Phantasy Star 2

Hi there, I'm Thuryl. You may remember me from my Phantasy Star LP. Both of my readers seemed to really enjoy it, so now I'm starting on Phantasy Star 2. I'll be doing it in narrative style, like I did with the first game, so if you haven't read my PS LP already, feel free to take a look and see what you can expect. This game already has in-character narration at a couple of points, and gives each character a bit more of a personality than PS1 did, which gives me a little more to work from.

Before the LP proper starts, have some bonus content. Or, if you're not interested in reading background information about the game and seeing a little intro sequence, you can skip straight to the actual updates:

Phantasy Star 2 is an RPG released for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. Its Japanese release was on March 21, 1989, less than five months after the release of the Mega Drive itself on October 29, 1988. As such, it's one of the first RPGs released for its console, and it does show its age a little, especially in terms of graphics. Today it's mostly known for its brutally hard, mazelike dungeons, and for a plot that stays dormant for long periods of time, then rears up and kicks you straight in the dangly bits every 5 dungeons or so.

Here's the game's manual, which contains a little backstory and a few minor spoilers about characters and items we'll encounter later in the game. (The link is to the manual's text only; I couldn't find a copy online that included pictures). Early copies of the game also came with a hintbook that included maps of all the dungeons, until Sega decided this made it too easy and took it out.

Phantasy Star 2 also spawned a number of small adventure games, all released only in Japan: one for the Game Gear and another four for the Sega CD. The only ones with a completed fan translation so far are Phantasy Star Adventure, a Game Gear game revolving around an agent travelling to Dezo a couple of decades before the events of Phantasy Star 2; Phantasy Star 2: Kain's Adventure, dealing with the backstory of Kain (one of PS2's characters), and Phantasy Star 2: Shir's Adventure, dealing with the backstory of Shir (another character from PS2). Rudo and Hugh also have their own adventure games, but as of the time of this post they haven't been translated.

Like PS1, PS2 has a retranslation available. I can't say I'm a huge fan of the PS2 retranslation: it strikes me as stilted and overly literal in places. Still, if you want to play the game along with the LP, you may be interested in playing the retranslated version to see how it differs from the official translation. If you don't want to play along but are interested in seeing the retranslation anyway, here's the retranslated script.

If you stay on the title screen for a while without pressing a button, a neat little intro sequence starts to play. Let's see it now:

I'm sure that the giant computer named Mother Brain isn't evil at all, despite what Metroid and Chrono Trigger would have us believe.

Remember, comments and ratings are always welcome. I feed on your love!

The Let's Play Archive

Phantasy Star 2

by Thuryl

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