Phantasy Star II: Neifirst's Claw Attack

This animation I created some years ago depicts one of Neifirst's deadly attacks. These creepy disembodied hands appear when she uses a slashing attack against her foes. The giant floating version of her head is also very odd; it calls to mind the only other battles that use a floating head above the boss: Zio in Phantasy Star IV. In his case however, the floating head was Dark Force. Combining both of these factors suggests that perhaps Neifirst has a bit of magic power, perhaps even drawing that somehow from Dark Force.



You may view the gallery page for Neifirst's Claw Attack.

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>_>

Nei First: Time to die, you! (claw claw)
Nei: Hey! This really sucks to be on the receiving end of, in hindsight! x_X

Be pretty sweet if you could summon massive hands to slash down things in real life. It would make chopping tress down at lot easier

I always figured that the claw attack was a preliminary version of Rika's Disrupt-skill, which is not truly magical in nature though I'm not sure how exactly it IS pulled off, but it seems to work the same way...through the use of tangible illusions of some kind.

As for the floating head, I think it's an aesthetic thing done purely for dramatic effect. Unlike the other real bosses in the game (Dark Force and Mother Brain, not the Army Eyes), Neifirst is not really large. Most normal enemies are taller than her. The sprite itself doesn't show much detail. So in order to make her appear a more major enemy, you can see a more detailed "closeup" of her floating in the background. This was replicated in the remake of PS2 where you can see a closeup of her face flash by whenever she attacks. Just like those closeups of the main characters that flash by whenever they use their "limit move" in PS:Generation 2, I think the "floating face" is something the player sees, rather than something the characters see.

I don't really see Neifirst as "drawing from Dark Force" in any way...the way I saw it, what made Neifirst unique as a villain was the fact she did not seem to have (nor really seemed to need) affiliation with the darkness. She wasn't a dark spawn like Dark Force or the Xe-a-thouls, nor was she a corrupted human who sold his soul in exchange for power like Zio or Lashiec or a megalomaniac who wanted to take over the world. (like the earthmen) She seemed more interested in "poetic justice" (from her point of view) than destruction purely for the sake of destruction.

Bumping up this former Image Of The Day!

An interesting animation done by Thoul!

Nice claw attack and nice animation !