Phantasy Star II is an important part of gaming history.It was the first 16-Bit console RPG and it set a new standard for character-driven stories that actually make you care about the characters.Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior get a lot of credit for making JRPGs popular in the west but Phantasy Star I and II were released in the west before the first Final Fantasy game was and they were loved by many people in the west.Phantasy Star I and II were also seen as a breath of fresh air for the RPG genre because they were set in fully Sci Fi universes unlike many other RPGs before them that were set in medieval worlds.
Just like it's predecessor,Phantasy Star II is set in a star system named 'Agol' in the Andromeda galaxy and it's story events take place on three distinctive planets,one of them is named 'Palm' and it's where the intellectuals and politicians live,another is named 'Mota' which is a tropical Utopia where people don't need to work and important decisions are made by an AI named 'Mother Brain' whom can create any material item they want and controls the climate.The third planet is far away and has a cold climate and little is known about it.
The story is about how Mother Brain begins to malfunction and monsters start attacking people so an agent named 'Rolf' and his friend named 'Nei' go to investigate what's the cause of this and they meet other characters whom form your party and their journey will lead to some big revelations/plot twists and emotional moments along the way.Your party members have a mixture of interesting,dramatic and painful pasts and some of the issues from their past are not fully revolved and come into the story in a unique way.The problem is in this game only Rolf and Nei's backstories are explained in detail although in the Phantasy Star Text Adventures(a spin-off)they're explained much better.Still,for it's time,the story for Phantasy Star II was more complex and original than any other RPG before it.
Rolf is a descendant of the main character named Alis from the first Phantasy Star game(which was set 1000 years before the events in Phantasy Star II).He grew up as an orphan and developed into a brash swordsmen but after a series of incidents that I'll let you discover for yourself,learned discipline and became stronger and was offered a position as a government agent which he accepted but he began to have nightmares afterwards about a girl and a demon.Rolf was sent to find out what's causing the problems with the monsters and Mother Brain.He has fairly likable personality traits but I'll let you discover them for yourself.
Nei is a Numan(human-monster hybrid).She has an interesting,emotional and deep history that's hard to explain without giving away spoilers but I'll say she hates humans but she is also quite attractive and has purple hair and cat-like ears.Her past makes her role in the story quite an intricate one.
Rudolf is a former soldier whom has an emotional backstory and quite a past and is linked to certain party members in intricate ways but unfortunately the game doesn't explain about his past very well.
There's numerous other characters that I will let you discover for yourself.
Another way the story made me care about it the things NPCs say such as how they express they're happy they don't need to work for a living(implying they have an easy life)and when Mother Brain malfunctions and the people think about having to to make decisions for themselves and having to work and having to make material items themselves and have to think about if the weather is no longer controlled by Mother Brain there's no guarantee of weather suitable for growing crops and it shows you how the people in Palm and Moto are clueless what to do without Mother Brain and to me this was quite an interesting side-story and for it's time it showed story concepts that no other RPGs have thought up.
For it's time(being released in 1987 in Japan and 1989 in the west)it's story was more creative and more in-depth than any other console RPG.
As for the gameplay,well the game's difficulty is quite tough.One of the reasons is the dungeons are set up like intricate mazes and you'll be attacked constantly by random enemies.The dungeons can take hours to find your way through(some people spend days trying to find their way through the dungeons).The game had a strategy guide included with it but it caused people to demand more in-depth strategy guides to help them beat the game.Another reason is you'll need to do lots of level grinding to be able stand a chance against certain enemies and the bosses in the game.
The battle system is turn-based.It uses a round-based system in that your party members will automatically repeat the same commands until you manually end the round to make the battle system faster.However,you need to think tactically about how to defeat the bosses,not just with your battle strategy but also which weapons and armor you use to equip party members with.Some weapons can be held with one hand and this allow you to hold a shield with the other hand.Some more powerful weapons need to be held with 2 hands.
The game doesn't have many bosses but they can wipe out your entire party even when you're highly leveled if you're not careful.
Phantasy Star II's version of magic is called techniques and allow you to do magic-like abilities for buffing party members or weakening enemies.
The visuals for their time were more colorful and polished than any other console RPG before it.Many people said if you wanted to play an RPG that looked this good for it's time you needed to play one on a computer.However,all the battle screen backgrounds look the same and are represented by a grid which is disappointed,compared with how the original Phantasy Star which had battle screen backgrounds that represented the environment your party was in.However,the game was such a demanding game and to save space the game had to make sacrifices such as identical backgrounds for battle screens.Still,Phantasy Star II was the best-looking console RPG for it's time and was the biggest console RPG for it's time at 6 MEGS.
From an artistic point of view the colorful,futuristic towns in Phantasy Star II look lovely and for their time the the cutscenes with colorful anime-influence to them made the story feel more alive being able to see facial expressions.
The music suited the environments and moods very well and helped create more emotion and atmosphere which for it's time was an outstanding achievement.
Overall,this game was revolutionary for RPGs and set a new standard for story-telling and story creativity despite it's difficulty which could be a bit off-putting for newcomers to RPGs.