Phantasy Star

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Now is time for Phantasy Star. I remember that my first contact with Phantasy Star was with Phantasy Star Online 2 for PC and with Phantasy Star universe for PS2, i don't remember right now which game i played first, i think it was PSO2, that time the only version available was the japanese version.

I remember that i loved the game even if i i didn't understood everything, i know some things in japanese, i know hiragana, katakana and a few kanji, i know a lot of words in japanese, and i know how to communicate some things in japanese but not to the point of understanding 100% of the things in a japanese game.

But i remember i really enjoyed the game, i love PSO2, one of my favorite online games. After that i think i played Phantasy Star Universe for PS2, i finished this game at that time and i really enjoy the characters, the story, the world and much more. In one time in my life i decided to download the first PSO for PC, i played on a private server and i really enjoy the game, at that time i didn't finish the story but i have plans to come back and play the game again.

I have plans to play all Phantasy Star games, in my opinion Phantasy Star is a really amazing and interesting series.

And you? what was your first contact with this series? you have a favorite game and characters?

Here in this thread we can talk about the Phantasy Star games, manga, animes, news and much more, everything about Phantasy Star, i love Phantasy Star, thank you.

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First exposure to the series was seeing IV, cartridge-only, in the games shop I frequented with my uncle (downtown Toronto) and it was something like $60.00, back in 2001, with battery backup being a big deal.

Then, after reading so much about the series for years, once I finally got into RPGs, my wife got me 1-4 for my 25th birthday, so I proceeded to play all 4, back to back and uploaded my playthroughs on YT.

Each is a fantastic game (though I don't feel as strongly about II, as there are a few flaws that I've pointed out in the past) and each has become very dear to my heart (save for II :LOL:).

If I had to rank them:

1. IV (this is no contest; it is one of the greatest 16-bit RPGs ever and the pinnacle for the series).
2. I (the best RPG on the console and arguably the greatest 8-bit RPG ever)
3. III (has some flaws, but it is a superb title from beginning to end)
4. II (not a bad game at all, but the gameplay issues bring it down quite a bit)

My own personal favourites:

1. IV
2. III
3. I (though this and III are so close, it could be interchangeable)
4. II

The series is so dear to my heart, that items from 2 of the 4 games made it onto my Sega Tattoo (again, as to avoid spoilers, will post at a later time) and there are just such-wonderful elements in each game, it is clearly Sega's 16-bit beacon, for the RPG genre.

I do have PSO V.2 for the DC, but not into it at all and really, I should try and sell it lol
 
Hey, I finally got off my Duff and played Burning Rangers, so you owe me! ;)

(thank you for that, btw; as I wrote in the other thread, an absolutely wonderful experience :D)
 
My first experience playing Phantasy Star was Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast. It's probably my 3rd or 4th favorite game on the console, I felt like I was playing a game from the future. I believe I owned the Phantasy Star II and III carts around that time, but had a few false starts and never really got anywhere in them. I always heard great things about IV back then as well and that it was the best one (and therefore the most expensive, which is why I think I only bought II and III). I just honestly didn't play too many RPGs until I got my Dreamcast, funnily enough.

I'm working my way through I-IV now and so far I've beaten I and II. I won't cover too much of the same ground I posted in the "what are you playing" thread, but I think Phantasy Star 1 is probably the most impressive 8-bit rpg out there. I had a lot of issues with PSII but it's still overall "good".

What I didn't mention (or quite emphasize) in my last post about PSII is that the world building was incredible for a game from that time. Also something that's easy to overlook is that this game came out a year and a half before the SNES was released, let alone when any SNES JRPGs were released. I think in that context I can be a little more forgiving for the flaws, since the rate at which games increased in quality was much higher than it is now. Just compare late 80's/early 90's Genesis games to stuff 1993 and later, a few years makes a big difference.
 
It's one of my favourite series, probably second after Shenmue at this point. Phantasy Star Universe is probably the game I have put the most hours in to.

The Phantasy Star Universe Clementine private server is something I have been following since pretty much the beginning, and they finally got it up and running after 6 years of work and many beta tests. The odd thing is that I have found that I played much more of the beta test than the full release. Playing the beta of PSU Clementine was pretty much the only game I played throughout 2019. The private server went live nearly a year ago now and I have barely played it. It's like something has just turned off in my brain and I can't get into it the same way anymore. I think a combination of things has led to this, the main one being PSO2's release outside of Asia in early 2020. This came just after PSU Clementine's beta ended and access to the server was no longer possibly outside of a select few testers. Another reason is because so many people are already so far ahead of me, it's hard to find a party at a low level and it just isn't fun for me if I can't play with other people.

