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This hack fixes everything wrong with the original game. I can finally play it the way I remember it from when I was a child, rather than dealing with the painful, slow, grinding that is baked into the original game. I have been praying for something like this for decades, and it really delivers.

Being an early Mega Drive RPG in 1990, Phantasy Star 2 was groundbreaking, continuing a rich lore set by its predecessor, and as such it had big shoes to fill.

It mostly succeeds at what it was trying to do and it became a hallmark for the series, only possibly beaten by entry number 4, depending on who you ask.

Still, it had many many issues, ranging from a stilted, possibly rushed translation (though it doesn't contradict canon as badly as Phantasy Star 3 did in its English script), terrible levels of grinding required to make any ground, dreadfully confusing dungeons designed to frustrate... a lot of things.

This hack does a lot to bring it more in line with Phantasy Star 4 in terms of pacing thanks to a bevy of bugfixes, script corrections and optional patches, from double experience/meseta gains to Japanese character name approximation patches, there's something for everyone here, making the whole experience much smoother and more personal.

However, and that's my only real gripe with this patch, the encounter rate is still insane, and I would have liked an addendum patch to cut it by 1/2 or even 1/3; there are Game Genie codes that allow the encounter rate to be changed to the player's liking in the vanilla game and I recommend using one of the codes (look them up on Codehut).

Since the ROM is so heavily modified, vanilla codes won't work, so you'll have to use the Game Genie Code Porting Tool by Tony Hedstrom (also hosted on Codehut) to compare the original codes on the vanilla ROM to the modified one so the code can actually work.

All in all, these points aside, this is possibly the best way to play (and, for me personally, now actually enjoy) this Sega classic.

I have been playing this hack for quite some time now, and I am currently getting the Nei weapons.

Overall, this is a great hack. It maintains the story and text as it was, which I personally prefer. The adjustments are well designed, nothing too intrusive, and help make Hugh, Kain and Shir better choices for the endgame. I am currently using a team with all three characters an Rolf, and this is actually manageable which is good.

The small changes to spells are welcome, like Rolf having Anti, which is a no brainer really. Faster walking speed is also nice.

This is a great way to play the game, better than the original. I feel a bit sad that my original cartridge probably won't get any more hours of gameplay, but in the end, it is for the best.

Recommended.

My previous review of Phantasy Star II Improvement was published when the mod was called "Phantasy Star II Proper Caser," so now my review no longer makes sense, heh.

Thanks to Lory's Disassembly, the game has been improved, indeed. This puts it directly on the level with something like Final Fantasy IV or Dragon Quest V. Phantasy Star II has always kind of been consigned to the clunky early era of RPG'ing, and it needed this patch very badly.

The dialogue script has been improved quite nicely while still retaining the general tone and spirit of the original, the fast walking is an absolute must, and the various tweaks to the gameplay make it a lot less frustrating to get through. (I would recommend using Viv's Appendices for reference, as quite a bit about equipment has been changed, but if you dun wanna, it's not a dealbreaker.) The "red flashing" in particular being removable now is something that I had wanted from the time I first played the game back in the 90's.

It would still be nice if there was some way to introduce battle backgrounds or expand on the side characters' role in the story somehow, but as they say, you can't have it all. This is a solid mod that definitely deserves a place in any Game Mod Fan's library.

This patch and the included addenda clean up a number of issues with Phantasy Star II. For my money, though, the big game-changers here are the doubled walking speed and the double experience/meseta gain addendum patch. These, by themselves, eliminate pretty much all of the old-school JRPG tedium of the original, while still maintaining the challenge (Especially if you try and map the game out on your own). Battles are also "snappier", with the animations being faster and there being less time between them. This is especially true if you apply the "eliminate flashing" addendum patch.

The added equipment makes some of the lesser-used characters more viable, particularly Kain, which is great to see. And finally, while this isn't a retranslation patch per se, some of the most egregious errors (The Clone Labs' rationale for not being able to help Nei after fighting Neifirst; Kain's name change question) have been cleaned up, and erroneous control codes/pointers are also eliminated.

In short, this patch and its addenda are the way to play Phantasy Star II today.

This hack fixes everything wrong with Phantasy Star II. If you want to play this game GET THIS HACK. You don't need anything else.

This hack was very pleasing to me. Character balance is essential to any RPG, and this addressed several problems I myself had with the original.

I will say now that I have not completed the game yet with this hack due to lack of time, but only found one pointer error, which was swiftly handled by the author. If the author so wishes, I WILL happily scour the hack top to bottom in-game later on. (Let me know, Vivify :) )

Do I recommend this? Absolutely. Nei in particular felt like a guest character originally, rather than what she is. The hack would be worth it for that alone, nevermind the other various bugfixes and improvements.