/vr/ - Retro Games

I miss when dungeons were endurance tests instead of just setpieces.

Part of why I thought Phantasy Star 1 and 2 were so brilliant at the time was that they were a mix between the streamlined Dragon Quest and the dungeon crawling found in western PC RPGs. I thought it was a real "east meets west, best of both worlds" type of combo.

PSIV has an epic storyline and very advanced cinematics for the time to be sure, but mechanically I found it to be much more ordinary. It felt like it abandoned what made PS 1-2 unique in order to capture Final Fantasy's audience. And hey I guess it worked, since 4 is most people's favorite.

Thankfully PSO went back to it's dungeon crawl roots, but now the later games in the Online series have kind of lost that thread as well.

>>5976727
>I think you are about halfway through the game after Climatrol.

In terms of actual zones, yes, but in terms of time, not really. The later dungeons are really crazy.

Anyway, this is possibly my favorite JRPG and one of my favorite RPGs in general. The dungeons are awesome, the music great, the aesthetic is great, the story is great, the twist ending is great. Only complaint about this game is that I discovered it pretty late; didn't play it until like 2008 or something.

Only real negative thing to say is that some of the art looks amateurish. Everything else is amazing.

I love Phantasy Star 2 for being an amazing dungeon crawler with top notch dungeon design, music, and aesthetic.

I love Phantasy Star 4 for being on the most solid traditional JRPGs ever.

Don't really care for the rest of the series.

>>5701190
That's not nei.

This is now a fan-art thread.

>>1765492
For what it is, PSII is a nearly perfect game. The Dungeons are unlike anything else you'll see in a JRPG and the story and ending are fantastic. I played it for the first time over 20 years after its release and some of the final dungeons got my heart racing towards the end, because there's no fucking around. No save points; you die to a random encounter, you start all the way over. Got me in the habit of exploring parts of a dungeon, then porting out to save and restock.

In any event, my dislike for PS1 comes from my dislike of first person RPGs. I own loads of them on the PC, and I don't like any of them. The closest thing to a fun first person dungeon crawler I like is Hexen, and that isn't an RPG.