“I am Dark Force, the master of death! Your sorrow, anger, and pain are my strength! Observe my might and despair of life, fools! I will greatly enjoy your painful deaths!”
Unmarked spoilers are ahead, per Spoilers Off rule.
- Similar to how the overworld theme has an evolving sound, the battle theme does too, and there's a separate song for when things are going badly or when you get ambushed. And it makes the experience so much worse
. - The Lashute theme is a great example of the power of the Genesis' soundchip — a deeply unnerving dirge, which grows on you as you travel through the dungeon. It's the perfect buildup to the game's penultimate boss.
- On your second visit, you're greeted with "Death awaits you in Lashute, fool!"
- In the first chapter, the theme that plays in Shusoran the first time you visit it: a truly sinister bounding beat that sounds like a dark pagan festival. Not only is the town deserted, at this stage of the game you know very little about Layans except that they are a whole race of witches...and then your mind is made to wonder.
- Dark Force is an epically disturbing track for the final boss fight in the game. Facing off against a monster in the image above, coupled with that opening boast, this is a song that perfectly captures the feeling of, “You have no chance, you’re going to die.”
- The fate of Miun is both this and a Tearjerker. A cyborg with a similar design to Mieu, most of her memories and functions have degraded to the point where she only wishes to see Orakio, who is long dead, one last time; her face and parts of her upper body are literally rotting off after centuries of wear and tear from wandering aimlessly in the desert. Toyonako Ozaki's official artwork of her◊ brings all of this to a new level of heartbreaking and awful.
- Her death brings each of these elements to a climax: in the third generation, when you finally approach her with Orakio's sword, she mistakes you for him, and dies overwhelmed thinking her final wish has at last come true, and her undying loyalty was rewarded.Miun: The black sword! Orakio, you've returned! I'm so glad to meet you again before I...
- Her death brings each of these elements to a climax: in the third generation, when you finally approach her with Orakio's sword, she mistakes you for him, and dies overwhelmed thinking her final wish has at last come true, and her undying loyalty was rewarded.
- The implications of Aron’s ending. Unlike Adan’s ending (where the Alisa III narrowly avoids a black hole), in Aron’s ending the Alisa III is unable to avoid being sucked into the black hole. When the ship exits the black hole it finds itself in the Solar System. Contacted by Earth. Phantasy Star II revealed that Earth was destroyed and the people of Earth migrated to the Algol system, where they caused the events of that game. Aron’s ending implies a time paradox, where the black hole sent the Alisa III through space and time into the past, possibly even before the events of Phantasy Star I, where it found Earth. Which would be how Earth found out about Algol…and how Earth first came in contact with Dark Force. Meaning that in Aron’s ending everything that happened in the second game was inadvertently caused by the Alisa III.
