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The Phantasy Star IV appreciation thread of character limit-breaking love.

T

the_prime_mover

Member
This was the first RPG I even beat, and is still my favourite. The pride I felt when defeating a sandworm early in the game, or making it through the flying castle are feelings that few games have helped me realize since.

My Genny broke so I sold off all of my games, but I kept this cartridge just in case. Then I went and bought the Sega collection for PS2 in order to get my hands on a playable version. This thread has made me realize that I need to experience this game again.
 
S

Sixfortyfive

He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
And now for some concept art.

Before Rika's design was finalized (some of the staff members resisted the idea of a Nei clone), they were bouncing around a design that looked to be equal parts Demi and Kyra:

heroine.jpg


Alys in silly casual wear and Rune in silly formal garb:

alys_casual.jpg
rune_formal.jpg


Alys and Rune at ages 14 and 15, respectively, apparently around the time when they first met:

alys14.jpg
rune15.jpg


Rune supposedly ditched her to "hasten her independence" because she was too needy or something.
This is obviously around the same time when Rune has to start attending to his own responsibilities, but still. She becomes too independent and comes up with the wild idea of taking care of Zio herself, and we all know how that turned out. Way to go, Rune!

Wren attending to one of Algo's environmental control systems. You really don't have to understand the words at all to get this one:

wren_comic.jpg


Throughout the course of the game, you might notice that Zio's right arm is always covered or concealed by something. This is why:

zio_hand.jpg


The main character designer came up with a scenario involving Rika and her son that takes place 12 years after the events of PSIV. Also, as far as he was concerned,
Chaz never lived to see age 30
. I don't think this is a spoiler, as it is technically non-canon, but I'll mark it anyway:

rika13.jpg


Still kind of neat, though.
 
A

Aru

Member
PSIV is the Mega Drive's best classic RPG and one of the best RPG of the 16-bits era (I prefer it to FF6).

Alys :'(
 
J

JayDubya

Banned
Never owned a Sega console and it's not like there are any plans to rerelease it, but I have played it on emulator. Unfortunately, at the point in the game where you have your real fight with Zio, every time I beat him, the game crashed. That's pretty far, and quite frustrating.

Reminds me of my perfect minimum level run on Final Fantasy VI, laid low by the game crashing every time Relm drew Ultros. :'( I'm not sure which is farther in terms of game content because I don't know how long PSIV is, but both situations sucked something fierce.

From what I played of it, the game is damn good.
 
B

baphometbones

Member
I bought the Sega Genesis Collection solely for this game. I never could afford it back in the day, maybe I should get around to playing it.
 
C

camineet

Banned
Days like these... said:
I love Phantasy Star. You guys think sega will ever make PSV?
Click to expand...


I doubt it.

There has been talk of Phantasy Star V in EGM and GameFan since just before the Saturn came out and during the early its early years. Probably around the time PSIV came out for MegaDrive in Japan in late 1993 and through the Saturn's U.S. launch in 1995. It was expected that PSV be one of the first 32-bit RPGs for the Saturn. So that's 13-15 years ago that PSV was first expected. Then during the late 90s as it became clear there would be no PSV on Saturn, it was thought that the new Phantasy Star for Dreamcast would be PSV. Nope. It would never be :(
 
C

camineet

Banned
I've been through PSIV 4 or 5 times all the way through, since 1995. Played many of my favorite parts more than that.
 
T

Teknoman

Member
Days like these... said:
I love Phantasy Star. You guys think sega will ever make PSV?
Click to expand...

Possible. Whether it'll be good or not is another story. Sega always seems to reach back when you least expect it.
 
O

Ogni-XR21

Member
So I got myself the VC version 2 days ago and once again I am hooked. I don't know what it is that makes this game so addictive but I could not stop playing. The macros makes standard-battles worthwile and the way the story is told is just perfect. I also like talking to towns people in this game since you are not immediately hit with a wall of text everytime you talk to someone, just the information you actually need to know (hurray for cartridge limits).

Playing this game made me wonder several times why Sega can't make a true PSV. As I stated before I love PSO and can't wait for PS0 but I don't see why there is not place for a classic PS game any more. But if the offline story of PSU is any indication what the guys at Sega think the story should be like it might be better they don't mess with it...
 
S

Sword Familiar

178% of NeoGAF posters don't understand statistics
Thinking about it, I don't think I even want a PSV. I used to, but I'm just afraid they'll spoil it with <insert generic anything>, and spoil the other games in the process by altering their storylines.
 
S

Sixfortyfive

He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
Sword Familiar said:
Thinking about it, I don't think I even want a PSV. I used to, but I'm just afraid they'll spoil it with <insert generic anything>, and spoil the other games in the process by altering their storylines.
Click to expand...
A wise conclusion. I still think there is enough room in the Algo universe for a solid non-online sequel to work, but, you know, lol Sega.

At the risk of treading fanfic-ish territory, the two scenarios that I'd probably most like to see detailed would be the rise of Motherbrain's dominance between PSI and PSII and Rika's story post-PSIV. Both of these subjects are touched upon in the Compendium timeline and present a handful of interesting possibilities.

The former would involve some of the ancestors of PSIII's cast of characters as they resist Motherbrain's tightening grasp on the Algo system. They'd ultimately be unsuccessful, of course, but would at least manage to escape the solar system with their lives, eventually leading to the events of PSIII. It would be interesting to see how dire things get in the Algo system as the populace gradually becomes more powerless against and dependent upon Motherbrain.