Phantasy Star Online 2 is fun, but because they took so long to release it outside of Asia, it felt a bit messy. Cramming 8 years of content into 1 year was hard to keep up with. Everything was releasing so fast that anytime you aimed for certain gear, new content would arrive and make the gear you were aiming for a waste of time. Still, I enjoyed it a lot, a lot more than I did when I tried the Japanese server back in 2017. I couldn't get into the game back then, it just confused me.

New Genesis has had a very rocky start and even though it's only been out for nearly 3 months, I am worried about it's future. Sega seems to be completely out of touch with this game and I am not sure I am a fan of the open world direction they have taken the series. It just doesn't feel like Phantasy Star. It feels like an early access game because of how much it's lacking. The big winter update already feels like an important update for the future of the game. It needs to be good.
 
New Genesis has had a very rocky start and even though it's only been out for nearly 3 months, I am worried about it's future. Sega seems to be completely out of touch with this game and I am not sure I am a fan of the open world direction they have taken the series. It just doesn't feel like Phantasy Star. It feels like an early access game because of how much it's lacking. The big winter update already feels like an important update for the future of the game. It needs to be good.
I've already seen people talking about how some recent update clause in NG is hinting that Sega may be close to shutting the game down in the west. I really hope it's not true and that they are taking all the "no content" criticism seriously instead, but this is exactly the kind of boneheaded decision Sega would indeed make. So yeah, I'm a little worried.

P.S. I totally forgot about the existence of PSU. That's one I still have never played. I guess I can at least playthrough that if NG gets shutdown...
 
I've already seen people talking about how some recent update clause in NG is hinting that Sega may be close to shutting the game down in the west. I really hope it's not true and that they are taking all the "no content" criticism seriously instead, but this is exactly the kind of boneheaded decision Sega would indeed make. So yeah, I'm a little worried.

P.S. I totally forgot about the existence of PSU. That's one I still have never played. I guess I can at least playthrough that if NG gets shutdown...
They added the shutdown of services part to the user agreement. I personally think this is just them covering their backs and it's something that should have been there from the start. I think people are maybe looking too much into it because the state of the game isn't great right now.

Honestly, I don't see Sega shutting it down anytime soon. It's one of their biggest money makers, possibly the biggest, so they will want to drag it out as long as possible. My worry is that instead of actually trying to fix things, they will just drag it out as it is for 2 or 3 years and then pull the plug. I really don't want this to happen though, I want Sega to pull their finger out and get players back on side.

The game launched with player numbers peaking at just under 60k on Steam, which is pretty amazing seeing as it launched with little marketing, but in just under 3 months, it has shrunk to just over 3k. We are basically back at the number of players we had on PSO2 just before NGS launched, which probably means Sega hasn't managed to keep hold of any new players. If the game launched in a good state, it could have at least held on to a quarter of those players, but you know Sega, they always seem to mess up a great opportunity.
 
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I first rented Phantasy Star III back in the very early 1990s. I think it was in 1992 or 1993. I finished it, too.

I also played IV and II. II is the hardest game of the original series, and it was also a hard copy to acquire back then. I managed to finish it twice without the hint book. I finally played the first game on an emulator; again, it was hard to get an actual copy of the game.

I don't mind the online games, but I prefer the original series.
 
I wasn't even really aware of the Phantasy Star games until PSO came out on the Dreamcast. I'm not totally sure why; I grew up on the Genesis, but I guess RPGs were just so far off my radar up until playing Suikoden on the Playstation that I just never really noticed Phantasy Star.

PSO was the first online game I ever played, and it was magical. I often stayed up very late, in secret, playing it in high school. Then ver 2 released, and I had another 100 levels to grind out on my HUcast. The first time I actually beat Dark Falz in a group awoke something inside of me. It was an awe inspiring moment, and I'll never forget all the times I got totally fucking obliterated by it before that. The day the DC servers went down was a very sad day indeed. I still have my character, and a BBA, actually. One day I'll jump on a private server, maybe. I actually made a character in PSO ep 1&2 on the GC recently, but while it's still good ol' PSO, it looks like absolute fucking ass compared to the DC version (I have the digital out cable for GC, but it doesn't even matter). Was going to try to refresh my memory of the story in ep 1, but at this point, it might be better if I just play it for ep 2.

