I was thinking of starting with this game slightly. Haven't played it in a while so every good information about it is welcomed. I basicly know what to do in the game. But I don't know what I could skip if possible. It's a pretty linear game. Also it would be good to talk about level building etc and what setup of people to use. I've heard there's a glitch that allows Nei to stay in the party even after beating Nei first. If anyone could comfirm this it would be great.
Also.. What weapons would be best to get? Ceramic knives are the best in a long time in the game. But they cost a fair ammount of money that early in the game.
Another thing to talk about would be avading hits from enemies. Otherwise I could also concider running away from many battles, but that ain't good for level building. :D
Anyways.. Post your thoughts about this.
I was thinking of starting with this game slightly. Haven't played it in a while so every good information about it is welcomed. I basicly know what to do in the game. But I don't know what I could skip if possible. It's a pretty linear game. Also it would be good to talk about level building etc and what setup of people to use. I've heard there's a glitch that allows Nei to stay in the party even after beating Nei first. If anyone could comfirm this it would be great.
Hmmm that's news to me.. I always thought that even if you managed to revive her [Thanks Shir!], she'll die at the end anyways because she's linked to NeiFirst. Believe me... these guys pioneered the cry for losing the best character of the game that you've grown very attatched to syndrome, later done by Square with FFVII and Aeris.
Thiefing like mad with Shir MAY help your ceramic knife issue, but she does so completely at random and you'd have to go back to the house to get her. Mind you, the visiphone is an absolute must for normal gaming. She can also steal Moon Dew and Star Mist, biggies for ANY run. I'd recommend Anna with a nice pair of slicers/slashers/boomerangs for giving off some serious multiple enemy damage goodness. Amy is a must for healing and when you give her proper gear she can use as ITEMS, you've got a nice dose of magic there. Rudo is also great with spread style guns for inflicting massive damage.
That's the party I beat the final boss with... after a few hours ^^;;
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Just another random gamer
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<OmnipotentEntity> How do you people get bored in the span of 10 seconds? Worst ADD ever.
Yeah. I think it's only rumors that you can keep Nei afterwards.
I won't be needing the visiphone in this run. Hehe. First couple of times I completed the game I didn't even know about it. :D
I think stealing is out of the question because it will require so much backtracking. Of course there is Hinas and Ryuka which is a MUST in this game if you wanna backtrack fast.
About using equipments as magics. I had forgotten about that. Can't remember if there was a gear strong enough though. I think most of em' casted GiZan or something like that.
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
I played through this game recently. The choice is less about which weapons and more about which party members. If you can keep Nei then great, but I'll second Mr. Flewin's doubts. Do you have to levelup Shir to start stealing things? Anyway, Rudo and Anna are the best fighters, but the Han and Kain might shine if you can manipulate their spells well. I don't see any way to power level in this game, and the boss fights are pretty tough. Good luck...
Not to pick on you specifically, Kelly, but Rolf/Amy/Anna/Rudo is a particularly poor choice of characters. A healer is pretty unnecessary even in a console run due to the effectiveness of trimate and the fact that no battle should last long enough for anything to have a chance of killing you. Also, Anna just blows late game.
Rolf/Kain/Hugh/Rudo is as good as you can get for pure damage, which is probably what we are looking for. Incidentally, that is the group that I used to beat the game, and even the final spaceship was a cakewalk. Because you will be using Kain and Hugh only as spellcasters, you can and probably should render them virtually invulnerable by pimping them out in as much defensive gear as you can (Nei shield, lacon emel, lacon shield, etc. No man can wear the Nei emel.)
For an emulated run it might even be desirable to drop Rudo as soon as possible. He can't match the damage output of either of the other three's spells, even with the Neishot. Playing with only three people in your group will cause them to level faster, as well.
As far as I know nothing in the game is optional. It's been a while since I've played the game but I believe you have to complete every dungeon.
