Phantasy Star II: The After Years

I'm not dead! And neither is PSII:A, either- it's just been a very, very hellish month, culminating with me breaking one of my teeth last week, and near-total lack of free time.

So, what am I here to talk about this month? Some Techniques, some equipment changes, and hints of post-game goodness!

First, Techniques. These are broken down into four basic groups- Healing, Melee, Time, and Order (sound familiar?). Healing does just that- restore HP, heal status effects, and revive Flatlined party members. PSIV's infamous Feeve Technique is lumped into this group (it heals every status effect a party member's suffering.) Unsurprisingly, Amy gets everything in this group.

Next is Melee. You've seen these before, too- *Foi/Wat/Tsu/Zan/Zonde/Gra. Anything that directly does damage is here (including Kain's *Gaj/*Sag and Hugh's Gen/Sa Gen). Megid's also here for Rolf, and yes, it will hurt the entire non-Rolf party to use it.

Then there's Time Techs. These actively mess around with how time flows in battle- Ner, Sa Ner, as well as enemy-paralyzing Techs like Rimit/Rimet, Conte/Shiza, and Shinb. These are pretty much Kain and Hugh's domain.

Last Tech group is Order- Shift, Deban (provides elemental resistances instead of out-and-out Defense), Fanbi, Ryuka, and Hinas are here, as are Sak and Na Sak. These work just like they did in PSII, only with one major difference: You can't use a Moon Dew or Rever to revive Amy- visiting a Clone Lab Grandma is how to bring her back. (Burning away to ashes tends to damper having your corpse intact, after all.)

Next up is equipment changes: The usual PSII gear slots (Right Hand, Left Hand, Body, Head, Feet) are intact, but RPG Maker VX, for whatever reason, dropped the ability to use items to emulate spells. Instead, some of the gear's secondary functions are changed- for example, Crystal gear protects its wearer against Gravity-elemental abilities, Ceramic protects against Fire, and anything that manifests a Time/Order Tech when used now provides the same bonus to its wearer's stats.

Finally, post-game stuff. Rolf and the others finally defeated Cablon and saved Algo from his wrath, a New Game Plus gets saved allowing Rolf to do it all over again, but this time, something's different. There's another uninvited guest at Hugh and Amy's wedding- a red-haired woman, sent there by a temporal distortion... well, that's all I'm gonna reveal. Suffice it to say that the New Game Plus stuff is another party member, another dungeon, and another final boss, all classic Phantasy Star related (though not necessarily from the same game!)

I hear you about how the month has been. It's been crazy for me, too. I hope next month has some improvement.

The techs sound good. It's a pity about not being able to use items for spells, but what can ya do? It sounds like you came up with a good alternative, though.

The New Game+ stuff sounds really nice! Significant additions like that really make the extra playthrough worthwhile. I hate when a game tacks on a New Game Plus mode with no real reason to use it.