First Impressions on Sega Frontier ala Phantasy Star II

The 8-bit and 16-bit video game consoles where a huge part of my childhood and adolescence. While I played quite a bit of NES and SNES, it was the Sega Genesis that I could play on a regular basis. I have many fond memories of playing Sonic the Hedgehog along with JRPGs such as the Shining Force and Phantasy Star series. While I do have a retro Genesis player, I don't use it as often as I would like; and I don't have immediate access to the aforementioned JRPGs. The urge to play them has become strong with this one.


Needless to say, Sega unveiling its Sega Frontier has me quite excited!


A quick primer is Sega will be releasing its library of games as apps for both iOS and Android under the umbrella of Sega Frontier over, hopefully, the next couple years. They are free although I guess they're will be in-game app purchases and one can pay in order to due a local save instead of saving via the cloud. More on that in a bit.


Remember how I stated the Phantasy Star series I had hankering to play? Well, Phantasy Star II was among the initial releases. To cut the suspense, I downloaded the game, like, yesterday.


Without further ado, here are my first impressions:


While I played Phantasy Stars 3, 4, and 1, I never really played 2. So there's that. I can now cross Phantasy Star 2 off my to-play list. There is/was a bit of a learning/remembering curve as I try remember some elements of the series as well become familiar with an older set up. Haven't gotten to far into the game, although I did add the third member to my party. But I suppose that's a subject for a later blog post.


Anyway, the console emulator is adequate enough. I can play the game just fine on my smartphone. More than occasionally I will accidentally press a button on my phone, which causes the screen to minimize and the game pauses. Probably because my hands are too big for the console emulator on my smartphone. A tablet may have sufficient size that such errors don't occur. One day I may investigate the possibility of a Bluetooth controller further down the road as pressing buttons does get distracting and the "control pad" isn't quite a precise. Yes, it works enough for PS2. However, controlling the characters is jerky enough that one can trigger more fight encounters than otherwise. Granted, that could just be me.


Phantasy Star 2 is also the first game I've played on my smartphone so it requires some getting used to. I find I don't have a desire to play for long periods of time. That can make grinding (ie seeking random combats for more xp and currency) difficult. Fortunately, Sega Forever allows Cloud Saves that unlike the original game can occur at any time.


The catch with the cloud saves is that one needs to watch ads and there's a bit of lag. So you're going to want to a good Wi-Fi connection. As I wasn't using data, I have no idea how data saving on the cloud consumes.


Overall, as a nostalgic gamer who isn't going to game for hours at a time, my first impressions on playing Phantasy Star II via Sega Frontier app umbrella on my phone has been quite positive. There's quite a bit of Phantasy Star II in my future; and I look forward to future Sega Frontier releases.


Happy Gaming!