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The Phantasy Star 25th Anniversary Thread | When Red Rings Were Good

IrishNinja

Member
yeah, ive been trying to place the title's reference for a bit now, i don't remember red rings in genesis era Phantasy Star stuff
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Hah, I was coming in to post a few shots showing how impressed I still am with PS1 and I see others saying what I was going to say.

phantasystarusaeuropekzuob.png


Even something as simple as opening a treasure chest was something I looked forward to just because of the animation.

phantasystarusaeurope4nus2.png


Same goes for opening a door. Meeting a closed door, then pressing a button to open it, then watching it open was, at the time, interesting to watch.

phantasystarusaeuropeh5ulm.png


And I've already said how much I loved the battle backgrounds and sprite animation/detail in this game. That sort of thing in terms of art design is something I value a lot, and it's good to see games do that sort of thing.

When I was little, I generally picked games to play based on how colourful they were or what cool things they did graphically (was the level design fine, did it do neat things like alternating lights, parallax scrolling, cool foregrounds, etc.). Phantasy Star was one of those. I watched my cousins play a bit of it, and I was incredibly impressed with the battle backgrounds. What was cool was that the enemies animated. It was completely mindblowing that enemies could animate in battle like that. I also appreciated seeing how much HP enemies had prior to defeat. It's helpful.

And I have to agree--years later, how well the scrolling through dungeons is so damn smooth. It's amazing to see each and every time I play through this.

I wanted to try the retranslation patch but neither Fusion nor Gens+ doesn't seem to like it much. I'll figure it out tomorrow when I'm not tired, I guess.

Apologies for being so wordy and so rambling. I hope a bit of this made sense.
There is nothing wrong with being verbose! :D

It's interesting reading people's impressions from its release. I was born in '88 so I didn't play the game until a few years later when I was trying to learn more about video games in general and increase my "repertoire" for them.

IrishNinja said:
yeah, ive been trying to place the title's reference for a bit now, i don't remember red rings in genesis era Phantasy Star stuff
Phantasy Star Online reference. Poor Rico.

Randy Monk said:
When have the Red Wings ever been shit? Sergei, Keith, Steve have a word with the OP.
Wasn't there a time called the "Dead Wings" era? Before Yzerman joined the team?
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Schala, what do you mean when you say those emulators don't like the retranslation? What happens?
I'm met with a black screen instead of the game booting up for some reason. When I select the unpatched file, it runs fine.

Could be the patch utility I'm using.
 

Dusk Golem

A 21st Century Rockefeller
I absolutely love Phantasy Star. I'll have a lot more to say later, but since music was brought up and the series always has had amazing music I was just thinking of the great homages to older Phantasy Star music in PSO's Ruins and Ship stage themes. I surprisingly didn't pick up on it until years later, but I love refferences like this.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1R_N532yFQ8
 

Son1x

Member
Phantasy Star IV is the only one I played, but I absolutely loved it. Definitely one of my favorite JRPG's of all time. I still remember getting it. It was late 2008 and was checking the Wii's VC. It was around when it released on European VC as well, so it looked interesting. Next VC points I had were used on it. Then I started it and the more I played it, the better it got.
 

@MUWANdo

Banned
And I have to agree--years later, how well the scrolling through dungeons is so damn smooth. It's amazing to see each and every time I play through this.

It's so cool that Naka recycled the same technique for the special stages in Sonic 2!

some of ya'll are really arguing PS1 & 2 aren't hard games, especially by today's standards?

grinding (both XP and meseta) take forever sometimes, enemies/encounter rates can be mean, many bosses are no joke - i recall dying on my way back to town more than a few times.

2 is made infinitely easier when you secure a visaphone, but that takes a bit. i know the average JRPG difficulty went down when the floodgates opened, but even in their day i wanna say both were challenging games.

The first game isn't particularly difficult compared to the other early JRPGs of the day, at least in terms of grind, encounter rate, etc. Saving in the middle of a dungeon and then forgetting where the fuck you are when you reload is a bitch, but what can ya do?
 
Another person who jumped on the Collection on JP PSN. Dunno when I'll get around to playing any of them, but guess I'll share impressions when I do.

I actually owned the four main games in the series and PSO Eps. 1+2 and 3 before but most of my experience with the series can be summed up as "that one time I played the first game for a bit and then never went back to it again" and listening to the performance of World With Me from Sonic Team Unplugged a whole lot with little bits of PSO in between.
 

