I've been thinking a little about the usage of turbo in this game in particular as of late. I generally do not mind the usage of turbo, although it may add another barrier of entry to become competitive in certain games. However, I think that Phantasy Star 2, far more so than the other titles, has mashing as a definitive skill. Dialogue for instance can be triggered on every frame using different inputs, and therefore the style and quickness of one's mashing is definitely a factor in the run. In any%, the repeated inputs of the item stats glitch test the runner as well. These inputs are trivialized using a turbo button, and can create an impossible standard for people running without them.

So I put forward my question: if you think that mashing in this game is a skill, do you think turbo should still be allowed? If you don't think its a skill I would like to hear your thoughts on that as well. I want to be clear, I am not advocating getting rid of runs with turbo already posted, But I would like to create a dialogue on how we move forward.

I know turbo is a tricky subject for all games, but I've been thinking about this title in particular since I worked on the latest TAS and thought a lot about the inputs that were used and how much quicker they are when they're automated. Hopefully we can get some discussion going here.

Hi guys, I figure it'd be nice to catalogue what happens when you attempt the inventory underflow (empty the inventory and use an item in battle) in the various versions of the game that have been released. Obviously the GBA version doesn't crash, but perhaps there are others as well. I'll start with the ones I've done:

Genesis EN/JP: Crash to title Steam EN: Crash to title GBA (Phantasy Star Collection) EN: Inventory underflow Saturn (Sega Ages 1998: Phantasy Star Collection) JP: Hardlock PSP Sega Classics Collection EN: Crash to title (odd stall compared to other consoles, but might be an emulation error) Wii VC EN: Hardlock Nintendo Switch EN: Crash to title.

I'll keep testing as I get my hands on other versions. Hopefully we can get some contributions and I'll update the list periodically.

So I accidentally stumbled onto a glitch when I was doing attempts the other night that softlocked the game right at the start. I looked into it a bit further and found that if you hit B exactly 17 frames after the A/C input to accept in the Battle Speed/Message Speed windows it'll trigger this glitch. It seems what it does changes depending on your position, but this is based on pretty limited testing. Not a whole lot of useful stuff comes from it, aside from a save anywhere scenario sometimes. Mostly I've found it just hardlocks or straight up crashes the game. It also works with the macro menu if you press B 10 frames after accepting the created macro - this can result in things such as a macro with a ghost character using holy word. It seems that you can compound this glitch ontop of itself (2+ frame perfect inputs, ouch.) to create different results as well.

I'm going to do a bit more testing, but I figured it'd be helpful to post this here to spread the word.

So there's been a number of concerns about getting v1.2, which as far as I know can only be done if someone finds an upload of it from 3+ years ago. I don't even know where my own files for it are so an upload from me is impossible at this point. However, V1.3 (which should be easily available on GOG/Steam) is very similar to 1.2, with the exception of no infinite xp glitch from the dryad in Durlags Tower and some changes to the chapter skip glitch in the mines and can serve as the main pre-2.0 version. Going forward in regards to the leaderboards I propose 3 options:

1. We simply add a version 1.3 section and have it be the headliner for the game, while moving 1.2 from the opening spot due to its inaccessibility at this point in time.

2. Swap the current patch to the opening spot, and simply use the latest version as the primary version for current speedruns despite the differences in 2.0 from the original releases.

3. Just remove the 1.2 category altogether.

Let me know what you guys think, and depending on what happens with the upcoming 2.5 patch we can decide on what to do from there.

In the genesis version, we can remove all items from a character and then still be able to use the item command in a battle. This deletes an item from our inventory that has 0 items and subsequently underflows it and crashes the game. However, while exploring the gba version on a whim, I've found that this is no longer the case, and we do in fact have access to an expanded inventory.

I've done a bit of preliminary tests with only Mieu and Rhys, and it seems that if you use the first Dimate in whichever inventory is underflowed, you can once again give items to the other person. I've also taken a bunch of force staffs and a laser shot or two, which actually changed Rhys' stats - much like the Pron glitch - as well as giving around 60k meseta within 5 minutes or so.

This is probably something that could be huge, and I hope we can get some more insight into it.

Hey all. Turns out you can use lower case letters and numbers in this version when naming characters. These in turn allow us to get the Neishield and Neiemel from "tu". This would mean the defense manipulation for Amy could be reduced to a single step given the current route, but leave us without the storm gear. Could be worth a closer look.