Turn your imagination over to a Cosmic Fantasy of epic proportions! Laura has been kidnapped, and you must reach her before it's too late! Cut a swath of destruction through the throng of monsters blocking the path to Galam's hideout to save her. Along the way, make friends, solve puzzles, and learn magic while incing your way toward a confrontation that will shake the cosmos! Interactive fantasy role playing takes on a whole new dimension with the addition of animated intermissions that will get you involved in the story! And what's more, the true RPG-style combat interface will put you right in the action. What are you waiting for?
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(Used a romhack that reverts the difficulty back to how it was in the Japanese release)
Good news, I've outraced the other guy who reviewed this and managed to complete the game before they did! Moreover, I'm led to believe I may be the only one on Backloggd who has reached the credits, seeing as I cannot possibly imagine anyone else being assed enough to complete it unless they have OCD like I do. The bad news? Wasn't worth it!
I've played a decent spectrum of RPG's at this point. Paper Mario, the casual beginner's RPG. Final Fantasy 4, the moderately challenging but still relatively lax RPG. EarthBound, the sometimes-easy sometimes-tough RPG, depends on the current difficulty spike. Final Fantasy Legend II, the brutally punishing RPG. Cosmic Fantasy 2... oh my god, Cosmic Fantasy 2.
It took about 3-4 hours of gameplay to determine that this was the most dull fucking RPG I have ever played in my life, and it never got better. Any lessons that Dragon Quest 3 & 4 should've taught and influenced this entry were taken for granted. No amount of neat little anime cutscenes or the short 12-hour length could've hidden the repetitive and unchanging combat system's flaws.
Think of it this way. Dragon Quest 1 was a pretty mediocre RPG, and that was mainly because it was a solo venture, with no party members to speak of. The limitations allowed for little strategy beyond mashing the attack button and the occasional heal. Later Dragon Quests rectified this problem by providing multiple classes worth of party members to choose from, which allowed for a number of interesting customizable builds that affected how you play the game.
So how the fuck is it that Cosmic Fantasy 2 allows a total of 4 people in your party, and yet winds up feeling about as monotonous as Dragon Quest 1 was? The answer is: The magic blows. Your traditional elemental spells are here, but enemies don't have any weaknesses to speak of. Instead, magic always deals a fixed amount of damage no matter which enemy you use it against, and said damage generally tends to be weaker than just mashing the attack button.
Adding on top of the fact that these offensive spells drain your MP like crazy, you're gonna wind up only using the healing ones. And thus, reveals itself the exciting gameplay loop: "Mash the attack button, and heal occasionally." Even then, you're not gonna be healing all that much, because Inns are plentiful, enemies deal baffingly low amounts of damage (like, 1 or 2 points...) and level ups restore all of your HP and MP to full. So really, it's actually just "mash the attack button." And throw in insanely frequent encounter rates as well, while you're at it. I'm not against an easy RPG, but this takes mindless to a next level.
Also, why were there items that cure status effects despite the fact I never got a single status effect throughout the whole game? I'm... not sure if this is a problem with the romhack or this is just how the game works, but it was super weird.
For a game that has “cosmic” in the title, there is barely any of that. Phantasy Star, this ain’t. Every couple hours or so, you MAY get one cutscene that gives you some spaceships traveling the galaxy, but this stuff is so in the background that it makes me question why is it in the game at all, when most of the actual focus takes place on a generic medieval fantasy island with your usual towns and overworld map. You don't get to shoot laser guns or battle aliens until the last 30 minutes of the game. All of the sci-fi shit is so baffingly in the background, that when it DOES happen, you go “oh, right! I completely forgot this game had space stuff in it!” You might as well just call this game Fantasy 2.
The localization is definitely more competent than most of the RPG's of the time. Even Final Fantasy 4 suffered from a pretty bad one. But as is Working Design's standard, not everything is accurate to the source material. For some reason they gave one of the characters this aggressive French accent, and you're looking at the guy's calm and smiling face as he repeteadly belittles you and you can so fucking tell that whatever this was in the Japanese version, was completely thrown out the window here because somebody thought it'd be funny. Yeah, sure, your fart joke was very funny, Working Designs. Top-notch writing.
No, but really, the story here is kinda par for the course for the early 90's. Trying hard to be something special, but heavily underdeveloped to truly stick the landing. Definitely feels like some context is missing here too, I'm pretty sure there's some cameo characters from the first game here, but obviously, since this was the only localized entry, there's no attachment there.
