Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

I bought this game today for 5 dollars at GameStop, and I looked at the back, and thought it would be a cool first person adventure game, but the game's too complicated, and I'm having trouble finding my way around everywhere, and there's only two walkthroughs for it on GameFAQs, and they're both really confusing. If anyone here has played this, would it be possible for you to provide me with a basic and more easy to understand walkthrough? I'm really confused here!

Quick tips on Dark Spire:

This game plays pretty much like Wizardry or Second Edition Dungeons and Dragons. Expect to die, expect to die unfairly, and expect to die A LOT. If you go up too high in the Spire, you're gonna get gruntched. Repeatedly.

Anybody can equip anything. However, this is never a good idea. Check the glyphs next to the class letters when buying gear- if you see an up arrow, that class can safely use it. If you see a red down arrow, that class will have its abilities crippled if you equip it.

The game borrows from Dungeons and Dragons Second Edition for Armor Class. Basically, Armor Class starts at 10, and is affected by Dexterity (higher Dex lowers the AC) and armor (better gear lowers AC). The lower the AC, the better off you are. (The game rolls one twenty-sided die, and adds/subtracts that target's Armor Class. Nerd terms: 1d20 + AC. If the result is equal to or greater than some specific number- I can't find the equivalent of THAC0 in-game, then the target is hit.)

Warriors can use anything and have a d10 Hit Die. (Every time they gain a Warrior level, they gain anywhere from 1 to 10 HP, before Constitution affects it.)

Thieves can use light weapons and armor, and can pick locks and disarm traps (Use the X Button to search!) They have a d8 Hit Die.

Priests get divine magic, but are limited to bludgeoning weapons (D&D2e artifact rule: Clerics could only use bludgeons, such as flails, because they weren't permitted to shed blood.) Also, they cannot be Neutral alignment. They have a d6 Hit Die.

Mages get arcane magic, but because they're mages, can't use a whole lot of gear. Oh, and the lousy d4 Hit Die.

Mid-game spoiler: Multiclassing Warrior/Mage lets you eventually take levels in Samurai, which not only get the equipment and Hit Die of the Warrior, but the magic of the Mage! Also, they get a specific bonus to equipment with Japanese names. Yes, this includes the Katana.

Lawful and Chaotic characters cannot be in the same party at the same time.

The Estoc is one of the best early-to-mid game weapons for a Warrior.

Oh, brother... I don't know how to play adventure games like those. Dear me, I'm gonna need a hybrid of a walkthrough and a tutorial or something along those lines. Thanks for the little help you were able to give though, Snorb.

On a side note, my favorite feature about this game is how you have to types of looks to choose from in this game:Modern Mode, and Classic Mode. Classic Mode makes it look more like a PC game from the 80's, and the music sounds 8-bit-ish, like an NES game (preferably an NES game by Konami) or something. That's cool!

The Dark Spire is a painful trip down nostalgia lane. In fact, the game purposely went for the "old-school" dungeon crawler theme that includes horrendous level grinding, mapping out dungeons (though TDS may include a feature that helps with this), and even the art style is what the old NES used to get those "realistic" graphics. Wire frame, I believe.

If you're having trouble with the Dark Spire, it may just be out of your league. Try downloading some old NES FP-RPGs and see how well you do in those. Wizardy or Might & Magic is a good start, but you may be better off going with a PC FP-RPG from that era. I remember one that Patrick Stewart was a lead voice in the game, I just don't remember what it was called. Try wikipedia. The PC has mountains of games that might help you get the hang of TDS. But TDS is probably easier -_-