As a text adventure, this game is primarily text based. All actions are taken through a menu as the player moves a character through the world and interacts with rooms and items in those rooms. The game screen is divided into five sections.

Game Screen

  1. Enemy portraits and cutscenes.
  2. Current character portrait.
  3. Game menu.
  4. Hit Points, Attack Power, and Meseta (MST).
  5. Text box.

As in all Phantasy Star games, Meseta is the currency used to purchase goods. This may include items necessary to finish the game or healing from a shop. Meseta can usually be obtained by completing certain tasks.

Menu

The menu is found on the upper right of the screen, where it remains through the game. The following options are present in the menu.

Move
Selecting this command brings up a graphical menu representing all movement options that are currently available. The movement options are typically some combination of North, South, East, and West. Up and Down options may also be present if the room contains a ladder, stairs, or is an elevator. At some points in the game, you may have no movement options until doing something with the local environment.

Moving the cursor to highlight an option and pressing the confirm button will make the character move to the next room in that direction. When you enter a room for the first time, a description of the room will be displayed.

Look
The Look command, when selected, displays a list of items that you can examine. These will include the Local Area item (that's the current room), any important objects or people in the room, and items in your inventory. Examining an item will display a description of the item. For container items, such as desks or lockers, examining these items with Look may uncover new items you can act on. Look may have other effects on still other objects, as well. If you see something written in yellow text while reading a description, you can usually use Look on that.
Take
With the Take command, you can pick up important items for later use. These items will be placed into your inventory, where you can access them with the Look, Use, and Drop commands. If you can take an item, the item will be named in yellow text when mentioned in the description of the current room or containing object. Such items will also typically be mentioned as being seen, such as "Trimate can be seen," with the item name being yellow.
Use
When you have items in your inventory, the Use command allows you to try applying those items to your surroundings. Sometimes an item will have an affect on the environment; at other times, nothing will happen. Items can be used on other items in your inventory or important objects in the room, such as people.
Drop
If your inventory is too full, you will not be able to use Take to obtain new items. In that case, it is necessary to use the Drop command to discard items you no longer need. When you discard an item with Drop, it remains in the current room. You can use Take to recover the item later, as long as you have access to that room.

Battles

Occasionally, you will encounter an enemy that must be defeated to progress in the game. Battles in the Phantasy Star II Text Adventures are usually quick and simple once you understand the game's fighting mechanics. To attack an enemy, you simply apply an item to the enemy with the Use command.

You'll be able to find weapons during the game. Each weapon has a unique Attack Power value. This is displayed as AP on the screen when you Use the weapon during battle. The first weapon you get will typically have an AP value of 1 or 2, with the most powerful weapon going up to AP 5.

When you attack an enemy, blue dice are rolled onto the screen from the right side. The number of dice you get depends on the power of your weapon. Stronger weapons may have more dice, meaning they can do more damage. The damage dealt is the total on the dice multiplied by the AP of your weapon. So, if you have a Knife with 2 AP, and your dice roll 10, you deal 2 x 10, or 20, damage to the monster.

When an enemy attacks you, red dice are rolled onto the screen from the left side. Different enemies have different numbers of dice. They also have AP multipliers like you, but those numbers are not revealed so it is hard to predict how much damage you might take in advance.

If the total of the dice row is less than five, the attack will miss and no damage will be dealt. This applies for both your character and enemies.

You start the game with 50 Hit Points (or HP). Battles end when your HP or your enemy's HP reach zero. If your HP reaches zero, it's Game Over, unless a special condition allows you to continue the game. That's very rare, though. There is no way to recover HP during a battle or to increase your maximum HP. You can leave the room an enemy is in at any time, however, so do not be afraid to run away if an enemy proves too powerful for you. If you do get into a situation where you cannot easily defeat an enemy, chances are you need to obtain a better weapon or another item to even the odds.

In some battles, you can use special items, other than weapons, to defeat an enemy or drive it away.