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.