Light Fantasy II (ライトファンタジーII), launched 10/27/1995, developed by Tonkin House

I’ve been dreading this since I performed the unique Light Fantasy years in the past as one of many first video games I did on the weblog. The unique sport was horrendously unhealthy; one of many worst designed video games I’ve ever performed and contender for the one worst RPGs on the system and one of many worst RPGs ever made. It’s nearly unplayable — the one motive it’s not is which you can exploit a glitch to show random encounters on and off, and there’s a trick you need to use with a playing sport to make as a lot cash as you want. Using each of these you will get by the sport pretty shortly.

This sport improves on the unique to the purpose the place it’s playable, but it surely’s for much longer. Basically it went from a brief, unplayably unhealthy sport, to an extended, nonetheless very unhealthy sport.

The battle system is similar as the primary one, with the grid SRPG-style. The annoying motion ranges that the unique sport had are made considerably higher, and also you don’t miss as usually as you probably did within the first sport. But the pots the enemies depart nonetheless block your motion, and the entire system continues to be very sluggish.

The standing results are nonetheless an enormous drawback with the sport. There are a bunch of them (much more than the primary sport) and most don’t go away on the finish of a battle or sleeping at an inn. So it’s a must to carry round a variety of standing heal gadgets or have the standing heal spells — the stock is way bigger this time and you may stack gadgets, which helps a bit. But so many enemies have spells that focus on everybody on the board and trigger devastating standing results.

Basically you need to do the identical factor as in Light Fantasy 1 — keep away from the vast majority of the sport’s encounters (since any random encounter can present a sport over), and solely struggle at sure factors with pretty simple monsters to degree up. The stability is everywhere, with one dungeon having enemies that aren’t very onerous and provides good XP, and the subsequent dungeon having enemies that may give you a sport over earlier than you get a flip, however give virtually no XP.

I used a no-encounter cheat code for a lot of the sport. I additionally used a cheat code that makes the quick strolling spell everlasting (it’s annoying to see a late 1995 sport require you to make use of gadgets or spells to quickly stroll quick). I additionally used a cash cheat to purchase issues. There’s most likely a dialogue available whether or not I ought to merely skip the sport relatively than use all these cheats to win, however I’m nonetheless following the previous guidelines I set down for myself though I’ve hardly ever needed to interrupt them as a lot as I did for this sport.

The interface is annoying. As you would possibly anticipate, you can not see stats of weapons or armor in outlets or within the menu. There’s no manner in-game to struggle out what a spell does, and so they have names like “gongon” and “yura”. At least the spells don’t take as a lot MP as they did within the first sport, so that you’re freer to make use of them (and a degree up restores all MP and HP).

As within the first sport, you may kind your social gathering by inviting a variety of random individuals in cities — canines, mermaids, demons, individuals — and you may as well invite monsters from battle. As with the primary sport, this is able to be a neat function if the battle system have been really enjoyable.

The sport takes place a number of hundred years after the primary one, with one other “jiyuu no yuusha” (Hero) who has to energy up the Earth Sword to have the ability to defeat an evil goddess and save the world. What has elevated the size a lot is the unbelievable quantity of backtracking it’s a must to do, and the sheer variety of fetch quests. You are continually being diverted and digressed — you want merchandise X however to get that you just want Y, and to get that you just want Z, however whereas getting Z you come throughout a baby who has misplaced his father so we’ve to go search for the daddy and to try this we’d like merchandise A however to get that B…I’m not even actually exaggerating with this description. The majority of the sport has no feeling of any form of ahead motion, and the ability ups of the Earth Sword are largely completed as a result of we blunder throughout the spirits in the middle of these fetch quests.

If you performed this sport fully straight with no cheats, I believe it could take within the 40-70 hour vary, and 20-25 of these hours could be backtracking by locations. There isn’t any city warp or dungeon warp spell, and variety of the cities you must go to are by dungeons. So any time the sport wants you to go to that city it’s a must to undergo the entire dungeon once more. Sometimes it’s a must to go to the city, after which be taught in regards to the fetch quest, stroll again by the dungeon to get out, get your merchandise for the fetch quest, then go all the best way again by the dungeon to the city once more, and out once more.

Many of the dungeons are just like the above, requiring you to make use of gentle spells or torches which solely provide you with a small viewing space. This makes the entire dungeon backtracking half much more annoying.

The story is fairly fundamental. The hero is the descendant (I believe) of the hero from the primary sport. At the start monsters are following him, and three girls flip him right into a child and sacrifice themselves to avoid wasting him. So for the primary half you’re a child who can equip armor and weapons; it’s not likely defined how you’ll be able to assault.

As the sport progresses, Ash (the default identify) ages — apparently the infant kind is a illustration of his weak spirit, and as he will get extra heroic he turns into an grownup. Early within the sport we be taught that Lefina, who Ash desires to avoid wasting, is being held by The Goddess. We must energy up the Earth Sword with all of the spirits to have the ability to enter the towers that may open the best way to the place the Goddess is. This early plot improvement is then adopted by the 70% of the sport or so that’s simply fetch quest after fetch quest.

Eventually we acquire entry to the towers and open the best way to the floating citadel the place The Goddess is. Using the assistance of a scientist we get shot out of a cannon into the citadel after which must beat quite a lot of bosses. The bosses are fairly troublesome — there’s a magic spell that drains all their MP which helps quite a bit, and in case you’re dishonest and have 99 elixirs that’s sufficient therapeutic energy to beat it, besides I bought a few sport overs after I wasn’t fast sufficient to heal. I can not think about how painful this sport could be to play with no assist in any respect.

It seems that Mink, a woman who misplaced her reminiscence and has been accompanying you, is definitely the Darkness Spirit that the Goddess created. But she turns in opposition to the Goddess, provides the darkish energy to the sword, and releases Lefina, who completes the Earth Sword with the sunshine energy. Then you struggle the ultimate boss.

On my first strive, the boss killed the principle character in a single hit. The second time after I drained its MP there was some form of glitch and he or she didn’t take any turns for the remainder of the struggle so I used to be in a position to simply use spells till she died. She apologizes for being jealous of the hero and tells us to inform everybody on this planet that she was sorry. The hero makes use of the sword to restore all of the harm, we return and heal varied those that had been sick for the entire sport, after which Kurisu goes off on a brand new journey.

After the credit you may to go the Development Village the place the sport designers are. Unfortunately you may’t struggle and kill them.

To sum up, this can be a actually terrible sport — absolutely one of many worst RPGs ever made. The builders ought to all be ashamed of placing this sport available on the market and Tonkin House must be ashamed of getting revealed it, particularly in 1995 lower than a month earlier than Dragon Quest VI. I resent that I needed to play it and write about it. There isn’t any approach to talk by textual content how painful an expertise it’s to play this. If I had to decide on to play Light Fantasy 1 or 2 once more I might positively do 1 — this sport took 25 hours, and that was with following a walkthrough, not spending a variety of time speaking to random individuals in cities, and utilizing all of the cheats I described earlier.