Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

tilinelson2 wrote:More like all the PSIV Dark Forces and Profound Darkness are in contradiction with the rest of the series.

Remove PSIII from the picture and everything PSIV does falls in line perfectly with the rest of the series.

Hukos wrote:

tilinelson2 wrote:More like all the PSIV Dark Forces and Profound Darkness are in contradiction with the rest of the series.

Remove PSIII from the picture and everything PSIV does falls in line perfectly with the rest of the series.

Maybe BUT as Phantasy Star III is official, it's hard to remove it ! And was created before the IV, even if the team isn't the same.
And even if we take in account the japanese version of PSIII (action taking place in 3384), is it not possible to try to make all fit ?

But even if there is some flaws, it doesnt' matter ! All the episodes are great and that is the more important

Hukos wrote:

tilinelson2 wrote:More like all the PSIV Dark Forces and Profound Darkness are in contradiction with the rest of the series.

Remove PSIII from the picture and everything PSIV does falls in line perfectly with the rest of the series.

It doesn't fall perfectly with the rest of the series. It negates almost everything that happened in the previous games just to throw a bone to those who were more concerned with "references" to the series than consistency.

If you remove PSIV from the picture, though, everything falls in line perfectly.

For me, consistency is the most important for this serie.
Remove PSIII...remove PSIV ? You don't really think about it ! We must do with it : the serie is like it is
TILINELSON : You would be glad if Phantasy Star IV was out, isn't it ? I know haw you're not a big fan of the scenario

tilinelson2 wrote:

Hukos wrote:

tilinelson2 wrote:More like all the PSIV Dark Forces and Profound Darkness are in contradiction with the rest of the series.

Remove PSIII from the picture and everything PSIV does falls in line perfectly with the rest of the series.

It doesn't fall perfectly with the rest of the series. It negates almost everything that happened in the previous games just to throw a bone to those who were more concerned with "references" to the series than consistency.

If you remove PSIV from the picture, though, everything falls in line perfectly.

This is factually and objectively incorrect.

The destruction of Palma in PSII makes sense given that it's one of the seals that holds the Profound Darkness at bay. That's a pretty logical thing for PD to do, to you know, get rid of the seal keeping it trapped. There's nothing in PSIV that contradicts that.

In PSIII, Dark Force shouldn't even exist because Rolf killed it in PSII. Removing PSIV from the picture doesn't change that contradiction at all.

Adon's ending in PSIII is nonsensical even without PSIV. It creates a closed time loop paradox with PSII, contradicting the events that happened in that game. PSIV didn't create that paradox, PSIII did.

So PSII doesn't make sense because Alis killed Dark Force in PSI. And PSIV doesn't make sense because there are three Dark Forces when it was supposed to appear only once in a 1,000 years.

There were no strict rules for Dark Force until PSIV came and retconned the whole series. In PSI, nothing is said about it, it is just an enemy that possessed the governor. In PSII, it is not the cause of the tragedies, but the humans are. It is just another boss. In Phantasy Star III, Dark Force is not much different from Phantasy Star I, because people and androids are creating the mayhem and Dark Force is just the materialization of their negative feelings.

In Phantasy Star IV, everything has become a FF-like fight between the heroes of light and the ultimate evil. They are the "chosen-ones" and they tried to imply every other "hero" was also a "chosen-one", taking all the strength of PSI and PSII story (common people fighting an evil ruler, common people fighting the human causes of the disasters).

PSIV contradicts the other games in lots of points, like the crap about Rika, Alis being a venerated heroine (nobody knew anything about her in PSII), Lutz becoming a title, return of Lassic and Myau, etc, etc, etc, and even the only reference to PSIII contradicts what is told in PSIII.

Besides, the plot for PSIII was already outlined during PSII development, while PSIV was made a lot of time after that, with a plot that changed considerably (the first idea for the trainwreck was to have Nei as the protagonist), and deeply inspired by FFIV (even Kodama admits FFIV as the inspiration for PSIV). So, people who probably played the games out of order, not near the time they were made are crazy to rewrite the history and make PSIV the main game and the rest is as good as they provide support to PSIV, but the truth is that PSIV was the huge departure from the original series. Even the target audience is younger than PSII and PSIII, filled with anime clichés, cheap humor and no "deep" themes like PSII and PSIII had.

So you can try to nitpick few aspects and twist them (like forcing a PSIII ending canon) in order to prove the point that PSIV is right in everything and the rest is only right when they agree with PSIV, but PSIV was the "odd" one.

So PSII doesn't make sense because Alis killed Dark Force in PSI. And PSIV doesn't make sense because there are three Dark Forces when it was supposed to appear only once in a 1,000 years.

