave leading to it's location they meet Seth, a historian who was trying to check out the temple on the other side but was chased off by the monsters in the cave. Being completely not suspicions at all he's allowed to join the party, and as they fight their way through the cave system he constantly praising how strong and brave they are, again being completely not suspicious. When they finally reach the temple they get the Aero-Prism and as soon as they walk out side it shoots a beam of light straight up into space. The light also starts to burn Seth and *GASP* he's actually Dark Force! This time Dark Force is in a giant humanoid from and with excessive abuse of the save state system I managed to beat him with all the party still alive.

So now that's left for tomorrow is to finish the last of the Hunting Guild side quests and then fly off into space to see what the Aero-Prism was pointing at. I played for most of today since I wanted to get the game finished by the end of the year, I'm figuring that I'll call it quits for SUGC after that. I have already spent more time on this disc than any other game, and even though the Shining Force titles look to be interesting (Sega's version of Fire Emblem), I think I should end on the high note of PS IV and not the low note of Fatal Labyrinth.

"Wheee! A crash landing! Cool!"

Before heading to Zoi's tower I took a side trip to check out a sort of easter egg. off to the north there is a town that was recently wrecked by an meteor strike, and while investigating the impact crater the party finds out that the meteorite is actual a large space ship. After navigating through it they find the central computer and learn that it was one of the environmental dome ships that escaped the destruction of the first planet, just like the one from PSIII. Turns out this particular ship malfunctioned during take off and got stuck in the plant's orbit, after 1000 years (long after the last survivor on it died) it fell out of orbit and crashed on the town.

It's kinda neat that they actually tied in the third game like this and confirming it as canon. also this segment explains that only 40-90 of the ships continued out to deep space, most of them re settled on the other two planets, so Dark Force didn't kill them all off.

I think finally took the party to Zoi's tower where they disabled the magic barrier and descended into the environmental control system. When they reach the bottom they come across Zoi once more, but this time thanks to the magic staff he became vulnerable to their attacks. It was still a long a though fight, but eventually Zoi was destroyed and the environment systems were shut down so they could no longer make monsters. Demi though had to stay behind to start repairing the damaged done so the systems will work once the source of the crazy monster making commands were stopped. Also now that Gryz had avenged the destruction of his town he left the party to take care of his little sister.

Demi then unlocks a hidden space ship that allows the party fly to the space station in charge of the climate controls so thy can figure out what is going on. The party reaches the space station and meet Wren (different from the one in PSIII but the same model of cyborg), who explains that he's in charge of the station but a year ago all control and communications were taken over by a secondary control station. Wren joins the party and they fly off to the other station, but along the way the ship starts to malfunction. They find that a follower of Dark Force stowed away on to the ship and was attacking the engines, during the ensuing fight the sabature was killed but the ship was so damaged it began to crash.

The ship crash lands on the ice world, right on top of a temple run by the green skinned natives (around since the first game). All the refuges from the world that blew up must have spread enlish enough that now even the locals speak it (before you needed a translator spell or a mogic hat) since the leader of the crushed temple starts yelling at the party. After explaining the situation the leader, named Raja, decides to join the party since it sounds fun, he's an odd old man that always makes lame jokes but his people seem to hold him in high regard. Raja explains that there is a legend that one of the ships that took the refugees to the planet lies buried under a near by human settlement, and it could be the party's way off the planet.

The human town turns out to be named after Tyler, the rogue pilot that saved the party in PSII, apparently he played a big part in saving the refuges and even became chief of one of the settlements. His space ship remained hidden under a passage behind his tombstone for almost 1000 years and now it's the party's ticket out of there.

Now that I can freely travel space, I returned to the main planet and did a couple more Hunter Guild side quests, after that I returned to the space ship and prepared it to go to the secondary space station tomorrow.

A turn for the worse

After finding a way into Zoi's tower the party find a stair case leading down protected by a magic shield, not being able to head that way they head up. When the arty reaches the top they find the android Demi, who heals them after she is freed, but then Zoi shows up. Zoi proclaims that he is working for his god Dark Force (knew that it would show up) and then during a very one sided battle he severely injures Alys with a dark energy beam thing. The party manages to teleport away and brings Alys to the near by village that Hahn is from, but nothing can heal the dark power that is slowly killing her. Hahn and his fiance stay behind to look after Alys while the others try and find out how to stop Zoi.