I'd like to see something done with Rika or one of her distant descendants as well. Seed created Rika for the explicit purpose of populating Motavia with a race that could withstand its harsh natural environment, and it would be interesting to follow that minor PSIV plot point to its conclusion. The dependence of the Parmanian race on drastic climate-altering technology is a recurring theme of the series and is never really settled within the four games. Even though Motherbrain is destroyed in PSII, the Parmanians are still more or less enslaved to the remaining climate control systems on the two planets that they are not naturally suited for, and as the events of PSIV demonstrate, this can lead to a lot of problems when things go awry. So, you could end up with a situation several years after the events of PSIV where these systems start causing more harm than good (either because of malfunctions resulting from natural wear or because of the actions of some new villain), forcing the residents of Algo to finally destroy these systems once and for all.

As an added bonus, either of these scenarios would be a nice change of pace from Dark Force, whom I never really considered to be that interesting a villain.
 
M

-Mikey-

Member
Baron said:
I bought and played PSIII back in 1993 or 4 or so, it was the first Phantasy Star game I had played. I enjoyed it a reasonable amount. I played a bit of 4 but not very much (got a PlayStation), and didn't think of PS again until PSO in 2001.

I bought the Sega Ages PS2 Phantasy Star Collection a few months ago - and let me say, it is awesome. If you have it in your power to play it, do it, and buy a copy while you still can. I still need to finish my PS4 game on it.
Click to expand...

I really wanted to pick this up since the old retronauts podcast about the phantasy star series. Is this the same collection that you have? Also, if I picked that up would I need a japanese system to play it on or will it work just fine on my american system? Any help would be greatly appreciated....I'm dying to play these!
 
C

Capndrake

Member
Playing it for the first time on VC. When I look at videos of the NTSC versions I think I actually prefer the slow PAL music.
 
M

manueldelalas

Time Traveler
Days like these... said:
I love Phantasy Star. You guys think sega will ever make PSV?
Click to expand...

Would you like SEGA ruining again a perfectly great franchise?

Please DON'T do PSV, because I would have to play it and cry later...
 
F

falz

Member
Stage On said:
Phantasy star 4 was the first rpg I ever played and I still maintain it's one of the best rpgs of all time.

I think the thing i like best about it is the fact you can travel between multipul worlds in the solar system. I don't think any other rgp has ever truely done anything like that.
Click to expand...
You could do this in the original Phantasy Star as well.

camineet said:
If you have the original PSIV cartridge, post a pic! :D

fo1x01.jpg
Click to expand...

Unfortunately it looks like I'm missing a few manuals :(
phantasy_star_games1.jpg



phantasy_star_games2.jpg
 
Nameless

Nameless

Member
This is the game that popped my RPG cherry. Dark Force v2 obliterated my entire party save for Wren and an hour 1/2 later Wren had finally defeated him by his lonesome. Regenerate ftw!
 
S

Sixfortyfive

He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
So can we post romhack patches as long as we don't post the roms themselves? I just finished up that PSIV mod I was talking about and feel like linking it. (There's technically some more stuff I want to add/change, but it either involves stuff I don't know how to do or would just take too damn long to finish right now.)
 
2

2DMention

Banned
I remember when it first came out, I borrowed and played it briefly from a friend. Never got around to buying it after.

I'd love to play this again, but I already have an RPG backlog as it is.

Hopefully my Wii Secret Santa will get it for me (hint*hint)
 
H

HBroward

Member
At least the price on the VC is negligible compared to what most of us paid for it originally! I have my original copy in perfect condition, but I will still buy it on the VC just to support the genre. :D
 
K

KeioSquad2

Member
HBroward said:
At least the price on the VC is negligible compared to what most of us paid for it originally! I have my original copy in perfect condition, but I will still buy it on the VC just to support the genre. :D
Click to expand...

I paid $99.99 at my local game store when it first came out. I was so thrilled, but so disappointed that it came in a cardboard box with xerox instructions........ Back before funcoland was bought out to become gamestop, They used to be real cool about letting people get the boxes they had on the shelves to games since they always charged and paid the same with or without, so I asked for the PS4 box, and took that and cut the cardboard and placed it in a regular genesis box... and kept my original cardboard box tucked safely away...

Those were the days.:D
 
W

Witchfinder General

punched Wheelchair Mike
Just beat the game via the Mega Drive Collection on the PS3.

Really, really bloody good. I loved the art, the music the story and the characters. The battle system, whilst sparse was satisfying and the use of macros very clever.

Probably my favourite 16bit RPG next to Secret of Mana.

Sega, ditch the online and get cracking on PSV.
 
S

Synth_floyd

Banned
Great music, great colorful graphics, good battles (fast and interesting), a nice plot...until it turned into the usual "oh no there's an evil that threatens the world" cliched crap, and about 10x better than anything else on the Genesis at the time. Characters were also good, except the profound darkess or whatever the last boss was, was so lame. Zio was interesting cause he had a personality at least. The final boss was just a generic "evil force that is evil because it's evil and because it's evil it wants to do evil things." LAME. It could've been more interesting if they reduced the scope of the game from "saving the universe" to doing something more local. It's just a gripe I have with most RPGs. They all have to be about saving the world. Anyway, ranting aside, a great game.
 
F

FortNinety

Member
I could have sworn that part V was in development for the Saturn, and got a good ways along, before being abandoned. No idea why...

But yeah, much love for 4, even though I love the charm (and especially the soundtrack) for 2. And I think 3 is pretty great, and doesn't get nearly the respect that it deserves.

Man, I'm still pissed there was never a GBA port of 4 as promised.
 
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