[POLL] LET'S TALK ABOUT PHANTASY STAR

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Hi everyone let's talk about phantasy star. so I am a big fan of all phantasy star Game's I started playing the first one on Sega back in the late 80s or early 90s
And I play now tile this day. well here is some history of phantasy star I hope You like It.

Another series of lesser known, but equally important role-playing games in terms of the development of the genre is the Phantasy Star series on Sega consoles. Starting with the Sega Master System and progressing onto the Genesis and now Dreamcast consoles, the Phantasy Star series has (with a single notable exception in the third game of the series) always been developed on the cutting edge of technology. All of the games, in particular Phantasy Star I and the newest, Phantasy Star Online, have pushed the boundaries of their system’s performance. In addition to providing exceptional and innovative game views and game play, the Phantasy Star series has also always provided some of the best, innovative storylines of the genre. The first two games in particular did more with their storyline than any other RPG of their time.
Anyway guys I think it would be cool if they made a live Phantasy Star Movie what? Do you think
I'll always remember Phantasy Star 1's bizarre mathematics where I'd be averaging 8-10 damage to a particular enemy, then 1-3 upon leveling up for some reason.

I dunno, maybe it's because I got to it later but I never found Phantasy Star to be as memorable as some of the other JRPG series from that time period, but considering few other sci-fi JRPG series from that era survived, it definitely stands out. I guess maybe because it floundered around in bizarre ways for 3 games before hitting home with Phantasy Star IV that I didn't really pick up on it.
Does Phantasy Star Online 2 count? :3

Played it up to lv.60 but the way to unlock the story was sort of messy, requiring multiple retries per level in the right, sometimes weird, order and a bit of luck to get some drops, so I ended up losing a considerable chunk of it and some chapters weren't included in the ENG patch I had.

Still, was one of the best MMOs I played up to date, great classes, good combat, and loads of costumes, of course it had some freemium faults around, but hey, I still got to 60(and got a maid dress) without paying anything so won't complain.
I'd come back to it if I had a party or could write Japanese to join one.

ps. Never had contact with the offline RPG ones. :\
Sure all of the phantasy star game's count on here. and thanks for giving feed back. You maybe right about that Sgtmettool when you typed that it may not have Been To Memorable. however I guess I like it because it is a sci fi rpg game and I Do not remember to many sci fi rpg's around at that time. and if I am not mistaken FF and PS had a little rivalry going on.
Dragnfly
Beta testers!? No, this game needs a goddamn exorcist!
1809
The PS and PSO series have brought in lots of very interresting game design concepts.

PS 1-4 being an epic (well... about 3.... more on that later) in a time when jRPG sequels were disconnected makes PS4 one of my favourite conclusions to a franchise ever. I've longed for a new jRPG PS game for ages but I'd still be fine if they left it as is and just did a (good) remake because it wrapped up so well.

It was one of the first games I played where character details bled into gameplay. Healing spells didn't work on mechanical party members, for example. It was also a (at the time) rare instance of characters who could use a weapon in each hand for more damage or go defensively.

PS2 gave us one of the first, (if not the first)
perma-death of a party member.


Now looking to PS3, which many consider to be the black sheep of the family. I didn't mind it. The magic system was confusing as heck at first but it was still very interesting. But most interesting was the generations system. I don't think I've ever seen your choice of who to marry have such an impact on a game. It would change the entire following scenario!

So yeah, to say that Phantasy Star isn't an awesome landmark of the jRPG library is utter madness. It played a bigger role in my gaming then FF did until years after PS4 ended.

PSO, while clunky now, was such a landmark at the time. An MMO on console was insane! And that's when the franchise adopted by favourite aesthetic style of sci-fi. And the bonds formed on that game are strong. Real strong. I'm still in off-and-on contact with users on another forum who played with my little FOnewearl Rieka.

Then PSO2 rolls around and I consider it to be the best MMO ever made, hands down. It engages the player so much, pulls them in so much and has so much personality and beauty that even when I'd be concentrating on a quest and suddenly freakin Hunar randomly shows up (with a code avoid or 2 because why the hell not) I'm still having fun whereas any other game would have me throwing my keyboard.

So fan gushing aside, there is a lot of merit to discussing the game design aspects of this franchise. I'm especially fond of PS4's comic style of cinematics and would love to see an RM game use it.

EDIT: Also, PS4 = the first time Dragnfly ever cried at a video game.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
PS4 was better than all the Final Fantasies and I will fight you on this.

PS4 was just such a cool game.