Shion

Member
Phantasy Star 1 is probably one of the two games in the franchise that I spent a lot of time playing in the past. I really liked it when I was younger, but I found that it hasn't really aged all that well at all, though it feels like a lot of that has to do with it trying to be a lot closer to Dragon Quest's more contained single adventure feel, while trying to stretch that out to be as long as Final Fantasy's more campaign length-game. I still kind of hate how it ended and much of the game feels like needless filler, but it's a good first effort.
I think that PS1 has aged very well for such an early JRPG.

I mean, apart from the fact that you can easily get lost in the 3D dungeons, I don't think there's anything else in the game that would discourage a new player from getting into it.
 

Teletraan1

Banned
Ty for the thread. The nostalgia came rushing back. The soundtracks in these game are top notch. I have only played 1-4, and PSO on dreamcast. While PSO was kinda cool it was never the experience 1-4 is for me. I really hope they make 5 some day but with how crappy rpgs are now I doubt it would be good. Everything is all sizzle no steak now. As a testament to how little I care for graphics in these games I replay this old stuff all the time. I played though FF13 1x and never again. The quest for better graphics really destroyed this entire genre as it is probably too time/resource intensive to make a game on the scale of PSIV with today's graphics. It makes me sad. Hopefully someone else who misses this stuff will get enough industry clout to give it a try.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Finishing PS1 on the GBA without using a single map was my proudest achievement.

And yet I can't come close to finishing PS2.
 

gunstarhero

Member
I played both Phantasy Star and Phantasy Star Gaiden for the first time earlier this year (because I read Gaiden was a direct sequel of sorts to the first game).

Phantasy Star Gaiden is so so so so so so so so bad. Ruins Alis and the whole first game.

Good to know - I will avoid this like the plague.

This series is still my most important series in gaming - the first game introduced me to the genre, and cemented my belief that I made the right choice with the Master System over a NES. :)

The second game made it my favorite genre and still stands as one of my all time favorite games ever.

The ending to PSII is still the biggest "holy shit" moment ever in gaming. Also, I think I'm one of the few people who had Shir steal the data recorder without knowing about the trick beforehand. It came as a complete surprise when she did it, and I was completely blown away that you could now save anywhere! Easily the best easter egg ever.

Three was a bit of a disappointment, but I say this despite me playing through it back to back to get all the endings. So it's wasn't THAT bad - just not PS caliber in my book.

Four was awesome - and did everything right, except I recall it being EXTREMELY easy.
 

red13th

Member
I'm met with a black screen instead of the game booting up for some reason. When I select the unpatched file, it runs fine.

Could be the patch utility I'm using.

Are you patching a Japanese rom? The same happened to me when I tried patching an English rom.
 

MechaX

Member
Jesus man, how do Sandworms obtain the ability to rig their treasure chest with fucking explosives?

But I'm starting to see how PS1 was pretty ahead of its time compared to contemporaries like Ultima.
 
I played Phantasy Star 1 about a month ago actually, on a whim. I unlocked it in the Sega Collection for Xbox 360. At first I was all "wow this game is actually kinda hard, I'm dying! Let's grind more. This is exciting!"

And I continued with my grind for what seemed like forever, and then I explored a bit, got murdered, went to a new planet, had to leave because I got murdered, got some cat name Myau that was awful and died instantly, then found a guy named Odin who was OK I guess, and then I found a random dungeon, did it all, and then didn't have an item to finish it so I tried to leave and got horribly lost for like 30 minutes, had to keep running away from enemies, and then I turned the game off. I haven't wanted to turn it back on again

I guess you had to play it at the time. I didn't start playing JRPGs until Final Fantasy VIII, so I was never around for these types of titles. I'm sure I'd feel the same about Dragon Warrior 1. The crippling difficulty (for me, I'm sure plenty of you are about to tell me how easy the game is and how good at it you are) just wan't fun for me. I should have drawn a map.
 

Kokonoe

Banned
PSO>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>PSU

aw, i played the shit out of PSO (prolly my only MMO) but only ep 1 on DC, im gonna assume this was after that?

also your face is a monster, beefy!

Red Ring Rico is the main part of the story of Episode I so it is in the first for DC, but in GC, Xbox, and BlueBurst versions, you could get her trademark item the "Red Ring" which is a bracelet for your arm(Shield). I'm not sure if it was possible to obtain in DC without cheats, though, but I do recall it being in the game too.


That is not fabulous, not at all.
 
When I was little, I generally picked games to play based on how colourful they were or what cool things they did graphically (was the level design fine, did it do neat things like alternating lights, parallax scrolling, cool foregrounds, etc.). Phantasy Star was one of those. I watched my cousins play a bit of it, and I was incredibly impressed with the battle backgrounds. What was cool was that the enemies animated. It was completely mindblowing that enemies could animate in battle like that. I also appreciated seeing how much HP enemies had prior to defeat. It's helpful.

