Phantasy Star's 20th Anniversary

SempaiEclipse

Twenty years ago Phantasy Star was born. Sega differentiated the series from archetypical console RPGs by switching to a futuristic setting and having a female lead. Neither sounds revolutionary now, but in the damsel in distress NES days the latter was quite progressive. After a great fourth installment on the Genesis, Phantasy Star faded away until it was designed as an online game for the Dreamcast. Sega has had some success with Phantasy Star Online, but the series is far from its apex. There isn't really much fanfare about Phantasy Star turning twenty and Phantasy Star Universe's PSP port is barely getting attention.







Perhaps, Sega should revert back to the good old days of Phantasy Star Offline. Fill the void of sci-fi RPG epics with a tale of combat cyborgs, Dark Force and broken marriages. Do you think this will happen before the series 25th birthday? Better question, would you buy a new Phantasy Star game in the vein of the original ones?



Siliconera » Happy 20th Birthday Phantasy Star!

asasenpai

Did you check on other news when is it going to be release?

teddy_bare

Ahh, Phantasy Star.......

Phantasy Star was my first real RPG. I remember I got a SMS for xmas in '86, and I used to save up my allowance, and my grandfather used to put his change in a tin at the end of the day and every so often he gave it to me to wrap up and bring to the bank, and my Mom would take me to the mall or Toys R' Us and I would pick out a new game. Now, the funny thing is, back  then there really wasn't any kind of really direct marketing programs, or magazines and such focused soley on games (SEGA did actually have a magazine for the SMS, and I got it, but it was no where near as good as Nintendo Power), and I would choose my game based, mostly, on the cover art and the description on the box....

And that's how I came home from Toys R' Us one blessed day w/ a game that had some truly awesome box art....

and was incredibly expensive for that day and age. In fact, I had to borrow 10 beans from my Moms to afford it's $70 price tag. Besides the box art, and the description on the back of the box I remember being impressed by the fact that the game was a Four-Mega + cartridge. For those of you that never had a SMS, Sega used to categorize their games under, mainly, three different types of cart. There was the Mega Cartridge, the Two-Mega Cartridge, and the Sega Card (which was, as the name says, a game on a little card roughly the size of a buisness card). But Phantasy Star broke that system, this was a Four-Mega + game, if you can believe it!!!!! Anway, I got it home and started playing..........

And my life has never been the same since. That game was so completely different from anything I had ever played before. It had it's own galaxy of 3 seperate and unique planets w/ a deep history framed in an engrossing story, a character developement system much like what games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest made famous (even though they were both developed after Phantasy Star), all wrapped in a unique mixture of fantasy and sci-fi. I thoroughly enjoyed each and every second I spent playing that game, and when I finally beat it I felt like I had really achieved something. I was very proud of my 8yo self  for beating that game.

Looking back I liken the experience of playing Phantasy Star back then to when I first entered the world of Norrath in EQ many years later. It was a feeling of entering a completely new, and unique world where your actions had an impact on everything, and you actually felt like you grew with your character as you experienced everything the game had to offer.

Anyway.....I've always been of the opinion that Phantasy Star never got the recognition it deserved, and never understood why they didn't carry on the single-player PS series after 4. They were all really good (yes, even 3 :P ), and 4 was actually a phenomenal game that was closest to the first in form. I certainly wouldn't mind if they started making new single-player Phantasy Star games continuing the story of the first 4. Actually, I am kind of surprised they did stop where they did, I mean PS4 was clearly the result of developers on the top of their game and it's strange they wouldn't want to continue with such a well established IP. Although, PS4 did come late in the Genesis's lifetime and never got the big numbers, so maybe that's why, who knows. All I know is, I would absolutely LOVE to see a new Phantasy Star game that isn't the online-action-rpg thing it has become known as.

 

Oh well, we can keep hoping and dreaming right?

SweBlackbird

I don't know much about it becuase I'm only have try this game out in Dreamcast and Gamecube. But yeah this game was really awesome and love they online function.