The Dark Force in PSIII is directly implied to be the same one from PSII. The Dark Force from PSII is definitely not the one from PSI. By the time PSIV rolls around, Palma has been destroyed for over 1000 years, meaning PD's seal has been significantly weakened. It makes perfect logical sense, you just don't want to admit to it.

There were no strict rules for Dark Force until PSIV came and retconned the whole series. In PSI, nothing is said about it, it is just an enemy that possessed the governor. In PSII, it is not the cause of the tragedies, but the humans are. It is just another boss. In Phantasy Star III, Dark Force is not much different from Phantasy Star I, because people and androids are creating the mayhem and Dark Force is just the materialization of their negative feelings.

PSIV absolutely did not retcon the series, that's factually incorrect. It's implied by the Earthmen that Dark Force manipulated them into destroying their own planet and then created Mother Brain to weaken Algol from within. This is perfectly in line with what the Profound Darkness does in PSIV.

Things are bound to evolve as a series goes on. Do you expect everything to remain perfectly stagnant? As the series went on, things that didn't get exposition (Most likely because of memory limitations at the time) were going to be expanded upon. That's natural.

In Phantasy Star IV, everything has become a FF-like fight between the heroes of light and the ultimate evil. They are the "chosen-ones" and they tried to imply every other "hero" was also a "chosen-one", taking all the strength of PSI and PSII story (common people fighting an evil ruler, common people fighting the human causes of the disasters).

Rolf is a direct descendant of Alissa, which implies that he himself is a "Chosen One" of sorts.

PSIV contradicts the other games in lots of points, like the crap about Rika, Alis being a venerated heroine (nobody knew anything about her in PSII), Lutz becoming a title, return of Lassic and Myau, etc, etc, etc, and even the only reference to PSIII contradicts what is told in PSIII.

What exactly is contradictory about Rika? Alis wasn't known about in PSII because Mother Brain replaced her as the "hero" of Algol. Once the Great Collapse happened, the technological society was lost. I'm sure there were some records of Alissa's triumphs, and since Mother Brain was no longer around to control everything, they were able to go "Oh right, we were idiots." They recognized their mistakes and remembered Alissa's successes for what they are.

Lutz becoming a title is important in establishing the whole "One generations surpasses the next" theme in PSIV. That theme also exists in PSII as well, though not to the same degree as in PSIV.

There's nothing inherently wrong with how LaShiec returned in PSIV. In PSI, it's pretty obvious he's given up his soul to Dark Force (Which is an extension of the PD), so it wouldn't be so far-fetched to think that LaShiec showed up like he did. If you're going to complain about how Myau popped up in PSIV, I think you're really grasping at straws at this point. It's a completely harmless reference that in no way damages the continuity of the series.

PSIV had to change the PSIII reference because how PSIII described it was dumb. You mean to tell me, in the span of a few hours that a group of scientists that had a grudge against Mother Brain developed 300 pilgrimage ships to escape Palma with no one else noticing? Yeah, that's completely believable. PSIV didn't have much to work with in terms of "fixing" that plothole.

Besides, the plot for PSIII was already outlined during PSII development, while PSIV was made a lot of time after that, with a plot that changed considerably (the first idea for the trainwreck was to have Nei as the protagonist), and deeply inspired by FFIV (even Kodama admits FFIV as the inspiration for PSIV). So, people who probably played the games out of order, not near the time they were made are crazy to rewrite the history and make PSIV the main game and the rest is as good as they provide support to PSIV, but the truth is that PSIV was the huge departure from the original series. Even the target audience is younger than PSII and PSIII, filled with anime clichés, cheap humor and no "deep" themes like PSII and PSIII had.

I want a reference for that. I deeply doubt that anything in PSIII was planned given how little effort went into producing such a listless and uninspiring title.

FFIV is a pretty damn good game, so I don't know why that's a big issue. Unless you're one of those people that thinks being inspired by something else makes your product inherently awful (Which seems to be what you're implying).

To even suggest that anything in PSIII was even remotely close to being deep is laughable at best and insane at worst. There are numerous contradictions and writing issue's within PSIII's own story, not to mention when it tries to "connect" to the rest of the series that seriously plague it. I honestly can't take a game seriously when it includes enemies that attack by wriggling their ears and a dead uncle that gives his blessing to his nephew from beyond the grave, somehow.

PSII isn't as "deep" as you make it out to be. I like it enough for what it is, but there's barely anything as far as plot to go on. It's very minimalistic, yes, but minimalism usually doesn't qualify as deep.

PSIV's humor gave it a lighthearted edge that previous games lacked. It had a charm and personality to it. It didn't take itself so seriously (And part of what makes PSIII so cringe-worthy is that it takes itself extremely seriously). Not everything needs to be grimdarkserious to be entertaining.