Demi explains that the environmental controls are located under Zoi's tower behind the magic shield, but the source of the problem is the core AI located on a satellite in orbit on the other side of the planet. Since the only one who knows about magic is Rune the party sets off after him to find a way past the barrier. Rune was last known to be heading for a tower far across a quick sand field, but to get across the party needs to recover a Land Rover from a near by underground base. After getting the vehicle, the party crosses the quick sand and comes across a town having problems with earthquakes, starting a new side quest. The lab controlling the earthquakes was full of rather though robots so I decided to head back after I got Rune.

The party finally catches up with Rune in the tower it was said he was heading for and explains the situation to him, he then explains that he's at the tower to get a magic staff that will destroy the magic barrier. Along the way up the tower one of the party members gets mortally wounded (this game's version of KO) and so I teleport them back to the nearest town and heal at the inn (no need for churches or cloning houses since KOed characters don't die). Since i'm there I decide to tackle the earthquake side quest now that I have Rune, and along the way I net some good upgrades Demi.

The party then goes back to the tower and makes it to the top where there is a boss fight against a giant fly monster working for Zoi over the magic staff. After the fight they get the staff but then Rune suddenly sense something and they all teleport back to Alys. Alys' condition takes a sudden decline and after saying goodbye to Chaz and Rune she dies. There's then a touching cut scene where they bury her and Chaz deals with losing her, the next morning Hahn returns to the academy to explain the situation and the party heads off to explore Zoi's basement.

Working without a net

PS IV continues to be such a huge improvement over the previous ones that I'm playing through it without using a walk-through. in the other games (especially the first) the instructions as to what to do next is so vague and random (like most early JRPGs) that it's almost impossible to know what to do without a guide, but in this game the story is so clearly explained that the next step is easy to find. Even if you get lost you can talk to the party members to get tips on the next objective, something I only ever saw in Dragon Quest XIII (made 11 years later), so other than finding obscure hidden things there is no need for a guide. Also, the game is just so much fun that I keep playing straight and don't want to keep stopping to see what a walkthrough says to do.

Another thing that makes the game feel like a much more modern title is that it even has side quests, where the party can take assignments from the hunter guild and go on story lines not related to the main one.

The Party's search for a cure to people turned to stone lead them to a village of the Jawa like beings native to the planet from the first game. There Rune leaves the party (no more powerful mage) but Gryz, a member of that race and a fighter class, joins the group seeking revenge for Zio killing his village. After finding the cure the party returns to the village of stone people and cures all of them, but before they can head home a monster bursts out of a near by ruin. They kill the monster and investigate the ruin, which soon transitions into an technologically advanced building. There they find a giant artificial intelligence that explains that the remaining environmental systems (on automatic since mother brain died) have recently began to malfunction and produce monsters like crazy, just like Neifirst had them doing in PSII, so the party has to shut them down. The tricky part is that only the android Demi can shut down the environmental plants and she has been stolen by Zoi (how convenient), so the party has to first get her back from Zoi before saving the world. To help them though the AI gives them Rika, an artificial life from that is the advanced version of Neifirst (and less evil I hope). After the party leaves the AI then self destructs so that it could not be used any more to make monsters.

So with a full party of 5 tomorrow I'll be heading off to find a way into Zoi's tower.

Now this is how you make a sequel!

Started playing Phantasy Star IV today, and right from the first sound effect it's clear that it's much better than III. Sega took everything that worked in the first two games and greatly improved them, so just how II was an upgrade to the first this looks like a direct upgrade from II. The only thing I could tell so far that's from III is the 5 party member system, everything else from that game was left behind. Some of the things from I and II carried over are:
-Narrow small character sprites while walking
-Party members displayed on screen during fights
-Backgrounds of fights change with the location
-Well animated monster attacks (and idle animations too now)
-Same anime art style for cut scenes (but much more detailed and full screen)
-Great music and sound
-Good use of the limited color pallet (no purple everywhere!)
-Great writing and dialogue (and not limited to a sentience at a time)

Also they finally made it so the A button triggers talking and looking at things while the X button brings up the menu, though I got so use to the backwasrs controlls that I still hit X now and then to talk to people... Plus they redid the menu and inventory system to make it much easier to navigate and use, and they added a option to talk to the current arty to get information on the next objective.

The story takes place 1000 years after PSII and after the loss of Mother brain and the destruction of one of the planets, life on the planet is in a downwards spiral. Now monster attacks are on the rise and some shady guy named Zio claiming to be a magician is starting a cult and turing people into stone. So the monster hunter Alys and her young partner Chaz is hired to check out the increase in monsters, along the way they team up with the researcher Hahn and the mage Rune and folow the trail of Zio.