Also I really like the series setting.
Dragnfly
Beta testers!? No, this game needs a goddamn exorcist!
1809
I think what pulled me into the setting of the original 4 so much was how there were androids and stuff, but people still used swords. I mean, that's nothing nowadays but that was so cool to me back then.

On that note, Phantasy Star is no doubt one of the many factors that led to me being such a raging lover of anime. I never saw Dragon Warrior as anime at all due to the sprites and the wicked north american box art (mainly DW2). I made a mental link between PS and TV anime like Voltron for visual look (LOL) but I don't remember if I really knew anime as its own thing back then. I certainly knew it by the time PS4 came out, though. GameFan magazine did features for it LOL. Actually, on that note and because of that magazine PS4 was the game that taught me about regional name changes.
I played Phantasy Star II in 2005 or so and it still blew me away, storyline-wise. The endgame plot twist was way ahead of it's time and it really cast a shadow of moral ambiguity on the protagonists.
I remember playing phantasy star universe online. Of course, it was only the demo but I loved playing. I would literally spend all my time just talking to help. I did actually buy the real game and played through the single player story and honestly, it seemed like a great story but I just could not finish the game because I would miss talking to my friends on there.

Wish I could go back and play it.
Dragnfly
Beta testers!? No, this game needs a goddamn exorcist!
1809
author=BlackWolf1992
Wish I could go back and play it.


I can suggest PSO2. Very similar gameplay but much smoother and with far more choices. It's free (not even pay-to-win. Just pay-to-get-cool-stuff) and there's an English patch that Sega tolerates and benefits from. Unless things have changed since my hiatus then the English-friendly ships are 2 and 10. And be prepared to spend hours in character creation.
Oh cool. Thank Dragn. I do love free! I spend hours and hours on Character creation, I honestly love it. It is always so hard to find a game with really good character creation.
I'm a huge fan of the original Phantasy Star series, in fact I'm still playing it pretty much every year (in fact, I already played PS2 this year!).

Phantasy Star 1 - Really liked the combination of JRPG and grid-based dungeon crawler.

Phantasy Star 2 - Offers pretty much the most epic dungeon design ever. It's the core reason I'm caring so much about dungeon design these days and am bored by most games as they only feature mostly linear/deep dungeons.
Downside of the game was that some battles simply took too long.

Phantasy Star 3 - Really loved the idea about the generations and the world design is great, though dungeons often were far less interesting than in PS2.

Phantasy Star 4 - Is a lot more generic than the other games, but has a super high quality, a great story and even the dungeon design is slightly better again. It's easier to access for less experienced players too.

Phantasy Star Online - I kinda liked the idea of combining MMORPG with randomly generated dungeons. I mean that always fits together perfectly. The game has also some of the best boss battles I've seen in MMORPGs (actually requires you to apply playing skill rather than just mashing your hotkeys).
The problem of the game was that the random dungeon generation wasn't all that random in the end, there weren't enough different maptiles to keep it interesting, so it felt repetitive pretty fast.

Phantasy Star Universe - Felt too much like an MMORPG just without the MMO aspect. Offline mode had really boring dungeon design too. I wanted to like it and I even finished it, but in the end it was just an average experience.
AtiyaTheSeeker
In all fairness, bird shrapnel isn't as deadly as wood shrapnel
5424
I actually had a compilation game for the Game Boy Advance, published by THQ I think(?), that had Phantasy Star 1 thru 3 on it. Also played most of Phantasy Star 4 on a Sega Genesis compilation; then again, never finished any of the Phantasy Star games. Lastly, I'd also played Phantasy Star 0 for a bit on the Nintendo DS. Soooo... here's my opinions on the franchise from what I have learned of it, from game to game.

Phantasy Star 1 was pretty fun IMO. The first-person dungeons were kinda tricky for me, but then again I'd yet to have gotten into games with such mazes beforehand (this is before I really got into Wizardry and its clones). I found it interesting how your healing items are burgers and cola. Alis is also one of few female protagonists in JRPGs, and may be the first as far as I know. A simple game, but fun times. Also a bit disappointed to learn that the ultimate weapon for Odin, which he was questing for in the first place, is outclassed by a purchasable laser gun. :x

Phantasy Star 2 really caught my interest. Okay, its labyrinthine dungeons were a huge pain in the arse to play through. But I digged the sci-fantasy feel, and I'm sure I equated the game to Star Wars on the Genesis at least once before. My only gripe is the fact that Rolf gets overpowered easily, and that at least one character *coughhughcough* feels useless as can be. I also never really used Shir either, as she seemed scrawny and I prefer not to steal stuff from non-monster folks even in video games (she can shoplift from stores if she's in your party sometimes, for those unaware).

