Status Chovus Jun 9, 2026
Been many years since I last played this on pc emulator, and it remains one of the most dear and nostalgic games of all time. This time I played it on PSP and ran into a few problems. Other than the usual memory leak that required reloading the game every 30 min or so, it froze a few times and …
Been many years since I last played this on pc emulator, and it remains one of the most dear and nostalgic games of all time. This time I played it on PSP and ran into a few problems. Other than the usual memory leak that required reloading the game every 30 min or so, it froze a few times and twice went to black screen and would not progress. The 1st was after a battle in lava dome and I fixed it by resetting and loading a hard save instead of using save states. The other was right after beating the final boss, and I was not able to get past that. Finished at level 33 while missing the best shield. I also still have my maxed out save.
I went through fighting as few battles as possible, unless they were easy to kill enemies like those weak to axe. I actually got game over during the very 1st fight due to a random miss followed by enemy crit. I wonder how low those odds were. The brown chests only had generic supplies that were infinite and were not really worth fighting for. I did clear every battlefield despite this feature being a little tedious, especially when the reward was just xp or money. Most of the game was a little on the too easy side, especially considering how the companions almost always started off overpowered. It was fun treating combat as more of a puzzle, like how to most quickly or efficiently win by exploiting weaknesses and minimizing wasted ammo or spells. The starter sword was severely under ultized because nothing was ever weak to sword or strong vs the other weapon types. I would have liked if it was the best choice on occasion, for example if swords prevented counter attacks. Instead the axe was just superior and was the most used weapon for almost half the game. Bombs did much higher damage but spread that out amongst all enemies, so they were better against single targets. I owned the skeletal dragon boss with cure, though I found that was not really worth using on later undead over black nukes or attacking. I loved the claw weapons but the basic claw was not worth using. It could poison but I never seen it paralyze, unlike the 2nd claw which offered useful crowd control during the fire act. The knight sword was another barely used weapon, and quickly made obsolete by the purchased battle axe. Both better bombs found significant use when there were 2 enemies and Reuben killed 1 first. Unfortunately as I leveled up to him and beyond he no longer always went first so bombs were no longer reliable. I had a few losses, most often from petrification. Especially from the battlefield right after the volcano erupted which was 2 of the weaker medusas with them getting first strike every time. The wind act was where the challenge increased to a more engaging level. Tristan could only 1 shot ghosts so the short time with him was difficult. Kaeli made it easy again for a short while due to her having wind, the weakness of most enemies in this act, but the challenge went back up soon enough. The best axe was only useful against axe weak enemies because the dragon claw was so good, my favorite weapon in the game. It did less damage but randomly insta killed some enemies, so I often planned battle tactics around that. Even the best sword was lacking compared to this and really only useful for boss fights if I didn't want to use mp restore. I used magic liberally during the end game and still barely used any mp restore items. I would say the challenge would be good with no restorative items at all and maybe triple hp for enemies. Both hp and status recover potions were redundant with magic, and I had to look up refresher to see what it did. It restored stat decreases from enemies, which was in no way worth spending a turn to fix. I do wonder why there was no life item. It is interesting to compare the companions for the end game. You got Phoebe whose normal attack was much worse than Reuben and Kaeli, but hit hard against chimera and the bird man boss. She only had fire and ice black magic, lacking wind which would have been helpful, and her wizard spells were great. Kaeli only had wind with no wizard spells while Reuben only had life and white. Phoebe was definitely the best most versatile companion for the end, and even though I prefer blondes, Kaeli wins most attractive due to her long flowing red hair, princess tiara and warm nurturing personality.
I remember the sense of wonder I had for this game, how it seemed much larger than it was due to the hidden paths, teleporters and suspicious dead ends. Like there could have been secret areas with better treasure, optional super dungeons and bosses, or who knows what. Overall it was a simple, easy and enjoyable adventure that probably would be more fun with self imposed challenge restrictions or a hard mode mod.
7.5/10