I didn't play for too long today since I did some boxing day shopping and picked up 9 new games for cheap. I tested them out a little to get a feel for them, normally to the first achievement (which was often on finishing the tutorial)
Red Dead Redemption: Changes the mood a bit running around in his sharp poker suit.
GTA IV Complete Edition: Virtual Ricky Gervais!
Batman Arkham Asylum: Just like the demo so far.
Assassin's Creed 2: Looks nicer than the first one so far.
Fallout New Vegas: Back to the familiar wasteland.
Alan Wake: Came with a free card for the first DLC, which I already bought for 2.50$...
Final Fantasy XIII: Eh, it was 20$ and far from the worst JRPG for the 360.
Dead Rising 2: Digital watch! Also, Chuck's kid is adorable.
Crack Down 2: Fastest achievement, got one when first booting from playing the demo before.

Also I got all the Mass Effect 2 DLC on sale for 7.50$ so I'll be returning to that at some point.

Well that's 38.3 down...

Well after suiting up the party with all the top gear the walk through suggested grinding up another 5 levels, I figure I would grind along the way to the big boss and if it was too strong I would grind my way back to town. Turns out that it wasn't all that necessary since I beat Dark Force my first try...

This game really is the weakest so far, Dark Force slaughtered my party first shot on the other two games.

So Dark Force says "whatever, I'll be back in 1,000 years anways" and disappears. With that ship clears it's crash course with a black hole (which I didn't know it was on) and everyone lives happily ever after.

So tomorrow it's on to Phantasy Star IV, which I hope is better than this one, and also I plan on picking up a bunch of new games on boxing day sales!

We are the sages that say Nei!

Well the earth quake turns out to be the result of a similar space ship firing on their own (before being blasted with auto canons). Through more dungeons and towns the arty finally learn how this game is connected to the other two. It turns out that Palm (The main planet in the first game) got wind that Dark Force was planing to destroy their world (well it was the earthlings under DF's control technically) so they built 400 of these domed environment ships and buggered off just before it was nuked (guess they weren't as dependent on Mother Brain). A part of Dark Force got on board one of the ships though and turned it evil, then systematically went around destroying or corrupting the other 399 until all that remains was the one the story takes place on.

Now the party has to collect up several magical weapons/armor, just like in the previous games, before they can go off and take on Dark Force one more time. So far I have collected up all the items, now I just need to get a bunch of sages to bless them with the word of power "Nei" to super charge them and then and kill the big bad.

Along the way the android Wren has turned out to be quite handy, I collected several items that allows him to turn into a jet, a boat, and a sub, all large enough for the rest of the party (mass shifting any one?) which makes running around for all these items a bit easier.

7 Worlds, 7 Stories, 7 Days?

So after more dungeons and more towns, the party finds a message from the hero of 1000 years ago left for her sister Laya. She reveals that the war of 1000 years ago was actually due to the manipulations of some dark power (most likely the same dark force behind the other games) and in the end the two sides joined together and went off to find the evil. With this information the party goes off to find Lune to tell him his reasons for fighting are false.

Turns out though that Lune is, as per his name, on the moon. So the party tracks down a rocket from 1000 years ago and launches it to the moon. After leaving orbit they discover that their worlds are actually part of a massive space ship of 7 domed environments! Also the moons are artificial satellites as well. So the party then beats some sense into Lune and he finally realizes that he's been crazy and stupid and apologizes for everything.

Finally Nial is informed that not only does Lune's sister (who he rescued earlier) Alair want to marry him, but also Laya does too. They are both technically over 1000 years old, but Laya did actually help the party out several times (being another white mage) so I chose her. The two get married and have twins, Gwen and Adan, and live peacefully for 15 years until a massive earthquake (spaceship quake?) sends the twins and the cyborgs off on another adventure.

With the 2nd generation finished there is only 1 part left, and looking at the FAQ it seems to be rather short. I'm guessing that even with grinding I should be finished PSIII by Christmas.

Purple, teal, and green...

so after wandering around a few more towns and dungeons the situation seems to be that some guy named Lune, from a world that was frozen for 1000 years, has gone nuts and is trying to take over all the world and kill off all cyborgs. So Nial has added to his party the leader of a resistance movement aginst Lune and the sister of some heroic character form a war 1000 years ago (who has the same name as her sister) who has been in cryo sleep.

The game is really starting to be the weaker of the 3 so far and not really much of an improvement over the second. The graphics try to push the abilities of the genesis, but wind up just showing off the limited color pallet it has. Also the music tries to be more complicated, but ends up sounding bad and annoying (and I normally don't pay attention to game music) to the point that I normally play with it off (may be an emulation issue but I doubt it). The animation of the monster attacks are much more limited than even the first game, I guess due to them not being symmetrical, where just the mouth or eyes of a monster would flash 2 frames compared to PS1 monsters being fully animated at times.

