If you thought that was bad on the backlogging, I've been backlogging since the late 1990's. I still have PC games probably from the late 90's still in their retail box, which I never either started or finished.

I still have games like Area 51 (and its sequel), never ever installed them once!
But on which planet was it parked on? ;)

I seem to have my yearly Cossacks period and have been playing way too much of that. Works perfectly,

Dude, where's my car? ;)

atm phoenix point it is way better than xcom chimera squad
soon the new c&c repixelling

best (c)movie ever! ordering chinese has never be so much fun

No hurt teh kittuhs. o.0

imma hurt every kitty in reach if i have to discover that all of mah buggies past year are responsible becoz i DID not understand dx 12 or 64 bitttt!!!

Just beat Phantasy Star 3. (Generation Skip route, so I was using Aron.)

Even better, I managed to defeat Dark Force without Gires; the only techniques used were Ner (bet you thought that tech was useless) and Fanbi; I healed via Force/Royal vest (it helps when the Royal Vest user gets to act first). No consumables used, and no healing techs used (except for Rever via Force Vest, but not TP used here).

It's fun finding unorthodox strategies for dealing with bosses, especially when it involves techniques that pretty much nobody ever uses.

(Still don't have good uses for Shu, Shiza, and Deban.)

I have literally no clue what you are talking about but it does sound a bit amazing. congratulations with succeeding


Personally this has been RTS sunday with Ashes of Singularity and Homeworld Deserts of Kharak.

there is a bit of a inconvienence with Ashes. previously the system had a lot of trouble using the resources of the system it would operate in. that part is fixed luckely but now if i leave the game i really feel a bit distorted in the eye sight section of the game. Certainly not recommended to play forward if this leaves me with afried brain effect

no biggies in desert of kharak, in mission 4 atm and feeling really tense with an enemy carrier approaching my system, a map setup where my own carrier can't support its forces, the distance between both groups is quite large not to mention the low resources i already had ( force persistency throughout a casual played campaign can work up some difficulties ) hoping i can either defeat the base 2night or face an all out restart which i would need to use to reconfigure forces and the use of quick buttons.... 3 groups of light attack vehicles 2 groups armored 2 groups long range etc

The strategy I ended up using, after a few false attempts where I didn't use Ner at all, is as follows, starting from a save state right before the boss:
* At the start, Wren uses Ner on Laya to speed her up, while Kara uses the Royal Bandanna (which casts Ner 10 when used, and is sold in the one dome you don't ever have to visit if you marry Lena instead of Maia). Laya and Mieu use Fanbi on Wren to boost his attack with the Pulse Vulkan. Aron just attacks, since he doesn't have anything else worth doing with my setup and no-Gires rule.
* I do a bit more of this, except that I start having Wren attack to deal with the hands, and switch to using Fanbi on Miew (better for damaging the body).
* Once Laya has been hit by Ner enough times, she is fast enough to act before anyone else. Therefore, if I need to heal, I have her use the Royal Vest (Nasak 50, kills her but heals the rest of the party, and unlike the technique this item works reliably) and other characters use Force Vests (Rever 10) on her; hence, the only thing that can go wrong with healing is for the Force Vests to fail.
* (Note that being killed and revived does not undo stat boosts in this game.)

Some other thoughts:
* If I'm going to disallow Gires, perhaps specializing in Rever and using that might be a good idea; should be more reliable than Force Vests.
* Having Wren specialize in Ner would have helped, as well.
* If the main character is Sean or Crys, this version of Kara lacks healing techniques, but you could just have her be the Royal Vest user. (Interestingly enough, she actually does get Nasak, but again the item works better than the spell.)
* Also, don't forget that Sean and Crys get Time techniques, and therefore can also cast Ner. (Note that I was using Aron because he's the only final main character who the Generation Skip route works with.)
* Could also get more Royal Bandannas, but they're expensive.

Anyway, I started over, with the goal of doing Sean's route (which is the longest), and replaying Generation 1 to see how much of a difference buying good armor early (when healing resources are still scarce) makes.

Phantasy Star series is an old-school style turn-based RPG in a sci-fi setting. Think like say Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior (AKA Dragon Quest), but in a sci-fi setting. It's a mix of fantasy, magic/tech, swords, guns, armor, robots, monsters, and other cool sci-fi stuff.

This series was popular in the late 80's and also the 90's.

Phantasy Star 2,3,4 are in the Sega Genesis Collection / Mega Drive Collection these days, which have been on Amazon Digital PC service (DRM-FREE) and also Steam. If you have any of these, check them out - they're great.

hmm, the story sounds really intricate... as told by the mean women, for only 99 cents i guess i can take a look, expected this to be some console thing... which it is but then on the pc...

Phantasy Star stories is great at storytelling, character development, writing, and all of that stuff.

If you appreciate that stuff - yeah, you'll probably like PS series.

Granted, it's all written and not voice-acted b/c stuff of that era didn't get that treatment regularly yet (Gothic 1 and Oblivion kind of ushered the "AAA games will voice-act everything in a RPG" era in).

As far as each Phantasy Star game is concerned:

Phantasy Star 1 is a Sega Master System (unlike its sequels, which are on the Sega Genesis). It has you exploring three planets, and it has a medieval fantasy feel (particularly on the earth-like planet) despite there being things like guns and space travel. In particular, there's magic (instead of the techniques found in later games) and you do fight things like dragons (IIRC), plus there's a floating castle. It's also interesting in that it has a female main character (unlike the rest of the series) and one of your party members is a cat. The dungeons are first person, like in games like Wizardry and Bard's Tale, and there's no automap.

Phantasy Star 2 feels more like science fiction, and the setting feels almost like a dystopia (not something you really see that often in RPGs). It's the only game in the series where you have freedom over which party members you use. It does, however, suffer from being rather difficult and what some would call "grindy". There's also the fact that the game's balance feels a bit rough, with some characters being more useful than others, some strange decisions in this regard, as well as a few things that smell like errors (like having two tiers of a monster family switched so that the one you encounter first isn't a fair fight and what should be the strongest dagger having the lowest attack power of all of them). The game also features a major spoiler, and the ending is rather odd.

Phantasy Star 3, often considered the black sheep of the series, takes place in what appears to be a medieval fantasy setting. It is the only game in the series to not take place in the Algol solar system. It also features a multi-generation system, where you can choose who you want to marry at two points during the game, and the game path branches. (Hint: Marrying Maia will result in a longer game than if you marry Lena instead.) It also has an interesting way of handling techniques (which results in you getting both resurrection and multi-target healing when you get your first technique user, along with an instant-death attack). The biggest issues with this game are the slow walk speed, lack of any form of fast travel (even PS2 had fast travel of some sort), and the large amount of backtracking you have to do (there's a passage you have to go through 4 times in the first generation, for example).

Phantasy Star 4 is generally considered the best game in the series, and it's the most accessible. The game feels far more polished than its predecessors, and it's actually pretty well balanced, albeit the easiest game in the series. As far as the setting, it has a bit of a star wars vibe, with high technology and magic co-existing, and yes there are droids (even a couple party members are droids). This particular game is also the most scripted game in the series, with a fair amount of cutscenes, though they're often just artwork and text that you can quickly go through if you want. There are also a lot of references to earlier games in the series.

Edit: It is probably worth noting that these games (especially 4) would be classified as JRPGs.