Retro Gamer Boy

Hey everybody! I am enjoying the fact that I have one more month of free time (more or less) until I start teaching classes again. As a result, I am trying to play through an RPG that I have never played before. It took some tweaking, but I was finally able to get a Sega Genesis emulator to start working (WAY more complicated than an NES/SNES Emulator). I tried playing an old favorite of mine, Toe Jam and Earl, but I simply could not motivate myself. I took a bit of time to play through and beat Bastion (a newer RPG/Platform game on the PC) before delving back into the emulator world. Finally, I ended up selecting Phantasy Star II (Probably stylized form of “Fantasy” to avoid trying to cash in on the success of ANYTHING with Fantasy in it and avoid a lawsuit with Nintendo). It’s cool because it takes the old-school RPG into a space age world. I know that the series was hugely successful and even now there is an MMORPG series of the same name but it’s only available in Japan and some European markets.

So far the game has been fun to play, it’s definitely a unique system and I am still getting used to the way Sega did things with the Sega, Master System, CD System, 32X, etc and finding the right pieces to make it work but I am coming along. It’s a very different RPG, that’s for sure. Nothing like fighting battles with monsters on this weird, blue grid that looks like the cover of the Neuromancer book and having a character who cannot fight in my party – seriously – the girl character Nei is not capable of fighting – her whole purpose is to heal which is cool but weird. Anyway, I am still very early in the play through, only halfway through the first dungeon, but I hope that I can get more accustomed to the game’s controls and rhythm enough to finish it and write a review before my classes start.

Stay tuned!