The first game looked like a great 8 bit game (master system was more powerful than NES), the second looked like an upgrade to that, while this one just looks like a bad 16 bit game. Sega should have stuck to the simpler art style of the previous games since the system can't handle what they were trying for and just fails to look or sound good. On the up side, this game has much less grinding so far, due to the random encounter rate being almost at Skies Of Arcadia levels and the best weapons just being available for free in dungeons.

At least this seems to be the shortest of the series to play through, due to it having 7 possible story lines. It's intended to be played through many times to experience each different generation, but I'm only going through one path and I think I'm already half done.

Phantasy Star: The Next Generation

So Nial, the son of Rhys and Lena, goes with the androids from the first part and checks out the kingdom of his mother, and fortunately a handy bridge has been built in the past 18 years so it's easy to get to. Along the way I quickly figure out that over time the massive poisonous rat population has been weeded out by an influx of stronger, yet not poisonous, lizards! if nothing else, this shows how much the land changed for the better.

The kingdom is totally destroyed though and the surviving guard says the attackers came from a cave far to the south. The cave turns out to be a space bridges to the planet Elysium, and apparently that's where all the poisonous rats first came from, since they are more numerous and stronger there. I could only hope by the third generation the lizards will continue to spread and rid this world of poisonous rats as well.

I managed to get the party to the nearest city, after being attacked by 4 star fish and 2 giant naked cyclopes, then healed at the in and saved my game for the night. Tomorow I find out why this act of hostility happened.

Glad you're safe. Well, see ya!

So it turns out that Lyle (the mysterious guy who is helping Rhys) is the prince of a kingdom close to the one that kidnapped Rhys' bride to be, and Lena (the woman who helped him escape the castle) is the princess of a near by kingdom. The game dosen't do a good job making this clear, I had to check on line to find out who exactly they were. So after fixing up the moons the party finally makes their way to the kingdom of the ones that kidnapped Maia (the bride), and it turns out that she was the princess of that land (everyone in this game is a price, princess, or android!) and had lost her memory. He father was pissed that she was going to marry into a kingdom that he had a feud so he kidnapped her and fought against the party to keep her (big mistake).

So after trouncing the king he gives in and offers Rhys the choice of marrying his daughter or the Lena. Since Maia has been nothing but trouble and has the personality of a sack of potatoes (and her people are jerks, even after we took them out of an ice age and fixed their moons), I chose the princess that actually saved Rhys and even fought along side him (and is much cuter). So they got married and had a son called Nial, and lived happily ever after... Until 18 years later when some force attacks Lena's kingdom...

So the saga continues tomorrow with a very predictable title...

Dude, where's my bride?

PSIII is rather different than the previosu two, it's almost like a difretn game that just ahd the PS title slapped on.

The graphics are very different, the characters are fully detailed, the monsters are in dynamic poses and not just straight on, even the buildings are to scale within towns. The menu system is very different, in stead of super imposed on the main view, now the whole screen changes to a 2x3 grid of windows looking like playing cards. The number of party members has been increased from 4 to 6 and monster encounters now happen on 2 rows with several kinds at a time. A really odd thing is that the poison status effect now does not slowly drain your health (like in every RPG) it only prevents the character from healing. Also the magic system has a random element to it, so half the time a revive spell won't do anything but drain MP.

The story starts off as prince Rhys is about to get married to a blue haired woman that washed up on the shore mysteriously a while ago. Before they can tie the knot though, a dragon kidnaps the woman and teleports her to a distant world. The prince then travels from world to world through space bridges found in caves, and collects party members along the way while solving obstacles in his way to his fiance.

Currently the arty consists of Rhys, two cyborgs made 1000 years ago called Mieu and Wren, a mysterous man named Lyle, and a female thief called Lena that helped Rhys escape his castle to find his bride. They all are off to activate a weather controll tower to put the moon back in it's right lace so that they can advance to the next world.

Well that's 38.2 down...

It took most of the day but I finally finished Phantasy Star II!

The party set off to meet the guy who has been reported to be immortal, and it turns out that it's Noah the wizard from the first PS (going by the original Japanese name of Lutz)! Not long after the events of the first game, Mother Brain showed up and gradually started making the worlds fat and lazy, so Lutz went into hyper sleep and would only wake up for a short time every 10 years until some one who could destroy Mother Brain showed up. After this was all explained to the party, they are told that they have to go to 4 towers and collect the 8 powerful weapons/armor needed to stop Mother Brain.