So you can try to nitpick few aspects and twist them (like forcing a PSIII ending canon) in order to prove the point that PSIV is right in everything and the rest is only right when they agree with PSIV, but PSIV was the "odd" one.

These are perfectly legitimate criticisms at PSIII I'm levying and not nitpicks. The ending I talked about is the only one in PSIII that has any connection to the rest of the series, and does in a manner that causes a closed time loop paradox.

PSIV was a logical expansion of what PSII hit on. It's a sequel, and that's what sequels tend to do. They take what worked before, and expanded on it and make it better.

This feels like someone trying to argue that Castlevania 2 was clearly the best game in the series and Castlevania 4 was a cheap imitation of that series.

Hukos wrote:The Dark Force in PSIII is directly implied to be the same one from PSII. The Dark Force from PSII is definitely not the one from PSI. By the time PSIV rolls around, Palma has been destroyed for over 1000 years, meaning PD's seal has been significantly weakened. It makes perfect logical sense, you just don't want to admit to it.

It doesn't make any sense because in PSII the ones who plotted the destruction of Palma, Mother Brain and the eventual takeover of Algol (not destruction) where the humans, and PSIV simply destroyed PSII with the PD crap

PSIV absolutely did not retcon the series, that's factually incorrect.

It did. Repeating "factually incorrect" will not make you right

It's implied by the Earthmen that Dark Force manipulated them into destroying their own planet and then created Mother Brain to weaken Algol from within.

You invented that, play PSII again.

This is perfectly in line with what the Profound Darkness does in PSIV.

The theory you invented in your mind to make PSIV perfect must be in line with that, not the real games.

Things are bound to evolve as a series goes on. Do you expect everything to remain perfectly stagnant? As the series went on, things that didn't get exposition (Most likely because of memory limitations at the time) were going to be expanded upon. That's natural.

I would love if there was any "evolution" in PSIV other than graphics and memory to cram it with dialogues. PSIV is just a technical evolution as a game, but it is a retrocess for the series in terms of being an alternative to what other RPGs were doing (not to mention vastly inferior than FFV, DQV and Shining Force II in terms of gameplay).

Rolf is a direct descendant of Alissa, which implies that he himself is a "Chosen One" of sorts.

Your use of "implies" when there is no evidence about it just makes your arguments poorer and poorer. And it is Alis, not Alissa.

What exactly is contradictory about Rika?

A photocopy of an accident in a experiment suddenly because a product of a extensive research to create the perfect creature for Algol. For people who only cared that "there was someone looking like Nei in PSIV, so it is PS" instead of caring about how this just throws PSII story in the garbage can, it must have worked.

Alis wasn't known about in PSII because Mother Brain replaced her as the "hero" of Algol. Once the Great Collapse happened, the technological society was lost. I'm sure there were some records of Alissa's triumphs, and since Mother Brain was no longer around to control everything, they were able to go "Oh right, we were idiots." They recognized their mistakes and remembered Alissa's successes for what they are.

I am pretty sure you are convinced about this "theory" because you invented it in your mind just to justify the series through the eyes of PSIV, so it must be very good. Like Lassic killed Nero because they were lovers and Lassic caught Nero cheating him with Odin, makes perfect sense.

Lutz becoming a title is important in establishing the whole "One generations surpasses the next" theme in PSIV. That theme also exists in PSII as well, though not to the same degree as in PSIV.

It is perfect to create the theory that PSIV is pro and the rest is crap, the heroes of the other games were wussies, the story of the other games was irrelevant. Pretty convenient for some people's purposes. Strange to argue about the "feasibility" of spaceship thing and to blindly believe someone by himself invented a device to transmit all his memory to his "chosen sucessors"

There's nothing inherently wrong with how LaShiec returned in PSIV. In PSI, it's pretty obvious he's given up his soul to Dark Force (Which is an extension of the PD), so it wouldn't be so far-fetched to think that LaShiec showed up like he did.

If you mention where in PSI Dark Force is obviously linked to Lassic you get a prize. If you mention where it says that Lassic has given up his soul to Dark Force, you get two prizes.

If you're going to complain about how Myau popped up in PSIV, I think you're really grasping at straws at this point. It's a completely harmless reference that in no way damages the continuity of the series.

Nice way to fend off something that you couldn't explain. It damages more the continuity of the series than bad animations.

PSIV had to change the PSIII reference because how PSIII described it was dumb. You mean to tell me, in the span of a few hours that a group of scientists that had a grudge against Mother Brain developed 300 pilgrimage ships to escape Palma with no one else noticing? Yeah, that's completely believable. PSIV didn't have much to work with in terms of "fixing" that plothole.

