The Batlord

I've been playing Phantasy Star II for over an hour now and this game feels hostile. Phantasy Star II is an RPG for the SEGA Genesis that I guess was an attempt to get a chunk of that sweet, sweet Final Fantasy money, except they didn't want to make an obvious ripoff so they decided to make a game that is obtuse and confusing. I started out in this city and first things first gotta start pressing buttons to see what they do. When I open the menu it's like the devs had to pay by the letter:

ITEM
STATE
TECH
STRNG
EQP

Now I can guess that TECH is short for "TECHNIQUES", and it is, but when I press it and it gives me a list of characters to choose from and then techniques to use the only technique I have is named "RES". What the **** is that? There's no explanation for what it does so I have to use it. It heals a party member. Great. I just had to waste MP to find that out but whatevs.

Then I go exploring the city, which is a giant square with shops and whatnot scattered around in such a way that I just know I'm going to get lost numerous times trying to find any particular building, such as going to the clinic after fighting enemies outside the city. This turns out to be case.

Among other buildings we have a cloning store. Like, I can clone my characters apparently. It won't let me clone anybody right now so I assume this to be a place to revive characters whose hit points go down to zero. This also turns out to be the case. WTF? Any other RPG will simply give me items to revive a character as if they've just been knocked unconscious. Phantasy Star II thinks this is pussy ****. It wants the surviving characters to drag the corpse of their friend back to town and replace them with an exact duplicate who has all of their memories. That's some ****ed up ****.

And then we have the stores. Now, in most games if I'm at the weapon shop it will tell me the stats of any given weapon and who can use it. Phantasy Star II pees on such a notion. The only way to know if a weapon is better is if it's more expensive, and the only way to know if a character can use it is if I BUY IT AND THEN HOPE THAT SOMEBODY CAN EQUIP IT!!! And did I mention that enemy encounters give out an amount of money that probably allows my characters to buy a pack of gum to split between them?

Time to leave the city and get down to grinding. The fights in this game are... different. I don't choose how I fight like in games, I press "FIGHT" after a random encounter has started and my characters fight automatically as I sit back and watch my fingernail clippings form a modest pile on the floor. I guess to make this more engaging the fights have inscrutable rules that result in enemies always hitting first, often times hitting twice or even thrice before my characters get to hit once, so I'm constantly yelling at the game for what I perceive to be an unfair amount of time since my character's last attack.

It doesn't make me feel any better that the pittance I get from these battles is enough to heal my characters back in town and then buy another pack of gum.

Oh and back to the store thing. It turns out that one of my characters DOESN'T HAVE A WEAPON OR ANY OTHER MEANS TO ATTACK WITH!!! So I go to the weapon shop to buy her one and wouldn't you know it she can't equip it. And I just spent most of my money on it and can't buy anything else. And my other character can't equip it either even though "DAGGER" seems like a very obvious upgrade to "KNIFE". Even basic logic can't save me from wasting money on things I can't use. After twenty minutes of more grinding I finally have enough to buy "STEEL BAR", so I do, and HOLY **** SHE CAN EQUIP IT!!! I now feel as if I have won my first great victory in this game and set off to lay waste to the giant bees and mosquitoes infesting the countryside. Turns out she still can't attack and I have no ****ing clue why and my heart shrunk three sizes.

WHAT THE **** DO YOU WANT FROM ME, PHANTASY STAR II?!?!?!

So in conclusion 10/10 this game is awesome or my hatred for it will force me to beat it. Not sure which.

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