I was not expecting to have to go thorough 4 more dungeons before the end of the game, and all of them were super complex and filled with most of the hardest monsters in the game. The worst of the lost were the Shadows, two hits from them could kill Rolf, my strongest character! Never did beat one.

After much dungeon crawling the party finally returned to Lutz with the 8 items (3 of which I couldn't even equip to the current party members), and after Rolf is given the most powerful sword in the game they are sent to the space station that contains Mother Brain. By using the save state feature I managed to navigate the whole station with out any fights so I would have full health and MP for the boss battle. Before the fight with Mother Brain though I had to face Dark Force, the giant evil power named DarkFalz in the first game...

And he kills half my party in the first hit!

After trying many many times to win the fight with save states, it becomes clear that the party is too under leveled, even with all the grinding I did, to even stand a chance. Fortunately the space ship is an idea place to grind since it's full of the most powerful monsters in the game and I can teleport the party back to Lutz for full healing at any time. So after about 2 hours of grinding most of the party members were around level 30 so I took another shot at Dark Force. Several attempts later, and using save sates like crazy, I manage to destroy it and then went back to Lutz for some final healing. Then the party went back through the space ship. avoiding all fights again and faced off against Mother brain!

It appeared as a giant hologram, thankfully looked better than it's Metroid counterpart, and it had two attacks, one would talk off half the health of the whole party, and the other would take 10% off one person. Needless to say that I restored from a save state whenever it did the first attack and saved when it did the second. After a while the party defeated it and discover the true curates behind everything... Earthling!

The head of the Earthlings explains that humans used and abused the earth too much and eventually it was destroyed, but a few hundred managed to escape in a space ship. They later found the solar-system the game takes place in and set up Mother Brain controlling everything so that eventually the inhabitants of those worlds would not be able to resit a few hundred humans taking over everything. The remainign humans then attack the party as the game ends with dramatic shots of all the party members fighting for their lives.

So tomorrow it's on to Phantasy Star III, which seems to take place in a very different medieval setting from the previous two.

Nier the end...

Spent today grinding monsters for the last time for this game. I earned enough money to get all the weapons and armor needed and close as I can tell there are no more shops for the rest of the game.

So tomorrow I may be finished phantasy Star II!

On a side note, I found a copy of Nier for 10$ new, and since it's an RPG with an average score just under 70 I figured I'd give it a shot. The up side of this is that I kept getting Nier and Risen mixed up since they were both one word RPG titles released with little fanfare winin 2 months of each other, so now that I have them both I won't get them confused.

The power of silly hats!

Well, after trekking through the maze of levles in the center of the map, I finally made my way to one of the cities. Only to find that there was no humans (other than the old women that ran the cloning booths), but also the local population did not speak my language. I then traveled to the other 2 cities on the world map and found the same thing, and without being able to speak the language the party could not buy items, use the teleporters, or even get healed. I then looked in the walk through and found that one of the weird named hats I picked up when I first landed on the planet would allow the party to speak the local language and use shops. From here on it was much easier on the planet, I would keep the party close to a city and attack the powerful monsters and robots with the strongest spells. I didn't have to worry about the SP or HP since I would get 1,000$ to 3,000$ for each monster and it only cost 60$ to heal the whole party.

The most disturbing part about grinding this area though are the zombie rabbits. They range from pale green to reddish brown and are constantly stuffing their intestines back into the hole in their abdomen. Giant death tanks are no problem, but 6 of these things in a row are as tough as they are nauseating.

So tomorrow I should be able to wrap up the rest of the grinding and make my way to find the mysterious unaging man that the locals keep talking about.

Winter wonderland

The party took the last space ship on the planet and flew off to the ice world from the previous game, and there has been some changes in the past 1000 years...

The center of the map has been dug out into a giant pit and inside of it is a giant 3 level space station that is crawling with monsters and robots. I explored around for a while but only found chests with large amounts of money and the party quickly used up all their magi, health, and healing items, so I managed to get them back to their ship to heal and restock back on the first world.

Tomorrow I'll most likely be finding a town in the ice world and grinding out monster for money.

Dayum!

