What's the best way to play Phantasy Star 2

[Ikagura]

No, not Online 2, just the 2 released in 1989 on the Megadrive and Genesis.

My only gripes are the walking speed, dungeon crawling (the camera not being properly centered) and the grinding that can get quite tedious at some point.

I think there's the Modernization mod that fixes many issues.

[Omni Trout]

There was a "remake" of sorts released on PS2 in Japan (Sega Ages)*, you can probably find a a fan translation patch* for it, I believe it has changes to make it more playable. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantasy_Star_Generation:_2

[Ikagura]

Originally posted by Jester Scout:

There was a "remake" of sorts released on PS2 in Japan (Sega Ages)*, you can probably find a a fan translation patch* for it, I believe it has changes to make it more playable. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantasy_Star_Generation:_2

Ah, thank you.

I also see that there was several workshop mods for PSII with QoL improvements.

Sad that Sega isn't making a new "Phantasy Star Collection" including the GG and Sega Channel's Text Adventure (which are prequels to PSII) with Experience and walking speed boost because those are quite archaic nowadays.

[Zeddicuus]

I always thought the pace of Phantasy Star II was just fine. Hell, I still have my original Genesis cartridge. Maybe it's because I used the walking pace as a means to just relax and not have to think after a long day.

Can't think of anything I found wrong with the game myself besides the gut feeling the mechanic you find later in the game is pretty useless overall, so I almost never used him beyond a few hours to see what he could do when I first had him join the party.

[Vic Viper]

Originally posted by Zeddicuus:

I always thought the pace of Phantasy Star II was just fine. Hell, I still have my original Genesis cartridge. Maybe it's because I used the walking pace as a means to just relax and not have to think after a long day.

Can't think of anything I found wrong with the game myself besides the gut feeling the mechanic you find later in the game is pretty useless overall, so I almost never used him beyond a few hours to see what he could do when I first had him join the party.

Despite loving PSII, it's really tough as nails. The fact it manages to be that hard despite only having 3 bosses throughout the game (and 2 of them at the end) shows how much of it relies on your endurance in dungeons, and to call the dungeons "labyrinths while you move at the pace of a paraplegic" would be an understatement.

The Hint Book (sold with the game at the time) isn't absolutely necessary, but you're doomed to get yourself lost in the dungeons incredibly easily if you're going in blind.

For example one of the dungeons start you at a regular entrance, and everything in the regular path leads to a dead end, but there's a small black space between the entrance and the tile to exit the dungeon, and if you just go along the side on the black tiles, you find the real way into the dungeon. You'd have to waste at least one useless run to discover this on your own, and very likely you'd just go to another dungeon or exploring outside thinking you've been missing something.

These dungeons are loaded with "slap on the forehead" moments. And not only does it take a long time to go from point A to point B only to potentially get walled and have to backtrack, but the encounter rate is very high and variable (as usual in older JRPGs), so to lose your sense of direction after leaving a battle and forgetting where you were about to go can happen too.

[Ikagura]

Originally posted by Zeddicuus:

I always thought the pace of Phantasy Star II was just fine. Hell, I still have my original Genesis cartridge. Maybe it's because I used the walking pace as a means to just relax and not have to think after a long day.

Sure if I were a kid in 1990 I wouldn't have minded but now it's 2022 and things that were standards yesterday aren't anymore.
Even official remakes of older RPGs made the walking speed faster and removed some grinding elements (starting from Phantasy Star Collection on the Saturn with a fast walk toggle in the options).
Phantasy Star III's main flaw was also the slow walk speed, Rhys took ages to go to his marriage (I don't think a future husband couldn't be excited for one of his most important day in his life). Phantasy Star 1's retranslation patch also allowed Alis to walk faster as well as making her hair brown like in the cover.

Originally posted by Zeddicuus:

Can't think of anything I found wrong with the game myself besides the gut feeling the mechanic you find later in the game is pretty useless overall, so I almost never used him beyond a few hours to see what he could do when I first had him join the party.

I think the fact the screen isn't centered to the character in the dungeons was also a big detriment when DQ and FF had that, same for the downgraded battle background being that same blue grid when Phantasy Star 1 on a weaker hardware had like 5 different ones (dungeon recolors not included).

Sega could've had entirely made a QoL improved port of PSII on the Switch like PSI and eventually doing a new collection of the older PS games on all platforms.

Originally posted by Vic Viper:

Despite loving PSII, it's really tough as nails. The fact it manages to be that hard despite only having 3 bosses throughout the game (and 2 of them at the end) shows how much of it relies on your endurance in dungeons, and to call the dungeons "labyrinths while you move at the pace of a paraplegic" would be an understatement.

The Hint Book (sold with the game at the time) isn't absolutely necessary, but you're doomed to get yourself lost in the dungeons incredibly easily if you're going in blind.

For example one of the dungeons start you at a regular entrance, and everything in the regular path leads to a dead end, but there's a small black space between the entrance and the tile to exit the dungeon, and if you just go along the side on the black tiles, you find the real way into the dungeon. You'd have to waste at least one useless run to discover this on your own, and very likely you'd just go to another dungeon or exploring outside thinking you've been missing something.

These dungeons are loaded with "slap on the forehead" moments. And not only does it take a long time to go from point A to point B only to potentially get walled and have to backtrack, but the encounter rate is very high and variable (as usual in older JRPGs), so to lose your sense of direction after leaving a battle and forgetting where you were about to go can happen too.

Phantasy Star IV took the best elements of the previous 3, I still wish they kept the first person dungeons like in a beta screenshot.