I've played all the Phantasy Stars to death, but none more than PS2. I got it back when I was a wee lad and it took me literally years to complete. (Card tower in Piata seriously did take me about 2 years to notice when I was about 5 years old.)
Anyway, I was about to have another go through the game, and felt like a change. And decided i'd do a solo run through the game. Basically this involved killing Nei at the earliest opportunity and not recruiting anybody else into the party, only using Rolf from start to finish. Only exceptions to the rule were using a Moondew on Nei just before the Climatrol boss as otherwise, I wouldn't be able to continue.
I was expecting it to be very difficult, but was actually surprised to find it easier (!) in many respects to a normal run!
The first thing I noticed, was attacks that can hit the whole group (Such as Blaster special or the lasers coming off the tree guys) Tend to have very low accuracy on a single character. Fights against Momo/sono/attmechs go very smoothly, often coming out with no damage taken even after 5 rounds of combat.
Secondly, only having to gear up one character meant you were often, if not always very well equipped. Two ceramic knifes were very easy to acquire before Nido tower and to my relief, I encountered no Blasters.
Biosystems were a pain, but due to gaining exp at 4x the usual rate, Rolf was hard enough to make it through. Gaining the Maruera Leaves took me 2 nights to achieve, but in the end wasn't anything too difficult.
I should note by this point I'm playing it on the Genesis, so abuse of save states and hacks are a no-no (How it should be!).
Visiphone also isn't available to me, because as far as I know Shir needs to be level 10 to steal it and no character except Rolf has recieved any experience.
Something usefull inside Climatrol, Blastoids. Same graphic as a Pulser or Blaster but they're blue and green. Hit very low, only 2-4 and have a chance to make a copy of themselves just like slugmess do, if there's a free adjacecent spot. The clone has the same HP as the one it came off of. So basically, if you kill all except one, and get it to within 1 hit of dying. Defend until it duplicates, maybe even let it duplicate further onto its other side. Then proceed to 1 hit kill 2 of them. Rinse and repeat as much as neccesary, recieving full Exp and Meseta from every clone. About 10 minutes of this turns into something like 18,000 experience points. VERY handy when at Climatrol Level. Anyway, carrying on!
The battle against NeiFirst was very enjoyable. It wasn't overly difficult, but at the same time, did take a few attempts. And after having such a hard time of it when I was smaller, it felt like an accomplishment getting that far on a solo run (Which I had feelings may have been one of the harder moments of the game.)
The dams started giving me trouble. The robots start to hit hard, and many of them have insane defence. Although after playing around and dying for a while (3 Firgammas' were a death wish on the solo run, the 2 Kilgamma encounters weren't fun either. Infact...f*ck the Gammas.)
Then came a gamechanging discovery to me (Turns out pretty much everyone apart from me noticed it though!). 3 items, Crescegear (or Truthslvs/ Aegis) The Storm Gear and the Snow Crown.
They cast GiRes, GiZan (A special version hitting ALL onscreen enemies, not just a group) and Deban in that order. Making the game pretty much impossible to die in, all the way into dezo and through the towers collecting the Nei items. Taking less than half damage, and being able to heal 60 hp for free kept me outhealing...well everything to be honest. Even an encounter of 2 archdragons do less than 60 damage per turn after abuse of the Snowcrown.
Anyway! Now onto my problem. As you may of guessed...Darkforce has me pumped. I'm actually starting to doubt as to whether its going to be possible at all. Im pretty confident I can take Motherbrain easily, but its the fact he turns Rolf evil I cant keep up any healing due to no other party members being there.
Sorry to dribbling on for wayyyyy too long, but thought i'd add a bit of history to it
Basically, Im boned. Im currently level 40, and if it's just a case of getting insane levels, I can do it. I was worried Megido wouldn't function correctly due to no party members being alive to drain HP from. But it still hits as high as it ever did, and costs no HP from anybody. So I can get in an encounter on Noah, use megido for a 1 turn win. Repeat. Use Neisword for free healing and Tp restoration. Back in, rinse, repeat. And with Rolf alone, i've been getting 19,000+ exp per encounter.
But If anybody could suggest any reliable tactics, usefull items or basically anythign I havent' thought of for killing Dark Force with only 1 party member, I'd appreciate it.
Thanks, Jamie.
Edit: Sorry, I also shoulda checked using the search function incase all of this has been covered before. I found a really old post concerning a solo run, but couldn't find usefull info in it.
2nd Edit: Oh dear. I was playing through this by myself, no maps or outside guides. And for the very first time i've just heard of how the randomness of levelups can leave you overpowered...or severly gimped! I have no idea if my Rolf is so weak, I should just start again or if he's going to manage the fight!
For the record, he's level 40
Stats are :
Hp: 309/309
Tp 155/155
Str: 283
Mental: 219
Agi: 171 (Not helping me at all, DF manages to out run be about 70% of turns)
Luck: 217
Dex: 232
Attack: 360
Defense: 353
I seriously hope he's not totally screwed haha, but as I said. Im a little sheltered PS2 child and as of yet have done this totally independant of guides. Wish i'd known about this earlier so I could save before level ups and manipulate good ones! Ach well.