Phantasy Star 3 is definitely the black sheep. I hadn't played it much. Disliked the technique system. Couldn't figure out where to go many times, which is also a problem in Phantasy Star 2 (at least regarding dungeons). Moving on.

Phantasy Star 4! My various neo-pagan gods, Phantasy Star 4 was the best game in the series and a stellar way to tie up the loose ends of the classic Phantasy Star games, not to mention have the classics' storyline end with a bang. Now this one actually feels like a modern JRPG -- an in-depth storyline (complete with comic-book-esque cutscenes), many characters that drop in and out of the party Final Fantasy 4 style, the Skills system that let you use certain abilites 'per day', a la D&D (in addition to MP-based techniques), and a wondrous world to explore. Motavia definitely feels like Tatooine, and if I'd equated the game series to a Sega-made Star Wars, it's definitely evident in PS4. I highly recommend this one, even if you'd never played the others; if you have played the others, or play 'em later, you'll find shout-outs galore to the other games in the franchise before it.

Phantasy Star 0... not worthy of a name that implies it's a prequel to the other Phantasy Star games on the Genesis. It plays like a portable Phantasy Star Online as far as I can tell. It's a grind-fest for gear, with wonky combination attack timing for your weapons and what feel like less-adequate techniques (I played a Female Newman Hunter, as opposed to some kind of Force-User, which might explain why the techniques sucked for me though). It's best played with friends, but... meh.
I didn't play any of the Phantasy Star games until a ways after their initial release, so my first impression was that most of them don't hold up super well (other than 4). That said, when you put them in historical context, their storytelling was kind of way ahead of the curve (minus 3).

-Phantasy Star 1 came out around the same time as Final Fantasy 1 (end of '87), but it actually had things like named characters and motivations, something Final Fantasy 1 didn't have at all and that series only pursued half-assedly until 4.
-Phantasy Star 2 took this way further, and it only came out at the end of '89. Final Fantasy 4 was still two years away, and while Phantasy Star 2's dialogue was probably about as ham-fisted, it was still trying to tackle more mature subject matter than Final Fantasy would until 6.
-Phantasy Star 3 is a garbage pile and should be forgotten.
-Phantasy Star 4 came out in Japan in '93, which was a year before Final Fantasy 6. At the time, it probably had the strongest storytelling out of any console jrpg up until that point.

They also had some pretty sweet art. I haven't seen a Master System game with better graphics than Phantasy Star, and, really, most nes games don't look as good. The music was killer across the whole franchise (except 3), too.

I think level design wise, though, they're all kind of crappy. They get better as the series progresses, but the first three Phantasy Star games just consist of mazes. Phantasy Star 3 also has the worst world map design in history. The world map is broken into 7 different domes that are connected by caves (aka small mazes) and temples (direct connections that can be accessed towards the end of the game). However, there are only three dungeon tilesets that I can remember, so everything looks really samey, and if you want to get to a specific dome, it's a real pain in the ass. Worse, just because you make it to the right dome doesn't mean that you're in the right position in that dome, and you might not be able to get to wherever it is you're going.

I'm going to stop now or I'm just going to rail on 3. I just played it last week and it's fresh in my mind.
Backwards_Cowboy
owned a Vita and WiiU. I know failure
1737
I've played all of them through the Sega Genesis Collection, and I played Portable and Portable 2, which were essentially handheld MMORPGS. The first was local only, but the second had online servers where you could join a party.

According to Sega Genesis Collection, Phantasy Star IV was so complex for the time that the game included a massive strategy guide book that listed where to go and what to do for all the quests and side-quests.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
author=Backwards_Cowboy
According to Sega Genesis Collection, Phantasy Star IV was so complex for the time that the game included a massive strategy guide book that listed where to go and what to do for all the quests and side-quests.


I'd believe it for that fukken dog quest. DAMN YOU, FAT DOG!!!!
i am a big Phantasy Star fan, as PS1 was my very first RPG back when i was playing on my Sega Master System.

ever since playing that game i loved the series (cept PS3 cause imo that game is HORRIBLE, especially after playing PS2!) it was basically PS1 that sparked my love for RPGs, which brings me to this site and the forums. XD
Phantasy Star IV had the most epic soundtrack. The title, End of a Millennium is so cool, nothing touches that soundtrack except for Final Fantasy VI.
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