Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

I'm curious about this. I've gone through PS2 with only doing grinding at the beginning of the game, but I have to question if even that much is necessary.

It would be hard, it would take a full, thorough knowledge of PS2's mechanics. But I have to wonder, can it be done?

With judicious risk-taking and a good management of your team, I don't see why not. You would be forced to use the same characters all through the game though otherwise they would not be optimal.

Aeroprism wrote:With judicious risk-taking and a good management of your team, I don't see why not. You would be forced to use the same characters all through the game though otherwise they would not be optimal.

I do that regardless.

There's really no reason to use any team other than Rolf/Rudo/Amy/Kain.

Hukos wrote:There's really no reason to use any team other than Rolf/Rudo/Amy/Kain.

Amen.

Aeroprism wrote:

Hukos wrote:There's really no reason to use any team other than Rolf/Rudo/Amy/Kain.

Amen.

I second that. Or third, rather.

Hukos wrote:I'm curious about this. I've gone through PS2 with only doing grinding....
It would be hard, it would take a full, thorough knowledge of PS2's mechanics. But I have to wonder, can it be done?

you are correct. And yes it is possible.
About 10 years ago, right after the Phantasy Star collection came out for the Game Boy advance, I played Phantasy Star II when I was deployed somewhere in the Middle East. So it helps me fix my boredom during my time. but I definitely did not have time for grinding.
However I did have time for exploiting the game's mechanics. What I did most was exploited stealing that device that you steal from the central tower as soon as I could. that makes the game always easier. But for the battle aspect of the game, what I did instead of leveling up constantly, and that I used with the deem "pacifist mode."

the way this works is that when you are walking out on the field or in a dungeon:
1)you move one pace forward
2)open up your menu
3) then close the menu
4) take one more step forward one pace
5) repeat. Wash, rinse, repeat.

By doing this, you avoid random battles. It resets the random battle counter that triggers battles after XX number of steps. so by using that, along with a lot of theft and strategy and going straight for the good weapons once you have access to all the towns, (Like why bother by weapons and anywhere other than Piata? so save your money and do not buy weapons in any other towns on Mota; after all, you are pacifying and not fighting anyone so there is no need to spend money and buy weapons that are inferior to the ones in the last town on Mota. but also remember that you will find in treasure box containers weapons that are also sold in that shop, so there is no need to buy something you will have a duplicate of later on)

This modus operandi made it a bit easier and very possible. and you can totally do this from the beginning of the game until you get the weapons at Piata. when you are in dungeons, just be sure to grab every single treasure box container so that you have all the free weapons available in the game, along with the free meseta.

if by chance you do not have enough money before your first mandatory battle under the sea, at that point in the game, you can do two things that are not grinding behavior.

especially the first:
1) take the thief on your team, have her steal.
2)and steal, and steal some more.
3)then, sell everything that she stole and you will have money.

the only other option is to fight a minimal amount of battles in an area that is a high yield meseta area. the best place to make quick money by fighting but not necessarily grinding, is Uzo island. the way you do this is:
1)first save your game with that special stolen item, right when you are on uzo island or whatever dungeon you feel that will yield you money.
2) walk around with your crappy equipment.
3)enter the random battle and fight that battle as if it is your last battle.
4)win the battle and win the money and experience with it.
5) then save your game again right after battle after battle, and do that for 5 or 10 times.
it is totally possible, at that point you can go all out and let people die, use up all of your TP, etc. Keuri is super close by so you can revise and heal while still keeping expenses to a minimum. personally though, I enjoy the thrill of stealing. however fighting five or 10 battles is also a good way to just get at least some experience points along with the levels gained and of the techniques gained, especially if it is Rolf by himself it will be massively gained. sure the battles to take strategy, but if you die, you can just reload that save state from right before you died. so it has a lot of patience, strategy, and the old adage of "try try again"

( as I did mention above, if you feel that you are too weak for that first mandatory boss battle, you can remove everybody from your party except Rolf, fight a minimal amount of battles, and he will jump to a level fairly quickly so that Rolf is only adequate, barely. Then put everybody else back on your party so that you can continue your non-grinding game. equip them with acceptable weapons. and especially once you get the weapons which can be used as items, your low-level characters will then be able to use those items as the equivalent of techniques that you may not even have yet!) those weapons that can be used as items are your dear friends in that game if you attempt to play it in that manner.

