Hands-On: Phantasy Star II (Sega Forever)

[Melf]

Sega's monolithic 16-bit RPG classic arrived on mobile devices last year as part of the Sega Forever line of releases. How does it play compared to the original? Does the touch pad work well or is the controller still king? Read our hands-on and find out if this one is worth the download.

[FORS YARD]

Coincidentally, I was playing this the other day to see if any of the recent updates had improved the emulation on iOS. Sadly, the game still randomly stutters and skips frames, which messes with the tempo of the music. I've noticed similar issues with the Sega Forever version of Space Harrier II, while other games like Ristar seem to run fine. It's a shame, since PSII and SHII's soundtracks are some of my favourites on the system.

The game is still playable (although touch screen controls aren't exactly ideal), but the poor performance is disappointing. Judging by your review, it sounds like the Android emulator works better, but I've tried PSII on my phone and iPad without success.