So, I decided to replay Phantasy Star 4--haven't played it in years, so I figured why not?
In general, the game's aged surprisingly well, largely due to a number of things I feel it does right--both from a game design perspective and a writing perspective. Still a 9/10 game to me, which puts it up there with WA4. However, I'll spare the gushing, and instead look over how this playthrough went, complete with character/dungeon/boss analysis.
-Chaz largely lagged behind for a large portion of the game. Poor guy missed out on sandworm EXP, which hurt, and money issues led to me skimping on armor at points. Add that to the fact that Airslash is his only MT aside from Zan(which...sucks massively outside of combos), and he's actually pretty terrible for dungeons, with his TP pool relegated to out-of-battle healing prior to acquiring Githu. Awesome as hell for bosses, though most everything not named Crosscut tends not to get time of day (High power, buffable, Skill, and high charges? Ow), with Dark Force 1 being a notable exception (Githu outdamaged it by about 40-50 or so). Lagged a good bit after Lashiec until the final, where Elsydeon and Pow-Shield itemcast leads to 500+ damage Crosscuts. Damn.
-Alys was, as you could expect, a Jeigan. Largely helped the party Not Die during the earlygame, and then kind of fell off. Didn't even get much use out of Death, given that she learned it right before Juza. Her offense fell off in terms of effectiveness rather quickly as well, which made her major contributions during bossfights amount to Shift, Saner, and Vortex use (post-Shift). Much more someone for clearing randoms than fighting bosses, though she showcases PS4 buffs quite well, and Rika picks up where she left off with Saner. Shift...less so until a good deal later. Leaves the party before she becomes too much of a drag, really, which is probably for the best.
-Hahn was the anti-Alys. Where Alys got worse over time, Hahn got a LOT better over that same time--and left before you could really wreck things with him. Was at his worst during the Bio-Plant, but destroyed most everything else. Consistent damage-dealer for most bosses, and was MVP against the sandworm. Randoms got Vol'd. Unless they were robots. Hahn does not like robots. Hahn really does not like robots.
-Gryz was...better than I gave him credit for, at least. Brose was an unreliable option, but an option nonetheless, against groups of robots. Crash, on the other hand, turned out to be reliable ID. I'm still not a fan of his setup, but it is functional, at least. Overall, however, he felt quite lackluster throughout. Didn't really stand out at any point.
-Rika...uh...hell. Aside from her low level being compensated for with good starting gear, she was easily MVP for the second half of the game. Sandworm kill got her literally seven levels. She filled her usual heal/support niche prior to Myst Vale. After getting the Silver Tusk, however, she became primary boss-slayer up until the final, just about; Every single boss from Zio onwards, with the exception of the Rainbow Rebellion Revolutionaries, is weak to Holy. Shift+Silver Tusk+Doubleslash spam gave her damage output similar to or better than Chaz up until Rykros--and it keeps her relevant in the final battle as well (400+ damage Doubleslashes? Yes please)
-The short segment of the game Demi was with you for was particularly suited to her abilities--two dungeons of robots, and two bossfights. Medic Power's a good panic button on top of that, and she gets good durability with her gear upgrades. She's...okayish for Ladea (Stasisbeam being what it is), but overall largely there for showing off androids before you get Wren. Pity, I'd have liked to see her diverge from Wren a little more at the end, too. By endgame, Phonomezer has a decent number of shots, but that's her only anti-boss offensive option--the rest is defensive on her part.
-Wren specializes in...well, being impossible to kill. No, really. He's immune to ID that isn't Spark, has far more HP than anyone else in the game, and has no fewer than twenty shots of full self-healing. When he's NOT regenerating what damage he takes out of combat, at that. His offense is...well, it's consistent. A bit anemic when it comes to the higher values, but consistently decent--Flare's a go-to for bosses and works for the entire game, but Burst Rocket doesn't get much higher and Positron Bolt only gets one shot, usually. He's definitely good against robots, though--Spark and Hyper Jammer are effective weapons there. Overall, he's more notable for not dying most of the time, though; even on my first playthrough, he was almost always the last to go.