Flash forward about a decade, and I ended up getting all four Phantasy Star games for the JP Mega Drive. (SMS Phantasy Star was actually re-released for the Mega Drive there, although it's just the SMS ROM in a Mega Drive cartridge, and doesn't support the FM soundtrack). I played through the first two in 2013, and then it took me another four years to get to III and IV. I kind of enjoyed them, but didn't particularly love any of them. I find the original to be the most impressive, and probably my personal favorite of the bunch. PS IV I've often heard described as 'the SNES RPG for the Genesis,' and I believe that's accurate in the sense that it's competently made, but I don't really enjoy it all that much, like most SNES RPGs. The main thing I did like about it, and the reason why I would probably say it was my next favorite, was the way it tied together the other three games, and put a nice capstone on the original series (even retroactively validating Phantasy Star III).

Phantasy Star II is-- something. I honestly didn't hate it, but it was a real chore in a lot of ways. I happened to be playing Dragon Quest II at about the same time, which was sort of apropos. I feel basically the same way about both games: Great music, nice atmosphere, functional story, grueling dungeons and combat. Phantasy Star III I did not enjoy. It was my least favorite. I know of a number of people who love it, and I thought the generational aspects were interesting (although I'm much more of a fan of Dragon Quest V for this). It's also sort of cool to see the basis for the premise of PSO here, but otherwise I didn't find much to enjoy about playing it. I wouldn't call it a "bad" game, and it's not often that I actually kind of agree with sentiments on 'black sheep' games, but Phantasy Star III is one where I unfortunately do kind of see it. Wasn't really my cup of tea.

Last year I got into PSO2 on global. Joined up around the end of Ep 5. It has mostly dominated my free time ever since. The infinite playability of PSO is alive and well in the halls of PSO2. Unfortunately, I also really like NGS. It does away with some of the more superficial connections to Phantasy Star, like Mates and Atomizers, but I actually think it feels more in line with the traditional Phantasy Star games, than PSO2 did (certainly compared to Ep 4, 5 and 6): It's 1000 years after the events of ep 6 in PSO2; Dark Falz is becoming more active again; The stellar bodies in the sky on Halpha constantly remind me of the Algol system (I noticed the other day that the largest one actually rotates, which indicates that Halpha must be orbiting it in a tidally locked orbit--if they end up trying to say that it's at the Lagrange Point later on, I'm gonna have some shit to say); I haven't played Idola at all, but have heard that it may actually give some insight into why NGS takes place on Halpha; Examples abound of things that suggest Halpha is actually--
An exodus space craft like Aerone.
It's something I really enjoy about NGS that it feels like it's pulling together a lot of the more interesting aspects of the Phantasy Star games, all the way back to the original.

II is the hardest game of the original series, and it was also a hard copy to acquire back then. I managed to finish it twice without the hint book.
Literally how? :eek: How many days worth of time did the last two dungeons take?
 
My first experience with Phantasy Star was the Master System. I was too young to understand or appreciate RPGs then but once I got into RPGs in the 16-bit era I went back to it and fell in love with the series. Liked Phantasy Star II a lot, was disappointed in in PS3.

PSIV though was the cream of the crop. Excellent game.

I know fans are divided on them but I LOVE Phantasy Star Generation 1 and 2, which are the Playstation 2 remakes of PS1 and PS2. PS Generation 1 isn't perfect but it builds on my love of the first game. However, I think Phantasy Star Generation 2 is a really good remake and is actually better than the original.

Love the series. I really wish Sega would do a proper Phantasy Star story based RPG game to continue the continuity but that's unlikely to ever happen.
 
Love Phantasy Star. My favorite games are 4 and 1. I used to play a lot of PSO with a bunch of guys from school back in the early 2000s. That was great fun.

I also played PSU back when it came out but I always liked PSO better. I have always thought that the Master System and Mega Drive PS games are better than PSO and PSU.
 
I started PSIII a few days ago. It's a bit rough honestly but I'm starting to get used to how combat, techniques, and technique grids work. My main compaints are that the battles move too slowly after your commands, there's no hit impact sound effects, damage doesn't register for 1-2 seconds after the attack particle shows up, and enemies don't really animate. It sounds like a nitpicky thing but it effects how the game feels. Art direction is kind of bland, too. (I know that this game was rushed and made by a different team, so I get it).

It still seems like there's some interesting ideas and I've read that a few people really like it, so I'm still planning on sticking it out till the end.
 
