/vr/ - Retro Games

>>5159123
>automapping in a dungeon crawler

Yeah, be warned that calling automapping a "QoL improvement" is underselling the importance of mapping-as-gameplay in games designed around mapping.
I'd say maybe 25% of PS1's gameplay is successful mapping (or just memorizing, without a map). It's not as bad as adding automapping to something like Bard's Tale, but it's still a chunk being lost. I'd recommend not using it on your first playthrough.

>>5159132
>>5159349
If drawing a map is considered essential gameplay, it's a shit game. See also: watching paint dry. Nothing could be more autistic than thinking someone is missing out because they don't want to use graph paper.

>>5159379
Games like Bard's Tale make mapping challenging with elements like looping edges, super-dark areas, and silent spinners (rotates your facing direction), so tacking auto-mapping onto a game like that removes multiple deliberate parts of the gameplay. Of course, if you just don't find mapping fun, you wouldn't have liked it in the first place. But I think that can't really be helped, like someone who doesn't like platforming not enjoying Super Mario Brothers.
Phantasy Star 1's dungeons are simpler, with the only disorientating effects being simple straight-down trap doors, so it's mapping challenge is lower, mostly just coming from some of the dungeons being big and mazy. Of course it was aimed at a younger audience than PC games of the time.
PS1 also spends time outside of dungeons, in overworld exploration and towns, across three planets, so adding auto-mapping affects a smaller percentage of playtime compared with a pure dungeon game.

>>5159431
Nintendo could update SMB with QoL features like a jetpack

>>5159460
They have that its purple yoshi

>>5159349
>in games designed around mapping.
Not this game, then. Come on, the levels in Phantasy Star are small enough. I've played the game without maps, more than once. Anyone without any goldfish in their family tree can if they just care to try. I really want to dispel this myth that you have to make maps to succeed at this game, but so many people speak of it as being a mandatory part of the experience. It scares people off, you know.

>>5159123
As for automapping, that's softcock shite and if that English language version doesn't have FM sound then it's officially inferior to how you can currently play it for free. If it actually does have FM sound this time then thank the great light they finally got it right after all these years, but I sure hope it's not the '88 translation.

>>5159513
It was retranslated by Atlus and does have FM sound as an option, according to this interview.
https://www.dualshockers.com/switch-dreamcast-sega-ages-phantasy-star-rieko-kodama-naoki-horii-kagasei-shimomura-interview/

It was supposed to come out in the west this week, but got delayed to an unannounced date according to one of the Sega reps on Twitter. From what I've seen elsewhere the Japanese version has full English except for the manual.

>>5159513
I hope both that it's a re-translation and that it's FM sound, if not then isn't there a romhack that does both? I don't know.

I won't pretend to know for sure, PS1 has been on my "to-play" list for a long time, and I thought the switch version would be an obvious choice. Might not be so obvious after all.

And IMO, I agree about automapping. It's my opinion that if you're doing automapping in an exploration game, then it's not really an exploration game, it's just an action game or a very simple adventure game.

>>5159521
I thought I heard something about that. This may actually be a good way to lay the game nowadays then, as long as one can resist the temptation to use the automap cheat. And let's not pretend it ain't cheating.

>>5159527
> if not then isn't there a romhack that does both?
There is a retranslation based on the Japanese rom which does FM sound by default, yeah. This is the one: http://www.smspower.org/Translations/PhantasyStar-SMS-EN

Up until now this has easily been THE definitive way to play the game. Maybe it has competition now, I don't know. It's still a very good option and it's free. It's still the way I'd go with personally, but that's me innit.

>>5159132
It's not 1931 anymore, having to draw a map is horrible.

>>5159132
>>5159379
Faggots who never even played Etrian odyssey let alone a classic Dungeon crawler