Phantasy Star IV fan boys/girls annoy me

[Mono]

^
I like this newbie, he/she is mine!

*grabs*

[Heroic_Chaz]

That's a lil' creepy, mono... almost as creepy as your former avatar, which none of us shall ever forget.

[Mono]

My last avatar was delicious, and this one I´m using now was too, but I croped it around the head for filesize :^P

[Zucca]

Hm... Gray Elf Nei.

[Nate556]

I guess I'm special, in that I've never played Phantasy Star 4 before.

I first played Phantasy Star 2 when I was about 10 years old. I rented it, and played it for about 3 days straight. I didn't get very far. I had just discovered Tiem, and then had to take it back. It was a very hard game to learn.

Thanks to emulation, I've been able to go back and play Phantasy star 1, which i did, and beat. Then i played Phantasy Star 2, and beat. I didn't get to utterly conquer the game, which I will someday, I just wanted to get the storyline so i can continue with the series.
I am currently playing phantasy star 3 and loving it. It's different, y'know, no Palma, Mota, or Dezo, but the characters are interesting, and Mieu is.... nice very nice

What I like about Phantasy Star, is it's adultness. It's a very grown up game. It takes itsself pretty serious, without being TOO series. Bad stuff happens, and y'know, there is no way to to stop it. No going back. Most other games tend to be kiddy, or kinda silly(cough FF), but Phantasy Star is dead serious. I almost didn't believe it when a certain satelite crashed into a certain planet. And I was really shocked when the Commander says, "You guys are going to be fugitives now."

Of course, I think anyone bashing any game is kinda pointless. We all like different games for different reasons.

[Zucca]

That's what I like in PS series. Serious buziness man! :P No really. The Seriousness makes all the PS games very good. I like Final Fantasy 6 too. I've also played some earlier FF games too. But only one I really remember is FF 6.
I've never played FF 7 it got bit ridiculous, like some special attack lasting half a minute...

[Nate556]

I think the problem with the FF games, is that because they were released on Ninendo, they weren't allowed to reference death, or anything suggestive in nature, so they are automatically kinda childish. One of my favorite final fantasy games was FF2, that Neo-demiforce translated. That game is pretty deep. After that, My all-time favorite is 8. When i played that, I was pretty much going through all the emotional turmoil Squall was, so i could relate to the characters really well, and I understood the whole thing. Even being so young at the time, I totally got why Squall decided to leave the group and carry Rinoa on his back across an ocean.

I guess I like my RPG's to be serious. I never really analyzed it before, but I like a dash of realism. I know, "But the characters throw fireballs and look, there is a hot babe with pointy ears!" It's hard to explain. It's all in visualization, conceptualization, how i precieve them, and how my imagination constructs what's happening within my head.
Like, I could look at Rolf and go, "Y'know, I'd have done that too, were I there." OR the sheer horror of watching a father cut down his daughter, and understanding the pain in his whole being at the realization, "Oh my god! What have I done! My daughter, you will not die alone!" It's the horrific scenes like that, to me, which makes the games powerful, and touching.
I can see pieces of myself in them. I think that's why we like the things we like, we see pieces of ourselves in them, and even if it's negative, we still can relate to that, and in some way, we learn more about ourselves.
I'm sorry for the long post. I tend to ramble, and I could write a small book if i don't check myself, LOL. I'll be careful to try and quantify my point, so I don't produce such a long post in the future.
Nat.

[BenoitRen]

Those restrictions were imposed by Nintendo of America, not by Nintendo Japan. The Final Fantasy games had their share of suggestions, which were censored in the US version. Nevertheless, there were deaths in FFV and FFVI.

So I don't think that was the problem.

[Nate556]

Those restrictions were imposed by Nintendo of America, not by Nintendo Japan. The Final Fantasy games had their share of suggestions, which were censored in the US version. Nevertheless, there were deaths in FFV and FFVI.

So I don't think that was the problem.

I think, and I'm not 100%, but around the time those games came out, that was about the time they started implementing the rating system, so they could leave more of the game intact, and just slap a "Mature" rating on it.