After much frustration and effort I managed to open up all the dams, barely scraping through each one more than the last, to let the flood water out. Then as the last dam was opened a boss fight started up against 3 large flying robots. At first I thought it was odd that the robots only hit with about 6HP on my weakest party member (most robots on that level could hit for 30), then suddenly the fight stopped and the whole party was teleported to a prison satellite where they were to be excuted as terrorists. Not wanting to stick around, the arty quickly tried to find a way out, but soon after there was an explosion and the satellite was falling out of orbit towards Parma (the planet most of the first game took place on). Fortunately, an independent space pilot picked the group up in the nick of time. Unfortunately, the satellite crashing into the planet managed to destroy all of Parma (doesn't look like i'll be visiting familar places there)!

To makes things worse, the party is now wanted also for trying to destroy Mother Brain and the destruction of a whole planet. They do get a lead though on some on the ice world from the frist game that may be more powerful than Mother Brain, so after landing back on their world the party make plans for taking the last working space ship and heading off world.

Piano Man

Didn't play much of PSII today, more on that later, but i am one step closer to stopping the flood. With the help of the walk through I found the entrance to the building holding the flood gate control cards, which were in a non descri structure not normally visible on screen in a remote city. How the heck would I find that normally?! The using a handy map I found on line I tracked a path that wove me though the correct 9 out of 69 teleporters to lead to the store room door. For some odd reason the door was locked with a piano that you needed to use a magical music spell on, just touching the pianio would send you right back to outside of the building. So after working my magic on the piano the door opened and I got the access keys for the 4 flood gates, now I just have to find them.

Also with Neifirst gone all the monsters have disappeared, but now there are swarms of much more powerful robots attacking Rolf...

The reason why I didn't play much was that I bought "9 hours 9 people 9 doors" for the DS today (one more for the growing stack of portable games that i need to finish...). It's a rather obscure release and I had only ever seen it at one EB game, which so happened to be close to where I was temporarily assigned to work. With this being my last day asigned there, I figure I should buy it becaseu it may be gone next time I get a chance to go to that EB games and who knows when I'll see it again new (took me ages to find a copy of Atelier Annie new). The game is a mix of visual novel and puzzle solving (like the Red Room flash game) with great writing and art style. I started playing it and got sucked in, only stopping once I got to the first big choice, then I didn't have much time for PSII...

Yea or Nei?

Well after barely climbing to the top of the mountain to get the leaf to make the gum that lets the party breath underwater, figured It would be better to have Amy the doctor with the party. So without any grinding I bought the items I could from the money gained on the mountain and went out to sea to find the submerged passage to the climate control tower.

The tower was a ridiculously huge maze with 8 floors and 33 inter linking sections, I had to make a color coded map just to make sense of what teleports go where and how to get to the top. When I did manage to get to the top I found the first actual boss battle of the game, against... Nei?!

It turns out that the Nei in our party is actually the good half of a human/monster being called Neifirst that was created 2 years ago. Neifirst wanted revenge on the humans that created her so she hijacked the climate control system in order to produce all the monster. The good side could not stand to see the evil side do this, so 7 months ago she split off from her (somehow) and became her own being. So now Nei attacks Neifirst, but is quickly killed in one attack, then the rest of the party run in for the real boss battle... And were quickly killed.

Fortunately I made a save state right before talking to Neifirst and so I made sure all the arty members (except Nei) were at full health, and then removed all of Nei's items and equipment before they were lost in her scripted death. The down side of not doing all the money grinding recommended in the walk through was that I was rather under leveled to face Neifirst (she's much stronger than any other monster so far). Luckily with extreme abuse of the save state system I was able to keep two of the remaining three characters alive long enough to win the fight.

With Neifirst no longer controlling the climate system in order to make monsters, the thing goes out of control, exploding and relesing all the built u water into the surrounding area. The party teleports away, but when they go to the nearest cloning house they find out that Nei can't be brought back to life (her connection to Neifirst now broken). To mke things worse, Mother Brain has told the police that Rolf and his party were responsible for the destruction of the climate tower and the resulting flooding (they kinda were). So now not only does the party have to make due with out Nei (Kain filling her place), but also have to open the flood gates before all the cities are flooded, and all the while avoiding all the robots sent to arrest them as terrorists!

This game has already lasted longer than the first Phantasy Star and judgeing by the walk through I'm only 1/3 through!

Full House

So I brought the party to the next destination, a garbage dump, and i wasn't sure why at the time. It turns out though that one of the little jawa type creatures on the bottom floor has a boat that he dosen't need any more since he's too busy having fun sorting a mountain of garbage. This is handy for our party since Mother Brain banned all boats 50 years ago (kinda suspicious). With his new boat the party can now travel the world and and visit the two remaining cities.