this is totally possible and it is possible to completed as a no grind or at least minimally grind PS2 game. And like I said, I played it on my Game Boy advance long ago when I accomplish this feat, so there were no cheats, save states, or any other tools to use or assist. In the end of that game, I (Rolf) was at level 28 when I completed the game.

how do you survive aboard Noah to have enough items, TP, whatever before the final boss battles? Easy, you pacify the whole dungeon, and then go all out. and by that time in the game, you should never have any trimate anybody's inventories anymore at all. at that point every healing item should be moon dew or star mist.

and as mentioned in the other posts, Rolf, Rudo, Amy, and Kain were indeed the dream team. Kain and his "Mech- destroying" techniques hurt not only machines, but they do hurt the enemies in the dungeons on Dezo and aboard Noah. sure he cannot hurt snow owls or rabbits with their brains bubbling out their head, but he is just a great fighter anyway. at least better than the other choices except Rudo for meelee.


so as long or tedious as that might sound, it is actually still shorter than having to grind endlessly. It took me three twelve hour work day shifts to that from beginning to end. think that was the biggest important lesson I took home from that deployment abroad.

Visiphone. (You're welcome)

This post fascinates and boggles me at the same time. It's well built and to the untrained eye might seem legit but I know PS2 inside out. I (like almost everyone else still here) can beat it in the dark, eyes closed, in my sleep.

How do you afford the ridiculously expensive stuff in Piata if you never fought a single encounter? Let along have the stats to survive your Uzo island grinding. If you have been pacifying the whole game, you're level 1. Let's humor you and say you're level 5. Your damage output will be laughable and EVERYTHING on Uzo will one-shot you, especially since you don't have the Piata equipment yet.

Neifirst will destroy you if you're not at least level 15 or so. She hits HARD. You can't rely on healing items, they are not cost-effective, especially considering your non-battle method and your TP pool would be laughable, not to mention you would only have RES.

Also, Shir's steal table is laughable and without acceleration from en emu, you can spend as much as 15-20 minutes between each theft, not to mention the hassle of going back to Paseo, getting her back etc. More often then not she will steal stuff that sells for 200-300 MST. A 3x Headrot battle takes 20-30 seconds and yields some 768 MST if I remember correctly.

I really like your progressive ideas dude but I think that either your memory is selective, or your post is "creative". Either way, it was entertaining.

I did minimal grinding the first time I played through PSII. This was in 1990, and although I had the hint book and a few pages ripped out of various gaming magazines (related to playing PSII), I didn't have a strong knowledge of exploits. Rolf always carried swords, Rudo always carried a gun, and I used Anna more than Kain because she was a better mid-game character with her slashers. I didn't use many defensive techniques and I had to trek through dungeons multiple times before completing them. I didn't really switch my party around, so once I had it the way I wanted it, that was it. I only got Shir up to level 10 so she could steal the visiphone. I confidently went through Noah as soon as Rolf learned Megid and Amy learned Nasar. That puts Rolf at level 35, so yes, some grinding had to be done to get Megid. I remember traveling through every dungeon I hadn't completely cleaned out, and it was enough to get Rolf up to level 35.

I didn't originally play the game thinking that I needed to grind for eleventy-six hours in order to afford eight laser knives to get my team through Roron or Uzo or wherever. I just got the best sword (which, yes, are inferior, but I didn't really know that at the time), a decent gun, and if I had a bit extra, better chestpieces.

I just had Shir steal. ALOT. During that time, I was stuck in a tent in the desert for 14+ hours a day waiting for work to come (people getting sick or trying to get out of work,) you find tedium is there, so you must do something. Maybe 2 days was an understatement, but I can clearly state I finished the game quickly before the duty week was over, with the methods I stated.

I had Shir steal. over and over. Bought the Piata weapons and armour, which then afforded me to win at least 1 battle on Uzo. Once you get past that 1st battle, you level quickly and can quickly get through subsequent ones. You literally must save your game after every would be battle, if youre not pacifying at that moment. But totally doable with time and patience.


....and that's how we won the war.

Ouah ! Very interesting topic ! I've just finished to read absolutely ALL of it and it's incredible ! I didn't know at all about this possibility of "pcific mode" in PS II ! That is very interesting but personaly, I don't think I'll have the necesary patience to try it out !
But congratulations to you, dear Zio_Falz !