With respect to Nei, I don't think there is any way to keep her alive past the battle with Neifirst. If you were psycho obsessed with the game like I was (I have hand drawn maps of all the dungeons) you could have beaten Neifirst with Nei alone. (You have to level Nei until she is strong enough to only need to heal against Neifirst once every two attacks. That way you can attack-trimate-attack-trimate-attack-trimate until Neifirst dies. Also if you are lucky Neifirst doesn't sword you and you can attack twice in a row.) She stills dies after the battle because she and Neifirst are inextricably linked -- one cannot live without the other. (Well ... take that with a grain of salt. When Neifirst kills Nei you still have to fight Neifirst. Don't ask me why she can live through the death of her sister/double but Nei can't.)
I seriously doubt Shir will be of any use at all, I never used her other than to steal a visiphone, which you don't need, and any other items she might gank probably don't warrant the wasted time.
The biggest challenge in preparing this run will probably be figuring out where and when to level, and I suspect you will have to do a lot of it.
Ok.. Won't it be better to just have four people in the party then? Rolf, Hugh, Kain and Amy. I think Amy will be great as an item user/healer, even though she's pretty weak.
I think we should drop the Nei rumor and move forward to a good solution to the rest of the game.
The only non-linear thing would be in which order to bring down the dams right? Red, Yellow, Green, Blue if I remember correctly.
Also.. Should I take detours in dungeons in order to get new armour/wepaons?
Shortest routs should be traced on the excisting maps that are out there.
About leveling.. I think the best place will be Uzo Island in search for the leaf. I reckon those enemies bring home alot of XP. Atleast thats the place I used to level when I played on console. Outside the last town you enter on Mota is a good place as well.
Not sure how much XP robots brings back. But with Kain that should be an easy task anyways. Kain is essential against robots. Also I think he can be used in Noah to kill those enemies.
Ok.. I wanted to make a test run.. So I started it. Was supposed to get to the first dungeon. But it desynced and ran into an enemy in some mysterious way. Would be great if you other guys could verify if this is true when you watch the run as well.
http://highness.no-ip.com/PhantasyStar2(REV02)(UE)[!].rar
Note that the menus showing up are for manipulating away enemies.
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Happens for me too, using gens_movie_test9a. Under gens_movie_test9 it doesn't make it past the character name. This should be interesting, looking forward to seeing where it goes.
The problem with always dragging Amy along wherever you go is that she will make the rest of your party level more slowly. On the other hand, she provides a significant damage buffer at the expense of wasted time. You will probably have to do lots of experimentation to determine what the best character strategy is.
I'm not really sure what you should do about leveling. I believe it is on the first floor of Roron castle where you can encounter lots of the most advanced form of the self-replicating jellies (I don't remember their names.) These guys are great because they give good XP and do crappy damage, and with luck you can make them keep replicating themselves. This is one possible place to stop and level.
Keep in mind there are only two reasons for you to level. One of them is to beat Neifirst, the other is to beat the game. Throughout the rest of the game you can simply avoid battles. With luck manipulation, you probably don't need to be very strong at all to beat Neifirst. Only her sword attack does a significant amount of damage, so you should try to manipulate her to keep her from ever using it.
As for Noah, you will probably have to level quite a bit to beat the Prime Evil and Mother Brain. You don't have to do the battles back to back, which is nice, so at least there's that. Probably the best way to level in Noah is to go to the spaceship, cast all your strongest magics until you run out, and warp back to Lutz to heal, rinse, and repeat. At least, that's what I always did. On a console I always just used Megid, but with luck you might be able to manipulate Hugh's and Kain's one hit kill spells into working every time.
Avoiding battles should be no problem as long as it doesn't desync.
Avoiding damage in battle should be harder. Would be great to get help on this.
When the damage avoiding is solved I can decide when and where to level. About those jelly thingies. Do you get more XP the more they duplicate or is the XP value set to a static value for the entire battle?
You full XP for each duplicate, though the duplicates spawn with the same HP as their parent has at the time of duplication (I think), so it's really easy XP.
I'm not sure that Rudo will be on the party. All though he is kinda good half the game with two ceram knives, and later on with laser knives or what ever.
I'm still not ready to give up on this game.
So I have started to plan forward a bit.