[thriwren]

Nintendo of America had a strict polocy on more mature themes on games released state side, even from NoJ (Zelda comes to mind). This was a bit less prevalent on the SNES (Mortal Kombat with no blood and blood code). Which NoA seen on which system people was buying for (Genesis since MK had blood) and was diminished by the end of SNES and the 64.

[Semix]

My apologies :

Yes i was introduced with PSIV on a game collection (it had II III and IV).
Yes i hated III, but i thought it was due to slowness (of characters movements) and controls. Also the battle screen makes no sence so i could barley do a fight.
Yes i think II was not as good, i never really got into it.
Im doing I and thinks its okay sofar (only just started) but PSIV dominates.

Didnt mean to annoy you, im just a kid

Anyway on the pscave sections seems PSIV has by far the most and most helpful information. So come on, it was better though you have to admit?

right?

riiiiggggtt?

I withdraw my question... (seriously it was wasn't it?)

[Muuu teKi]

Phantasy Star III is so much wonderful potential not really able to be put forth properly.

I think that the battle system, while far removed from the rest of the series, was honestly a pretty cool system not well-implemented. For example, not having a large selection of magic techs, but ones that can be upgraded/augmented for a small fee at a tech shop? I like the idea, but it should be done such that players have only a small amount of total TP through the game. Make SaRes, as the characters level up, nearly able to heal the party to full health. Make it only, say, 5 TP to use! However, give the player only one or two extra TP per level increase, thus making magic use develop in such a way that it's not necessary to micromanage techniques and sort through five or six versions of the same technique either.

Multiple rows of enemies? An interesting idea indeed! What was wrong with this? Not too much, but it seemed to be at the expense of detailed character graphics, which was a disappointment. Would also be interesting if similar arrangements could be done for the party itself as well, which I recall some later Final Fantasy games implementing.

Story? It's something that could have been really interesting and compelling, but the character development fell by the wayside -- with Phantasy Star II there were the bonus text adventure games that aided development of most of the party, even there -- and we're not really clear on the motivation of some of the characters the way they're presented.
Unlike in Phantasy Star II there aren't a lot of people to talk to get acquainted with your surroundings, and there isn't as detailed backstory, it seems to me, on the war between Laya and Orakio as there was for the creation of Mother Brain. Part of what makes Phantasy Star II rather timeless is that there's a clever world design to Mota, and while character driven story is sparse, there's a lot to discover from talking to people and going places.
I did find the general style being different from PSII and IV to be a bit jarring, though it does seem to take at least a limited number of design sensibilities from Palma in PS1, being more fantastical and less mechanical. I also prefer the more moe character designs in the other games to the art direction in the game itself -- oddly that wasn't the case in that one character book, which had the more anime-styled designs.

Multiple Generations? Due to space restrictions I can see why there are only 3 save slots, but it ought to have at least 4 -- one for each ending of the game, maybe more. Again, not a major issue but something to consider for a major remake. The main problem with the multiple generations is that because so little storyline was put forth, the differences at the end of the game are very minor. The first generation was pretty good, and split off into two rather distinct storylines, but at the third they all merged together, especially because they had the same basic goal -- collect the weapons and then go fight Dark Force. Thus an interesting idea that really didn't lead to a revolution in gameplay. Perhaps if more of the final generation could have taken place in areas aside from the Neo Palm, each character going to different places, then it would have been better.

So yeah, great design, bad implementation. Still it's certainly not horrible but looks like crap compared to the other titles in the series, and it's not a vital game to play to get a good understanding of the storyline of the series, especially since it occurs far away from Algol. Did, again, have some cool innovation though in its development. If the information held in the character books was actually utilized in development of a remake though, I'd be all over that in a heartbeat. Yes.

Phantasy Star IV? It's interesting. Those fond of it that haven't played the two Sega CD Lunar titles NEED to do so, since they seem to take a number of cues from them -- they're a bit more upbeat and have less complex dungeons. PSIV can also be challenging if you pretty much never grind (cuts out the extra tedium, in any case), making my main issue with it that it was far too linear in its development.
I also felt disappointed that I couldn't organize the party as well as in PSII.

Incidentally, I miss the Ryuka technique.