The first city is a small town with the distinction oh having an inventor there that can make a gum that lets you breath under water, which should come in handy later. The down side is that he needs a sample of a tree that grows on a mountain island filled with powerful monsters, so i'll be grinding there later. Also with this new city comes a new companion back home, Kain the wrecker (a blue mage for robots), but the walk through says he's not much use until we actually face robots so he stays home.

The other city is what remains of the only rocket base on the planet, and can only be accessed by boat. Gee, with the ban on boats it's almost as if Mother Brain dosen't want any one getting off planet. Not that getting there is much use currently since Mother Brain banned rockets too as too dangerous after an accident 10 years ago (rockets that it was in control of). With the new city of course comes a new party member, Shir the thief. Since the only thing worth stealing is a item that lets you save anywhere, she is pretty useless thanks to the built in save state that the collection comes with (haven't used the in game save once in either game). So Shir and Kain will chill back home with Amy and Rudolf for now.

This game isn't truing out to be as hard as the walk through is making it out to be. The walk through says to grind out the levels before going to each dungeon (not really dungeons in this sci-fi setting), but I'm finding it easier to grind by going though the dungeon, then once I'm through I have enough money to buy the weapons I should have and going in, and then go straight to the next dungeon. This means I'm underpowered, but I get money and experience faster.

Again!?

Well no sooner than I get to the next city then the walk through says to head back home and pick up the newest party member. I thought Hugh was the new one for that city, but apparently Anna the hunter is. If this game attributed any kind of personality to the party members I would be suspicious of Hugh since he showed up not sticking to the standard of one party member per town. It's also kind of odd that this top class hunter is at level 1 and has basic equipment, but that's how the game is

So I swapped out Rudolph with Anna and reorganized everyone's inventory so the two noobs could have the most recent equipment. Not that the equipment is the best, I now have to grind about 17,000$ to get everyone the latest weapons (and have about equal levels)...

House calls

The bio-lab was rather easy with all the gear I got yesterday, and with monster giving 200$ per group I mad my money back quickly. After getting the data logs I teleported the party back to the starting city and handed in the data. It turns out that for some reason Month Brain has been diverting power from things like climate control (needed for a desert planet) to the bio-labs (not so needed, unless you want monsters). So now Rolf is tasked with checking out the climate controll center to see if any one has been tampering with it.

Helping along is yet another party member (I just got done training Amy), Hugh the scientist (basically a blue mage). Since I can only have 4 party members at a time I had to chose between Rudolf the kick ass bounty hunter or the low level doc if I want to include him (which the walk through recommends). So I left Amy at home and traveled to the next town, where I'll be doing the whole grinding thing again tomorrow...

Welcome to the party, start grinding!

In the next town the cycle starts again with a new party member and new gear to buy, which means lots and lots of grinding. The new party member is Amy, a doctor who is basically a white mage in the game. After a long time of grinding I finally got enough money to buy everyone the latest gear, which makes killing monsters a lot easier (taking off 23hp instead of 6hp), and all that is left is to explore the bio-lab that Rolf was assigned to look into at the start of the game.

Killing is badong!

So after grinding up enough money to get a bunch of new equipment I went off to explore the next village. Turns out that some gang has been causing a lot of trouble, blowing up buildings, kidnapping, and killing, so the party needs to sort them out.

At this point it's a good thing that I'm using the walk-through since with out it I would not know that visiting the town triggers as new party member being available back at the main character's house. So after picking up a tough bounty-hunter named Rudolph *snicker*, the three of them went to the gang's hide out to teach them a lesson.

Turns out though that the monsters that Rolf was ordered to check out have taken care of the gang for us, since the upper flowers are filled with dead bodies. On one of the dead bodies is a note that explains how the guy blocking the way to the lab is only doing so because his daughter was kidnapped by the gang, so he's extorting and killing people to collect the ransom. So the group them goes to a near by tower and rescues the daughter, covering her face in a veil so the angry villagers don't freak out. They then go to the passage the father is blocking, the daughter then walks up to him still wearing the veil. The father threatens the daughter (not knowing who it is) and she refuses to give him any money and tells him that his actions are wrong.

So he kills her...

Then realizing what he's done he blows himself up...

This game is dark! And this is only the first quest!

So tomorrow it's on to the lab, and hopefully a bit more upbeat story...

Too tired to grind...

Started grinding monsters for money today, some things stay the same in this series, but I was too tired to keep it up for long.

Today I also bought Star Ocean 1 for the PSP for 20$ second hand, since it's from square-enix and out of print I don't feel too bad getting it used. Now I only need to find Star Ocean 2 for 20$ or under and I'll have all the PSP games that I'm looking for that are not available on PSN. It's a good thing that all the smaller developer games that I want (NIS, Atlus, Mastiff) are on PSN for cheaper than second hand and the money does go to the devs.