1. Go to the weapon shop and buy two steel bars for Nei at the cost of 80 meseta a piece.
2. Head to Arima just in order to get Rudo later.
3. Head to Shure and get 2x dynamite, leather and small key.
Question remains. Should I fight my way to these places or should I avoid all the fights?
I have also looked at some of the maps and drawn directions on them.
http://highness.no-ip.com/Phantasystar2planning/
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
To fight or not to fight, huh? It really depends on what you need later. What level do you need to beat NeiFirst? What is best for leveling up for her--Slugmess? So what level will you need to beat them, and where is the best place to do that... Just follow this logic until you get to something you can beat at level 1. You might be able to get money for weapons by raiding chests. Anyway, I'm also glad to see that you are continuing this, good luck saving the Algol system!
With luck manipulation I should be able to go straight to them. I would need to level up in order to get Hinas (at level 7 with Rolf) and Ryuka (Level 4 with Rolf).
However.. This can be done in Shure, where I suppose I can encounter harder enemies that contains alot more xp.
Further question would be, should I backtrack to Paseo to get Rudo before I go to Shure?
The extra firepower would come in handy I suppose, as well as speed up the upcoming battles.
Also.. I just remembered that the dynamite chests are locked in Shure, which makes me backtrack inside Shure to get to the Dynamite. So the small directions I made on the maps are not in the correct order. I need to get to the room with the key and the letter first. :(
To fight or not to fight, huh? It really depends on what you need later. What level do you need to beat NeiFirst? What is best for leveling up for her--Slugmess? So what level will you need to beat them, and where is the best place to do that... Just follow this logic until you get to something you can beat at level 1. You might be able to get money for weapons by raiding chests. Anyway, I'm also glad to see that you are continuing this, good luck saving the Algol system!
I figured I won't be raiding chests that much. They are a bit off track and since these characters are so slow when walking I don't want to do much stuff around getting from point A to point B. Instead I will kill enemies that are in the way for both XP and money.
I would need to buy 4 ceram knives. But they cost 2800 meseta each.
390mst can be found in chests in Shure. But they are way off track. Atleast for that ammount I feel.
But then again.. I don't know how much speed increase I can get by buying 4 of those knives. And when facing NeiFirst I suppose I'll have other weapon handy so.. I think weapon is more or less an issue after Teim meets Darum or something.
Edit: Made a small list what I will be encountering in the beginning. I've sorted this list after how much experience points you gain from each enemy.
Mosquito 3exp, 5mst
Fire Ant 3exp, 5mst
Poisoner 5exp, 13mst
Locust 7exp, 15mst
Froggy 7exp, 10mst
Spinner 7exp, 16mst
Carrier 9exp, 16mst
Bee 5exp 9mst
Pulser 12exp, 18mst
Amoeba 12exp, 22mst
Waspy 15exp, 27mst
Armorant 26exp, 34mst
Buzzer 26exp 34mst
To bad I don't have a list over how much experience is needed for each level. That would be very useful right now.
YAY!!
I got it not to desync this time. Atleast when I watched the playback.
http://highness.no-ip.com/Phantasy_Star_2_(REV_02)_(UE)_[!].zip
Please check wether or not this desyncs for you. It should end when entering Arima.
The menue appearing right before Arima is for avoiding battles.
I think this game doesn't like it frame perfect. Because then it will desync. In my earlier attempts I have triggered those menues at the very last possible frame before entering battle. Now I decided to do it a bit before that like 20 frames before. This time it seems to work.
Check the other threads at Gens Questions and Answers. I think someone else posted a game that desyncs. I don't know it it's a real problem though. Well.. It is in some way since it doesn't replay correctly when I have been using frame advance to avoid battles etc.
Good though that it plays fine for you. I don't think there will be any speed ups thanks to frame advance. Atleast not when it comes to avoiding battles. I mean. It doesn't really matter wether I do it a second earlier or one frame earlier. The battle will still be avoided, and it seems that the battles after that are fixed as well. Or time based. Because I'm bound to hit an enemy encounter at a certein time even though I go a diffrent way.