-Raja is given a lot of crap in duels given his poor speed and lack of offense--which in-game, yeah. You're not looking to him to have anything resembling relevant offense barring one fight: Dark Force 1, where St. Fire is your first taste of 300+ damage unless you grind up to get Rayblade. But he's a support god in theory. In practice...he largely just amounts to a pool of easy healing so you can save TP on Rika for bossfight emergencies. Don't get me wrong, Blessing is fairly awesome support, as is Ataraxia, but he's not in enough fights that make that support count. Holyword only really applies on Piercers (and Zombies if you head to Reshel), so his skillset is...very, very wasted for the time you have him.
-Kyra, on the other hand, translates a lot better to the DL than her in-game performance would state. Having a second Hewn user is nice and all, but what she has doesn't translate too well to in-game; Telele and Bindwa are useless on bosses, and you have her for three. She's behind on damage despite having free MT from Slashers, and her Technique progression frankly sucks; by the time you get her, she's got Gifoi and Gra. Rune's basically been a step ahead of her as far as both Techniques and Skills go. She generally falters on offense, and especially against bosses, but has a few uses. First being using her as a between-battle heal-battery; between Res spells, her TP pool, and Medice being a generous pool of Nares spells, she can handle any single-target healing well enough. Second is abusing Warla, which isn't Blessing, but it's still Deban+. Other than that...her offense is really not good, and I have the feeling she may've been meant to have some better spells or join earlier. Ah well. Hewn's still good to have more of.
Dungeons:
Nothing was really competent until Tonoe Basement, where my lack of armor upgrades kind of caught up with me. So sue me, I was pressed for cash at that point and didn't want to grind. Similarly, ended up inadvertedly grinding in Bio-Plant less out of a want, and more of having to make several trips through because party members kept dying and I needed to get out. As for the rest:
Zio's Fort--3 trips. Saber-type enemies now have my undying hate for their flagrant abuse of Airslash.
Plate System--Ow. Even with Medic Power, I had to make two trips and still got to the end with only half my party alive.
Ladea Tower--Two trips. Didn't feel I could take on Gy-Laguiah on my first run after having expended so much TP and my use of Medic Power.
Nurvus--Two trips. TP was getting low, though I could've probably done it in one. See my bit on Zio for more.
Dezolis Wilderness/Hangar--LOL
Kuran--Raja made this an easy one-trip stop. Didn't run from many fights that weren't Command Ball/Floatmine groups.
Climatrol, Weapons Plant--One trip each. Burst Rocket was probably not worth the trip, and Star Drones are notably obnoxious.
Air Castle--This is where the difficulty steps up, a lot, and with this being the only dungeon with one, nevermind two recovery points, it shows. Frostsabers my most hated enemy still. Bastards. Chaos Sorcerers amusingly drop Moon Dews on occasion.
Garuberk Tower--Longer than any of the three "segments" of Air Castle, and with similarly annoying enemies. D-Elm-Lars and Radhins can both die in a fire--at least the latter are stupid enough to cast Shift on themselves and each other repeatedly rather than spam Forceflash. Oh, and Frostsabers are back.
Fort Vahal--Ultimate Wren weapon yay! Ultimate Wren skill yay! Ran the hell away from Vorpal Spheres. Last fight with robots in this game, really, and it was a bit of a step down from Garuberk, though that's not saying much.
Island Cave--Breather dungeon. Seth makes it a joke, all said and done; Deathspell Fract Oozes, Corrosion everything else, steal his Laconia Circlet and Cyber-Suit before Soldier's Temple.
Rykros--Both dungeons are the same, don't feel they warrant separate entries: Twinarms are as obnoxious as Sabers, what with Bladeshine. Gi-Le-Fargs are similarly obnoxious. Oh, and then there's Bloodsabers. Saber-type enemies, only with Vol as well. Joy.
The Edge--Didn't really stand out too much. Soldrfiends are as obnoxious as Twinarms, only they also have Vol, not much else stood out.
Bosses:
Igglanova: LOL
Sandworm: Not officially a boss, but it's worth putting on the list given the Guild sidequest and how it's one of two bossfights to give me a wipe in this run. Sandworm fight is brutal because he vastly outdamages your healing, and you have no real tricks to actually get around him, so it's largely a slugfest. Chaz and Gryz died. Rika got seven levels off of the experience. Had to use Wat as well as Shifted Vortex to deal most of the damage on it.