I just wish those drooling/vomiting zombies didn't take soooooo loooooong to do an attack.

On another note, listening to Odin fire the laser pistol (or whatever it's called) is like having an icepick shoved directly into the ears.
 

Foxix Von

Member
PSO>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>PSU

We should be friends o_o
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Are you patching a Japanese rom? The same happened to me when I tried patching an English rom.
Nah, it was the patching utility I was using; I was patching the JP ROM but it just didn't take. Weird, because it usually works with SFC games. Problem solved, though! The retranslation is excellent! And the font and formatting don't piss me off!

phantasystar-english0r2upi.png
phantasystar-english035udr.png
phantasystar-english0h2ua2.png


PSO>(x100)PSU.
Koko, I knew we were friends for a reason. Outside of the new mechanics that the PSU and PSP games introduce, which are absolutely necessary and I'm glad to see them in PSO2, I think PSO atmospherically and narratively was the better game.

Do I need to set the same rules that we have in place for SonicGAF, and the same rules Andrex has in place for PokeGAF, for this thread?

Because I can and will.

(Aw, you know I'm kidding. But, you know, similar rules apply because of the same reasons. :p)
 
Koko, I knew we were friends for a reason. Outside of the new mechanics that the PSU and PSP games introduce, which are absolutely necessary and I'm glad to see them in PSO2, I think PSO atmospherically and narratively was the better game.

I personally like PSU more than PSO, but I can agree with this post.
 
Even though I was a Genesis kid, I didn't get into the mainline Phantasy Star series (or RPGs in general) until much later. I guess part of it was my desire to play the series in order, since I started out by beating Phantasy Star in the GBA collection. I think the original PS holds up pretty well; the graphics and sounds are nice, the grind isn't too bad, and the story is charming and simple. After finishing the original, I started Phantasy Star 2, which I've been slowly progressing through for the past few years. It's a great game, but the grind is incredibly unforgiving (Beat a boss, grind for levels, beat a dungeon, grind for levels, beat half of a dungeon, grind for levels to even face the other half's monsters, rinse and repeat). It's too bad the Complete Collection was never released in the US, because that EXP modifier would have been a great help in reducing the grind's tedium.

Another, larger, part of it is that I didn't become a fan of the series until I played Phantasy Star Online. I remember it being a fun experience overall, as it was probably my first major online RPG, though I ended up playing mostly offline due to having already switched to broadband (Brings back memories of trying to find a free dial-up service that worked with the Dreamcast). I got into PSO v.1 later in its life-cycle (after the v.2 release), so I did run into a number of cheaters. Still, when I did find some legit random players, it was a blast, even though we usually stopped after beating the Dragon boss.

As I said, I ended up spending most of my time in the offline segment, as a RAcast (Big green/white rifle-wielding robot, no magic). Ah, just listening to the Pioneer 2 music brings back memories.

"I'm running low on inventory space. Should I get this item?"
"Am I going to use this higher-level gun I found? I should just store it for later... or sell it and use the meseta for something else."
"Let's see what the shops have this time..."
"I might run into some monsters weak against this gun's type; maybe I should keep this on-hand just in case."
"Gotta get more telepipes!"

I never beat the game, though I remember getting pretty far. The big difficulty spike was the MOME mission, and I had to attempt that dozens of times, grinding to eventually be strong enough to beat it. I finally completed the MOME mission, then I beat the robot boss to open the ruins. I think I only had a few missions left before the final one. I should probably fire up the ol' Dreamcast, check if the VMU still has the save, and beat Dark Falz one of these days.
 

gunstarhero

Member
Downloading the PS Collection from the Japanese store right now (along with Space Harrier collection) - this is a good day indeed.
 
I was so hooked on PSO for the Dreamcast back in the day. Never picked up any of the later online PS games because they didn't seem to be true successors to PSO. I hope PSO2 turns out good and isn't just a shitty pay-to-win kind of free game.
 

@MUWANdo

Banned
ROFL. I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't like the PSO series of games. The PS series was comparable to the FF series up until FF7. And that's because Sega did fuck all with the PS series.

The original PS veterans had all moved on, and I think Naka had as much claim to PS as anyone else. It's not like corporate management mothballed the franchise or anything.
 

pants

Member
I was so hooked on PSO for the Dreamcast back in the day. Never picked up any of the later online PS games because they didn't seem to be true successors to PSO. I hope PSO2 turns out good and isn't just a shitty pay-to-win kind of free game.

Been playing it and I can confirm it is good. (I have played PSO v1, v2, BB, the PSP games for reference)
 
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