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But I'll feel more justified in save abusing if it was in the original game too

Double post funtimes.

Still plugging away at Phantasy Star. I did some more grinding for armour, went through a dump and got a jetski. I took that for a ride around to another town, then headed back to the first town to pick up my last 3 party members.

I decided I would level up two of the party members for the aforementioned reasons, so Shir and Anna joined me and were dragged to late game areas for fast level ups. Not before I spent a good 40 minutes getting Shir to nick loads of good stuff from the shops though! The mechanic of having a thief actually steal stuff from people is actually pretty cool, but it sucks that you have to go home and collect her again every time she does so.

Anyway, Anna and Shir got to level 10, and I took Shir to go and steal the item we previously discussed - the visiphone. This item, as Noise says, is technically less significant when playing an emulated version like on Switch, but besides my fast forward button for grinding Im trying to keep things legit, so it's still handy for me. The Visiphone let's you ring up the save centre building from anywhere - including dungeons and the world map - allowing you to create new save files at any time, which is very useful.

After that, I swapped back to my current standard party of Rolf, Nei, Rudo and Amy and went adventuring. I needed to find some special leaves to get some magic gum or something, which I did. Enemies here hit like a truck, but I'd invested in better weaponry so I could at least put up a fight - especially Rudo who is now packing heat with a Laser Cannon. Unlike other weapons, this ignores defence, so whilst my other 3 guys were doing 8-17 damage a hit with their puny knives against some of the tougher enemies here, Rudo was blasting them for 50+ damage.

After that I spent my newfound earnings from all the grinding and adventuring on some ceramic armour, which is of course significantly better than Titanium for some reason. Now my guys are much better equipped defensively, it's time to figure out my next destination.

You're going about things pretty well. But you've also discovered why you can't use Shir in a regular party; imagine being in a late game town and she decides to steal something, forcing you to go all the way back to the start. I ended up using Anna as my replacement party member, as the other two party members are too specialized in my mind; pretty much all their damage comes through their magic, which is fine for bosses that their magic works on (and each of them works on about half the enemies in the game), but for regular fights you're going to just piss away all your resources.

MrPopo wrote:You're going about things pretty well. But you've also discovered why you can't use Shir in a regular party; imagine being in a late game town and she decides to steal something, forcing you to go all the way back to the start. I ended up using Anna as my replacement party member, as the other two party members are too specialized in my mind; pretty much all their damage comes through their magic, which is fine for bosses that their magic works on (and each of them works on about half the enemies in the game), but for regular fights you're going to just piss away all your resources.

I've heard people say Kain is pretty good, but I think either Shir or Anna will get my last team slot. Them both being fast is useful, but I think Anna will be my likely choice because her weapons seem more useful right now.

With Shir, I guess you'd just have to make sure to use the visiphone before you go shopping, just in case...

MrPopo wrote:You're going about things pretty well. But you've also discovered why you can't use Shir in a regular party; imagine being in a late game town and she decides to steal something, forcing you to go all the way back to the start. I ended up using Anna as my replacement party member, as the other two party members are too specialized in my mind; pretty much all their damage comes through their magic, which is fine for bosses that their magic works on (and each of them works on about half the enemies in the game), but for regular fights you're going to just piss away all your resources.

Yup agreed.

So Crystalis is legit. I'm a few hours in now and really good game. It being of the era, a walkthrough is advisable as there are definitely some oblique beats. But honestly, having a really good time with this game. Did some grinding, though it doesn't feel totally excessive here. I then went on and found the lost kid in the swamp and beat the boss there. I was gifted a nice new fire sword and have been working my way through the icy mountain range. As Popo mentioned, switching swords can be a pain in the ass when you're dealing with a group of enemies and some are immune to one sword and others immune to another. But hey - I've seen worse antiquated gameplay for sure. It's slightly less annoying than say the constant swapping of items in Zelda: Oracle Of Seasons was (so far). Crystalis also has a really quaint mash-up of fantasy and sci-fi which makes it feel like a bit of a Dragon Quest x Phantasy Star kind of thing. Good stuff.

alienjesus wrote:

MrPopo wrote:You're going about things pretty well. But you've also discovered why you can't use Shir in a regular party; imagine being in a late game town and she decides to steal something, forcing you to go all the way back to the start. I ended up using Anna as my replacement party member, as the other two party members are too specialized in my mind; pretty much all their damage comes through their magic, which is fine for bosses that their magic works on (and each of them works on about half the enemies in the game), but for regular fights you're going to just piss away all your resources.

I've heard people say Kain is pretty good, but I think either Shir or Anna will get my last team slot. Them both being fast is useful, but I think Anna will be my likely choice because her weapons seem more useful right now.

With Shir, I guess you'd just have to make sure to use the visiphone before you go shopping, just in case...

I ended up going with Anna. Another problem with Shir is that she shares weapons with Amy, and doesn't really have any good damage spells, so she ends up being dead weight. Anna does pretty solid damage and is fantastic for random battles.

MrPopo wrote:Anna does pretty solid damage and is fantastic for random battles.

My number one rule for Phantasy Star and Dragon Quest is: Abuse boomerangs. I feel like it's really unlikely that anyone ever deviates from the absolutely canon PSII party. Logic just dictates that one uses Odin 2.0, Amy, and Proto-Alys.

I'm level 8 in Crystalis and just got myself a boat (and a dolphin). I"ve got 3 swords now. Things are going well and I'm highly impressed with this game.

noiseredux wrote:I'm level 8 in Crystalis and just got myself a boat (and a dolphin). I"ve got 3 swords now. Things are going well and I'm highly impressed with this game.

So good, you playing it on the snk collection?