A classic masterpiece reborn portable

User Rating: 9.5 | Phantasy Star II IOS
By camichan | Review Date:
Phantasy Star 2 will remain timeless for those of us who had the rare privilege of experiencing this game first hand when it was originally released. I remember that summer well playing deep into the night hours with the windows open delving into the planets of Mota and Dezo. Sega has always managed to capture something special when it comes to sci-fi. No other company has evoked the same absorbing worlds as found in the Sega classics like Phantasy Star 2, the Panzer Dragoon series, and Panzer Dragoon Saga.

So the ability to play this same game on my phone on demand with everything preserved from two decades previous is magic reborn and conveniently repackaged. It seems almost unrealistic these days that a 6MB file on your phone, the size of two mp3 files, can contain one of the most memorable sci-fi adventures from the old school days of 16-bit.

Phantasy Star 2 was a milestone in role playing adventure games. The dungeon exploration had a foreground and a background graphical layer which gave a sense of depth. The combat system used the futuristic grid scheme with player turns and animations sequenced rather than using simple text. Items, abilities, and magic allowed for clever combinations and sequencing of actions in combat. Team member selection from the roster of available characters allowed for optimization for the terrain the player was entering.

Phantasy Star 2 also introduced to main stream audiences a few milestone plot twists (Spoiler alert): The archenemy in the game was none other than Earth, having exhausted its own resources, expanding into other solar systems. And secondly and perhaps more famously, a primary character in your team dies half way into the game. Both were fall out of your seat shockers at the time, and still haunt the collective memories of those who experienced these events in their youth.

So today, you can pick up this classic work for the price of a McDonald's lunch. The controls aren't perfect and the buttons on the iPhone are ironically "sticky" (not snappy) just as I remember the old Genesis controller being. Any loyal fan of this game should be sure to pick up this faithful port.
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