… um... Tomato, the battles are the exact opposite from what you're describing lol:

1. There are hit impact sounds effects (well, it's the attack itself, but it makes the sound as it attacks, so I guess there isn't room for two sound effects in that case)
2. Damage indeed comes up immediately.
3. Indeed the enemies don't animate a ton, but they are animated lol

And the battles are the fastest in the series by far; you input your command and then watch the attacks fly; it's fun, actually lol. As can be seen in my video, the battles are indeed over very quickly:


Are you playing it on an emu maybe? Or emulated in another way? I just don't know why battles are slow for you.
 
hmm, yeah things definitely move much quicker in your video. Do you think the message speed effects the speed of the combat? I was on the default speed of "5", but I'll see how it feels if I bump it up to "10". Also, I'm hearing a few beeps in your video that are perhaps button presses? Do you find that things move faster if you try to button mash through turns?

I use the Mega SG, which in my experience has been super accurate to original hardware, so I would guess the issues would either be the message speed or something related to the ROM.

Thanks for the help!

EDIT: It is indeed the message speed that causes the damage to register quicker. I maxed out the speed and the combat now looks like Truck's video.
 
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lol yes, I did mash, "C," throughout; that, "advantage," tune gets my heart pumping! (even though my mashing isn't in beat :LOL:)

Glad you were able to get it to go quicker :D
 
I beat PSIII a few days ago. Overall I thought it was "ok", I didn't feel too invested in the story until the end of the 2nd generation, but that's pretty far into the game. Still worth playing but it ultimately didn't click for me. My biggest issues were the quest design and combat art, and I also felt that combat was all about using physical damage 99% of the time (if you're not healing). Though I suppose something that was cool about the combat is the front/back rows that are split into two groups (can't attack someone in the back row with a melee weapon if there's someone in the front row in their group). And thankfully you can finally select which individual enemy you'd like you attack!

The idea for the techniques graph was pretty cool, but I think in practice it really comes down to maxing out one technique per character. A lot of the quests were "go to a place to get the orb to open the cave, so you can go to the place to get the orb to open the cave". I really dug the main story twist and there are a few interesting story beats afterward, but overall the story felt a bit up and down. In general what felt missing to me was some sort of story element behind why you're going from point A to point B (related to the "quest design"), but it's also possible that some of the stuff didn't register with me since I was playing pretty large chunks of the game at a time.

You can see the threads of a great game if they were able to spend more time on it, similarly to PSII.
 
Love the series. I really wish Sega would do a proper Phantasy Star story based RPG game to continue the continuity but that's unlikely to ever happen.

You destroy the main villain for good in IV. Without such an adversary, it'll be difficult for the original canon to continue. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest also dominated the rpg market in Japan.

Rieko Kodama, one of its creators, has shown interest in reviving the old series, but only if she receives the green light from Sega themselves.

Literally how? :eek: How many days worth of time did the last two dungeons take?

I can't remember because it was such a long time ago now.

I completed it twice without any knowledge of the Visaphone, too.
 
So I finally finished Phantasy Star IV, and therefore the entire original quadrilogy! I felt it was my duty as a Sega fan to play all four, haha. I'll post a bunch of scatterbrained thoughts summarizing how it felt and will put spoilers when necessary.

Phantasy Star 4

So yeah, IV is indeed the best of the bunch, an all-time great, and I'm not sure there's much I can add that hasn't already been said. The battle system was a lot of fun, macros and skills really added a lot, and there was a lot of great side content that was challenging and also gave nice rewards, like new skills. Vehicle battles were simple but cool as hell. I should've experimented to look for more ability combos, but that was a great addition, too.

The scope of the story was really great - it felt natural how each part of the story led to the next and how there were some callbacks to previous games. It almost felt like there was too much ground to cover and the story moved super fast. I'm not sure if other console RPGs of the time had that same scope to Phantasy Star as a whole, just super ambitious when you think about it.

The manga panels added a lot to the story and presentation, and it was great to get the battle backgrounds again. They also pretty much hit all the quality of life improvements needed to make it feel smoother, whether they were new or taken from a prior game: Damage shown on screen on top of the enemy it hits, better AI auto targeting from what I remember, Ryuka/telepipes can be used for fast travel, you can save whenever you're not in a dungeon, can pick which individual enemy to target, players revive from inns, combat macros, etc. While some of these were in prior games, they were never all together.

There's a bunch of nitpicky things I can probably say about IV if I wanted to go there:
--I wish there was perhaps a bit more background story elements for some of the characters. It also felt like a lot of party members just came and gone so it was harder to feel the attachment to all the characters.
--I would've liked a proper "final dungeon". It probably took all of 5 minutes to get to the final boss.
--I realllllly missed having a central item storage place like PSII. I had a ton of "dews" and repair kits that I didn't want to sell but took up a bunch of inventory spots. Same with a few items that later became unnecessary but were still unsellable.
--This is common with many JRPGs of the era, but the encounter rate was pretty high. Perhaps I'll play a patched ROM next time.