Juza: So glad he didn't spam Forceflash. Largely got beat down, though Shifted Vortex came into play so Alys could still do damage. This fight really depends on how much the AI likes you, since if it wants to, it'll spam Forceflash and rip your party a new one.
Gy-Laguiah: Barrier+Deban = lol. Single-target bosses in this game that aren't Sandworm aren't that competent.
Zio: Zio is a lot less good than I remember, though part of this was that his AI massively favored Hewn and Corrosion, and he didn't use Black Wave at all. Perhaps I got lucky there. Amusingly, Chaz got Githu right -after- this fight.
Dark Force 1: Dark Force is brutal if you don't take advantage of Raja's massive amount of healing and his insanely powerful Blessing spell. Otherwise, he's actually kind of mediocre. Githu and Giwat were my spells of choice there; Gigra was too expensive for what it did (though it's always entertaining to watch) and Githu outdamaged Shifted Crosscut by a good 40-50 points.
Xe-A-Thoul Trio: Ow. Oh god ow. I still have nightmares about those guys spamming Gizan. No resets, but I blew 3 Star Dews on their Gizan spam. I normally find that line of spells pathetic, but they make it...not suck. Their physicals and Giwat spells hurt like hell too. Bastards.
Lashiec: Where Zio was less good than I remember, Lashiec was a hell of a lot better than I remembered. Thunder Halberd, despite what the lying stat topic says, is physical. Lightning-elemental strong MT physical that 2HKOs everyone -through- Warla. Anothergate was the weaker attack. If it weren't for the fire weakness and that he uses Reinforce at a really low amount of HP, I'd say he's the most competent boss in the game bar none. As is? He's still in the running for it. Oh, and I used the last of my Star Dews up to the point on his fight.
Dark Force 2: Fun little trend. Three of the five hardest bosses in the game come at the end of the hardest dungeons. Anyway, I derped a bit and forgot that Pow-Shield casts Shift--if I didn't I could get Rika buffed sooner instead of waiting to buff Chaz so he can Crosscut better. Still a badass. Durable, Lightshower is like a magical Thunder Halberd, and Shadowbreath wrecks people like little else at this point in the game. And he -loves- to spam the former. Ended the fight with Rika and Kyra both dead, though the former was clocking around 400 with Doubleslash. And she gets a TON of it.
King Rappy: Never used Earthquake. Takes 300+ damage from Nafoi. LOL.
Dominator Trio: Takes 300+ damage from Tandle. Vulnerable to Hyper Jammer. LOL.
Dark Force 3: Easy dungeon, but he's up against a party of four and even nastier. Whatever his MTL stat is, it's clearly jacked up to insane levels given how much damage Corrosion does. Hilariously, Rika does terrible things to him with Shifted Doubleslash, especially with the Silver Tusk. Put my resources to the limit, though, and I think one or two of my party members were dead at the end.
De-Vars: De-Vars is simple. He hurts like hell if you don't know his trick (anything other than a basic physical prompts a counterattack Disrupt Arm). He's an absolute -joke- if you do. Beaten into submission with little effort.
Sa-Lews: And the other Rainbow Revolutionary managed to get the honors of the other wipe in the game--went before Wren could cast Barrier, used Tandle, vaporized Rika and Rune on the spot, knocked Wren down to 60 HP and Chaz down to 17 or so. Ow. Hell of a lot more competent in moveset than its Strength Tower counterpart, and it shows.
Profound Darkness: I'll be honest, I kind of had to cheese this fight. I did not have the resources to actually keep up Rika's healing, especially with the fact that Hatbot gave me Kyra, who...well, when someone's not good at offense in a bossfight and you're picking based on who can fight the insanely durable final boss...yeah. That aside, PD's big problem isn't offense output; with defenses up, Megid isn't much stronger than other GT attacks from previous bosses, and Phase 2's Lightshower is...unimpressive now that Wren takes 0.75x lightning damage. The real threat is that you're almost guaranteed to run out of resources unless you're overleveled--unless you splurged your now otherwise useless Meseta on Star Dews in Meese.
...in which case that plus Guard Rod will steal the show and trivialize PD.
Overall, definitely a fun game, and one that's aged quite well. ...now, the question stands if I should try playing the Hell Mode hack I've heard a bit about?
