I really like RPGs. They’re probably the best waste of time since counting ceiling tiles.
Ah, but I jest. Most RPGs aren’t as boring as counting ceiling tiles. But Phantasy Star II is! If you like mediocre stories, futuristic settings and really, really LONG (and boring) periods of power-leveling, Phantasy Star II is right up your alley.
The first think you’ll notice upon playing Phantasy Star II is the pretty title screen showing two stoned women with hair set on fire slowly fading in. After viewing this awesome sight, the game bombards you with a painful sequence of beeps. This is called “music” by some, but I prefer to call it “a reason to use the mute button.” And it gets worse. After a crazy dream sequence dictating an event from Phantasy Star, you have to actually play the game.
You see, back when people were really stupid, they made these things called “oversights,” where they didn’t anticipate how their actions in the 
present could have an effect on things later. Some of these “oversights” happen even in this age. The creators of Phantasy Star II made quite a few of these “oversights.”
For example, you have to level up a lot in this game. The enemies in this game are pure evil, even at decent levels. This is due to a, you guessed it, oversight. It’s not like the dev team behind this game had an intent to PLAY it, or anything…but whatever. I can handle having to run back and forth for an extended period of time in order to go up a level, but this game isn’t hardcore. It’s gone beyond “hardcore” into the magical realm of “unnecessarily tedious.”
Anyway, I think I bitched about the shitty music in this game earlier. Yeah, I know it’s an early Genesis game so I’ll blame it on the hardware instead of the software. I recommend you play this game with earplugs or broken eardrums. Either one works.
And the controls in this game…ah, yes, another one of those oversight things I was talking about. As if having to power-level like a mad Everquest player wasn’t enough, now you have to navigate menus over and over again to see the same spoony message over and over again: “Nei touched ASS’s wounds. The wounds are healed.” (Fun fact: in most of the RPGs I play, I usually name my characters variations of the term “asshole.”)
I suppose this is my fault (the ASS thing, anyway), but the menu design in this game is just pure stupid. It closes all the menus every time you cast a healing spell (which you’ll be doing a LOT). Would you like it if Windows closed every window you’ve opened after you open a program? Well, that’s pretty much what this game does. Wait, no, it doesn’t. I suck at analogies. And this game sucks, too.
As for the visuals of this game, they’re mostly ugly. Strangely enough, the most detailed things in the game are the shopkeepers; they’re all anime-styled. It’s like they had three different artists: a drunk one for the character designs, a high one for the enemy designs, and a misunderstood genius for the shopkeepers. Another thing about this game is that when you read a bio of a character THEY’RE IN ALL CAPS EVERY WORD OF THEM IT’S LIKE THIS. OH HOW EXCITING THIS PERSON WANTS REVENGE AGAINST SOME RANDOM PERSON BECAUSE SHE/HE KILLED HIS WIFE AND/OR KIDS. Although you don’t spend the majority of the game reading character bios, it still pisses me off.
There’s no reason to play this game, not even once. Play Phantasy Star III (which is okay, if I recall) or Phantasy Star IV (which rules). Anything except this piece of crap.