As for some random thoughts on the story:
--I was expecting Alys to be a reincarnation/descendant/what-have-you of Alis Landale. Going in I always thought she was supposed to be the main character and I actually was surprised that her death wasn't spoiled for me, and if it was, it was years ago and I had forgotten by now, haha.
--I somewhat guessed the Rune twist ahead of time, though I thought he would literally be Lutz since Lutz appeared in Phantasy Star II (though perhaps that's also a different generation Lutz, as per the PSIV logic). Regardless, still a pretty nifty twist.
--I just loved the progression of Motavia from Phantasy star 1, 2, to 4. It was an arid almost uninhabitable desert planet in 1, then Mother Brain turned it around by controlling the climate and it became a lush world in 2, and in 4 they were holding on from the fallout of Mother Brain's destruction from PSII.
--As a whole I thought the world building was fantastic across all the titles, and the same comment about progression in Motavia could probably be said for Dezolis, which in 1 was completely secluded and indigenous, in 2 was known but kind of forgotten, then when you arrive it's overrun by a bunch of mutated monsters (intestine rabbits, yo!). Then in 4 there are settlers from Motavia/Palma who can communicate with the Dezolorians.
--One of my favorite moments in the game was during the first fight vs Zio and the aura of Dark Force appeared behind him, just a really cool presentation combo with the music and background art. Definitely an "ohhhhh shit!" moment.

Phantasy Star 1

So to start, Phantasy Star 1 was a very impressive 8-bit RPG and I really embraced playing it in "old school" mode. I used graph paper to map out the dungeons, wrote out clues from townsfolk in a notebook, and explored the overworld and went into dungeons I wasn't "supposed" to. I probably enjoyed exploration in this game the most out of the four games.

I haven't played an 8-bit RPG in probably 20+ years so it was definitely hard to set my expectations, but I'll have to say it was the most impressive one I've played and deserves it's "all-time great" status. I really dug the setting (it was a much more even split of sci-fi and fantasy compared to the rest), the graphics were super impressive with the huge enemy spites that animated, as well as the full screen first person backgrounds that changed based on location, and of course first person dungeon exploration with moving tiles.

Phantasy Star 2

I was initially put off from the game in the beginning as it felt very restrictive. The overworld map of Motavia was pieced together by bridges and canals, so you felt herded and didn't really feel like you were able to explore.

It's true that it's a grindfest, dungeons are way too long and complicated, and that it's overall tedious. But the weird thing is when I look back on playing this game it really stuck with me. It could be a number of things, like the world building and establishment of the setting being top notch, the great second half of the game where the story really grabbed me (same with the ending in general), and perhaps in some crazy way the tedium gave me a sense of accomplishment?

There are still some issues with the game but I kind of look back on it a bit more fondly now than I did when I first played it, if that makes sense.

Phantasy Star 3

I was trying really hard to like this game. Since it's considered to be a black sheep I was hoping it would be more of an underdog (alright I thought that was somewhat creative, haha).

I didn't feel too invested in the story until really far into the game, much later than PSII. There were a few cool twists here and there but ultimately it just felt like one big fetch quest. I don't mind that it's kind of it's own thing and I respect the attempt to do something a bit different with the story, but it just never clicked with me. I feel like some of the threads were there for it to be great and it felt like a bit of a missed opportunity.

There were a few things that were interesting in theory but never really made a huge impact, like the customizable technique graphs really came down to maxing out 1 technique per group, and I feel I used physical damage 99% of the time. The generations system was kind of interesting and I like that it not only affected the story but also your character attributes in the next generation. Even though it never clicked with me, I do feel that it was worth playing.

Favorite Tunes:
PS1: Main Title, Dungeon 2, Lashiec, Dark Force
PS2: Rise or Fall, Promised Mystery, Under, Pressure, Advanced Position
PS3: Laya's World, Town Theme, Wren Transforming
PS4: Laughter, The King of Terrors, Machine Center, Dezolis Town 2, Cybernetic Carvinal

Rankings:
PS IV (10/10)
PS I (9.5/10)
PS II (8/10)
PS III (6/10)
 
Wonderful post. So well-said in every point.

Not a spoiler, as it didn't actually happen, but Rika was supposed to originally be Nei, reincarnated. After this was heavily-rejected though, she was made into a new Numan, which ended up being Rika.

I'm super-glad you enjoyed the games, it really is one of Sega's 5 greatest series ever.
 
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