Listen, unless you grew up with it, just don't play this one. I mean it, there's nothing for you here, and plenty of greater RPG's out there for you instead. Do not make my mistake. Do not fuck around and find out.
Good news, I've outraced the other guy who reviewed this and managed to complete the game before they did! Moreover, I'm led to believe I may be the only one on Backloggd who has reached the credits, seeing as I cannot possibly imagine anyone else being assed enough to complete it unless they have OCD like I do. The bad news? Wasn't worth it!
I've played a decent spectrum of RPG's at this point. Paper Mario, the casual beginner's RPG. Final Fantasy 4, the moderately challenging but still relatively lax RPG. EarthBound, the sometimes-easy sometimes-tough RPG, depends on the current difficulty spike. Final Fantasy Legend II, the brutally punishing RPG. Cosmic Fantasy 2... oh my god, Cosmic Fantasy 2.
It took about 3-4 hours of gameplay to determine that this was the most dull fucking RPG I have ever played in my life, and it never got better. Any lessons that Dragon Quest 3 & 4 should've taught and influenced this entry were taken for granted. No amount of neat little anime cutscenes or the short 12-hour length could've hidden the repetitive and unchanging combat system's flaws.
Think of it this way. Dragon Quest 1 was a pretty mediocre RPG, and that was mainly because it was a solo venture, with no party members to speak of. The limitations allowed for little strategy beyond mashing the attack button and the occasional heal. Later Dragon Quests rectified this problem by providing multiple classes worth of party members to choose from, which allowed for a number of interesting customizable builds that affected how you play the game.
So how the fuck is it that Cosmic Fantasy 2 allows a total of 4 people in your party, and yet winds up feeling about as monotonous as Dragon Quest 1 was? The answer is: The magic blows. Your traditional elemental spells are here, but enemies don't have any weaknesses to speak of. Instead, magic always deals a fixed amount of damage no matter which enemy you use it against, and said damage generally tends to be weaker than just mashing the attack button.
Adding on top of the fact that these offensive spells drain your MP like crazy, you're gonna wind up only using the healing ones. And thus, reveals itself the exciting gameplay loop: "Mash the attack button, and heal occasionally." Even then, you're not gonna be healing all that much, because Inns are plentiful, enemies deal baffingly low amounts of damage (like, 1 or 2 points...) and level ups restore all of your HP and MP to full. So really, it's actually just "mash the attack button." And throw in insanely frequent encounter rates as well, while you're at it. I'm not against an easy RPG, but this takes mindless to a next level.
Also, why were there items that cure status effects despite the fact I never got a single status effect throughout the whole game? I'm... not sure if this is a problem with the romhack or this is just how the game works, but it was super weird.
For a game that has “cosmic” in the title, there is barely any of that. Phantasy Star, this ain’t. Every couple hours or so, you MAY get one cutscene that gives you some spaceships traveling the galaxy, but this stuff is so in the background that it makes me question why is it in the game at all, when most of the actual focus takes place on a generic medieval fantasy island with your usual towns and overworld map. You don't get to shoot laser guns or battle aliens until the last 30 minutes of the game. All of the sci-fi shit is so baffingly in the background, that when it DOES happen, you go “oh, right! I completely forgot this game had space stuff in it!” You might as well just call this game Fantasy 2.
The localization is definitely more competent than most of the RPG's of the time. Even Final Fantasy 4 suffered from a pretty bad one. But as is Working Design's standard, not everything is accurate to the source material. For some reason they gave one of the characters this aggressive French accent, and you're looking at the guy's calm and smiling face as he repeteadly belittles you and you can so fucking tell that whatever this was in the Japanese version, was completely thrown out the window here because somebody thought it'd be funny. Yeah, sure, your fart joke was very funny, Working Designs. Top-notch writing.
No, but really, the story here is kinda par for the course for the early 90's. Trying hard to be something special, but heavily underdeveloped to truly stick the landing. Definitely feels like some context is missing here too, I'm pretty sure there's some cameo characters from the first game here, but obviously, since this was the only localized entry, there's no attachment there.
Listen, unless you grew up with it, just don't play this one. I mean it, there's nothing for you here, and plenty of greater RPG's out there for you instead. Do not make my mistake. Do not fuck around and find out.
this game is a pile of shit, but it's pretty funny so i want to beat it anyway. i come back to it once every month or so, play it for about 20 minutes, and then turn it off only to repeat the cycle.
i will beat cosmic fantasy 2
i will beat cosmic fantasy 2