Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

It's 2014. Emulate.

Seriously, the money you spend on a game that was out in 1992 is no longer going to the people who made the game, you're just feeding monsters like EA.

I really don't like emulating, not only because of the ethical issues (which, as you indicated, are sometimes less relevant for older games, though even there many companies offer digital downloads and so the piracy issue is a huge and legitimate issue), but also because I like the feel of the original console. Playing a game on a cold, sterile PC just doesn't complete the experience for me. I take your point on EA, I wouldn't support them, but this is a Sega-published series, and I love Sega and would gladly support them, making the collection option more appealing.

As you wish buddy. I already own the physical copies of all the above mentioned games (Except Shining Wisdom, sold it). I still emulate for many reasons and I would not buy the collection because it features sloppy ports with awful sound and generally glitchy graphics.

(Actually I did buy the PS2 and 360 collections for other games that have better ports, but the PS and SF were not well done, I think.)

That's actually good to know about the Shining Force ports, I hadn't heard anything about them, didn't realize they were done badly.

I'll connect and check this week. I don't want to spread misinformation.

Bragatyr wrote:I really don't like emulating, not only because of the ethical issues (which, as you indicated, are sometimes less relevant for older games, though even there many companies offer digital downloads and so the piracy issue is a huge and legitimate issue), but also because I like the feel of the original console. Playing a game on a cold, sterile PC just doesn't complete the experience for me. I take your point on EA, I wouldn't support them, but this is a Sega-published series, and I love Sega and would gladly support them, making the collection option more appealing.

My stance on emulation is that I won't do it for anything recent, but if it's not current gen then I don't have an ethical issue with it.

Hukos wrote:In SF1, just about every character (barring the obvious joke one) has a use and is useful the moment they join your party. It felt like the designers took care into building the game around making each character fun to use in some way.

I don't agree. A lot of characters, even leveled are useless such as Gong and that magic using centaur, what was his name, Arthur? They were SF1's poor attempt at hybrids and they fell short, by far. Also, if you level up too fast (easy to do in SF1) most characters you get from chapter 7-8 are useless prior to vast amounts of leveling, except maybe Musashi. Alef and Bleu took insane amounts of babysitting before they became usable.

Hukos wrote:SF2, it just seems like there's no rhyme or reason in terms of mechanics as to why characters join you. They don't flow well within the game and it makes SF2 feel a lot more disjointed as a result. It's still a pretty solid game but I'll always prefer SF1 for those reasons.

That is somewhat true. Peter is overpowered and breaks the game and a lot of characters are useless. Then again, the problem of weak, underleveled characters is not so apparent as it was in SF1.

Hukos wrote:That and SF1 doesn't have collecting Mithril. Screw doing that.

Meh, I liked the idea. You don't have to do it if you want to, the game doesn't force you to.

Aeroprism wrote:I don't agree. A lot of characters, even leveled are useless such as Gong and that magic using centaur, what was his name, Arthur? They were SF1's poor attempt at hybrids and they fell short, by far. Also, if you level up too fast (easy to do in SF1) most characters you get from chapter 7-8 are useless prior to vast amounts of leveling, except maybe Musashi. Alef and Bleu took insane amounts of babysitting before they became usable.

Alef really didn't need babbysitting. Having a huge range for her Bolt spells immediately gave her a use.

Arthur gains ridiculous stat boosts from about lv 16-lv 20 both pre and post promotion. He more than carries his weight around when he gets to that point.

Admittedly Gong is kind of mediocre pre-promotion but post-promotion his defense is insane to go along with a fantastic offense and healing.

Meh, I liked the idea. You don't have to do it if you want to, the game doesn't force you to.

B-but I need my 100% completion, obviously!

You make me wanna play this again. Admittedly, SF1 came to me in a... particular part of my life where it had freeway to find a place deep in my heart so I will always prefer it to SF2, on a personal preference. I remember it well, my first apartment in the middle of nowhere, I was too young to drive so, no car, no way to go anywhere. (Emphasis on middle of NOWHERE) I had no family and next to no friends, my Sega Genesis was the only reason I managed to survive through every single day, working that detestable job I had.

I came home every night and let the splash screen music play for a while before immersing myself into battles until I was too tired to keep my eyes opened. Yeah, I love this game.

Hukos wrote:B-but I need my 100% completion, obviously!

Ah, a fellow completionist. I understand your pain, my friend. You are welcome here.

I am a great fan of SRPGs, and of course, a big fan of Shining Force since it was the first game of the genre I have played.

Unfortunately the series hasn't received a proper treatment in the west. Although the genre mostly shifted from SRPG to Action RPG, I enjoyed the games I have played from the new style were good. Too bad the latest games never came to the west...