by newsblade » Sun Mar 30, '08, 10:38 pm
"Phantasy Star - 1st Series Complete Collection" brought, for the first time, all OSV tracks from the 4 PS classic games. It also has a bonus track in CD1 that can be listened in "Megadrive Super Fan - vol. 2" and two versions of Phantasy Star II OSV (the Japanese and the Overseas). While the Japanese seems to possess a better quality in sound/instruments, the Overseas have a less lowder "beat" which for the lovers of the melody (instead of the percussion) or simply for the ones who are used to the Overseas version (like us) will be very happy. Instead of choosing they placed the two versions which in my opinion was the right choice.
I've played the game on a real PS2 this weekend and liked it! I like it very much!
For the first time we can have all 4 Phantasy Stars in one single disc and in a format that will long last (PS2 can be read on a PS3 and so on...). You can play the Japanese version, change to a start new American version game, and then change back to where you were in the Japanese version. In this way, people who understand both Japanese and English can compare the differences between the two versions.
Besides those 2 versions (US and Jap) we can also experience the European version (or at least the version I played in my old megadrive). If you have breaker pro (to play foreign games) and choose PAL format, the tempo of the music will be reduced by 15% and believe me, it's a totally new experience, because the soundtrack becomes (in my opinion, of course) much better. The BGM becomes much more evolving and it gave me good memories which an emulator cannot give (unfortunately, this can only be experience if you have a breaker pro).
There are some rare pics for both PS2, PS3 (PS3 possesses the best ones) and PS4, but overall they gave us less material than the GBA version. The sound test is good idea - we can listen all the songs without complete any game. The in game save options seems to remain the same, although they give a menu save state were we can save anywhere. There are a lot of graphic options especially on PS1. I played the games on a projector and graphics seemed a little better than the ones from "Sega Megadrive/Genesis Collection"... but I could be mistaken. I've also compared this version to the emulated ones (genesis roms)... and I never imagined that roms were so pitiful. Really, it's not the same, playing this PS2 release in a real PS2 is a welcomed experience.
I think they should have released this PS Collection for PSP for a portable experience.