Blast Processing!

Started Phantasy Star II today, and already it's a lot different than the first.

The whole plot of the first game was basically "The evil king killed your brother, collect magic thing to get revenge", while game right off the bat has a much bigger Plot in just the prologue before you hit start. The game takes place on the desert planet 1000 years after the previous game, and due to the guidance of a super computer called "mother brain" (gee, can't see that ending badly) the desert had been transformed into a temperate climate full of trees and grass. The computer controls all elements of human life to the point where most don't make any decisions any more. The main character is Rolf (name can be changed) and he keeps having dreams about the hero of the past game fighting the big end demon. He's basically a cop and his assignment today is to check out some odd experiment of the computer that seems to be making monsters. Tagging along is his friend Nei, who is a 7 month old artificially created monster/human hybrid and looks like a teenage elf/catgirl. Their path to the lab with the experiment is currently blocked though by some gang member.

The graphics of the game are a clear step up, going from high end 8-bit to mid level 16-bit, and the whole look of the game has a more anime style to it (looking very much like Gal Force). All the main character (and shop owners) appear on screen in little windows when they talk, there are more cinematic cut scenes, and the sprites are more detailed. The fighting system is changed too, now all the monster appear on screen and there can be more than one type, and the characters are seen attacking. It also uses an odd system where the character can basically auto attack anything, or you can select a strategy of using magic, items, defense, or attacking each turn. The difficulty has been turned down a lot too, you're not risking death every fight when first starting.

The controls are a bit awkward, the confirm button also brings up the menu and a different button is used for talking. So when I want to talk to some one, I'm use to facing them and hitting the action button, but that just brings up the menu and I have to cancel out of that with a third button and select the talk button instead. I hope I get use to that soon enough.

Well that's 38.1 down...

Finished Phantasy Star today, and it ended much like I expected.

After tracking down a couple final piece of equipment, I made a mad dash to the lair of the main bad guy, running away from pretty much every monster I came cross. In the end it was a 1 to 1 battle against the evil king and the main protagonist who's brother was killed by the king's men (the other 3 party members were killed off). After beating the evil king the party (after being revived at the church) goes to the governor (the same that we bribed with short cake) to tell him the good news. Unfortunately he was possessed by a evil demon, giving a twist final boss battle (probably original back in 87). Then after several tries I was able to kill the demon and the main character becomes Queen of all 3 inhabited planets in the solar system!

The end credits were kind of odd, they were written on the wall of a dungeon, and most did not seem real (like "April Fool" as the writer). So tomorrow the story picks up 1000 years later with Phantasy Star II!

You put the Laerma in the Laconian Pot, drink them both up

Finished off that grinding today and then went to the ice planet. The whole time there was basically collecting more high quality weapons, and a few plot items (not sure how they related to the plot though yet). Turns out that magic gem I mentioned a couple days ago in my example is just another step on the long line of odd actions. I gave the gem to some guy in an ice tower in exchange for a magic torch, then I used the torch to thaw a magic tree and get a nut from it, which I put into a magic pot for some reason. By the end I hope it makes sense.

At least that's all for the Ice planet. Just two more sections of the walk through to go, I should be done in a couple days!

Play it loud!

Went all over the worlds and collected more items today, and started on a long grind to earn enough money for yet another item (a car of some kind). I have to kill about 100 sand worms on the desert planet at about 1-3 at a time to get enough money, killed about 70 before calling it an night.

An odd thing about this Genesis collection is that the bas volume seems to be really loud. Normaly to play 360 games I have the volume around 15%-20% (my TV can get really loud), but as soon as this game starts I have to turn it down to 3% to not blow out my ears. Weird.

Well according to the walk-through it's more grinding tomorrow to get that money and then off to the ice world.

Suit up!

I spent most of the time playing today just going around to various places in the worlds and picking up powerful items or equipment. If I wasn't going by a walk-through this game would most likely be super frustrating and much longer since things a just arbitrarily placed.

Want a magic gem? Well you need to find the hidden cavern. To find the cave you need to visit the city of poison gas. to get through the gas you need the gas shield. To get the shield you need to find the hidden shop on an oil rig. To find the oil rig you need a hovercraft. to find the hovercraft you need yo talk to a random person in a village on the farthest point of the map.

And what does the magic gem do? I have no idea yet, but odds are it's just another link in the line of things needed to kill the final guy. Or maybe you just sell it for a lot of money, who knows...