Probably you haven't played PSII to know that they were already trying to travel outside Algol before Mother Brain (humans) prohibited space travel, so it is completely logical that many spaceships were ready or in construction years before PSII. Besides, it is not "no one noticed" because the only ones interested in screwing Algol were a bunch of humans living in a spaceship and using Mother Brain to control Algol environment and turn people into lazy and egoistical people. But you came up with the "3 hour" thing because you have an argument, but we are not talking about personal interpretations and fanfictions. The plothole (or retconning) is in PSIV, don't "create" a plothole in PSIII just to make PSIV look perfect.

I want a reference for that. I deeply doubt that anything in PSIII was planned given how little effort went into producing such a listless and uninspiring title.

Showing your true colors, eh? Confronted with the truth, you "refuse to believe PSIII was planned". If you are so interested, why you never read the articles people posted in these forums and other Phantasy Star sites and forums? Do your research, enlighten yourself.

FFIV is a pretty damn good game, so I don't know why that's a big issue.

Why your opinion about FFIV is relevant?

Unless you're one of those people that thinks being inspired by something else makes your product inherently awful (Which seems to be what you're implying).

After everything you invented and justified with the word "implying", this was quite predictable. When you don't like to see someone disagreeing with your tastes or opinions and you take it to the personal level, things like that happen.

To even suggest that anything in PSIII was even remotely close to being deep is laughable at best and insane at worst.

Offenses to people who have a different opinion about something you don't like or something you never cared to think about. I wonder how worse it can get.

There are numerous contradictions and writing issue's within PSIII's own story, not to mention when it tries to "connect" to the rest of the series that seriously plague it.

There are zillions of contradictions, but you didn't name one relevant.

I honestly can't take a game seriously when it includes enemies that attack by wriggling their ears and a dead uncle that gives his blessing to his nephew from beyond the grave, somehow.

Showing your true colors again. The problem are the animations, and throwing an obvious silly mistake that doesn't confuse anybody (unlike Myau in PSIV that has no justification and you dismissed as nothing) just to try to make your argument looks like it has anything to do with the plot.

PSII isn't as "deep" as you make it out to be. I like it enough for what it is, but there's barely anything as far as plot to go on. It's very minimalistic, yes, but minimalism usually doesn't qualify as deep.

Although opinions are not debatable, I am sure many people would consider a rpg with a mix of Brave New World and 1984 dystopias a lot deeper than "heroes of light" taken from the anime cliché characters cookbook fighting "the ultimate evil". You don't need millions of words to write something deep. Keeping it concise is a strength and the mistake of many recent RPGs is the amount of unnecessary text just because they can.

PSIV's humor gave it a lighthearted edge that previous games lacked. It had a charm and personality to it.

I. E., it appealed to a younger target audience.

It didn't take itself so seriously.

Too bad a few fans take PSIV seriously and don't admit that it can be criticized or even liked less than PSIII.

(And part of what makes PSIII so cringe-worthy is that it takes itself extremely seriously). Not everything needs to be grimdarkserious to be entertaining.

Different styles of entertainment. Funny that more than 20 years after PSII and PSIII, now people seem to be very critical of games that don't try to talk about some serious subjects in a certain way, yet they continue to ignore PSII and PSIII attempts in favor of anime-like and easy to digest games like FFIV and PSIV.

These are perfectly legitimate criticisms at PSIII I'm levying and not nitpicks.

Every work of art or entertainment can be subject of criticisms, but you are only nitpicking or criticizing graphics, animations, and things PSIV ignored and that can be used as an argument that PSIV hadn't tied the series perfectly.

The ending I talked about is the only one in PSIII that has any connection to the rest of the series, and does in a manner that causes a closed time loop paradox.

PSIII endings doesn't have connections to the rest of the series because PSIV team decided to end the story there, retconning what was not convenient and killing the chances of another PS game that could have any references to that storyline (after all, the source of all evil in the universe was destroyed and they lived happily ever after). The only way to try to link future games is when they force a connection of PSO, PSU and so on with the classic series, when it is known that PSO was developed as a completely unrelated game and somewhere down the line Naka came with the "brilliant" idea of naming it Phantasy Star, and threw Numans and item names to "make the connection". No wonder many Phantasy Star fans hate or dismiss every game after PSIV.

PSIV was a logical expansion of what PSII hit on. It's a sequel, and that's what sequels tend to do. They take what worked before, and expanded on it and make it better.

It is a bad sequel (not saying it is a bad game, but a game that doesn't badly the sequel part), that does not respect its predecessors, typical of sequels written after the original works were completed. They didn't make anything better other than using the resources available in 1993 that weren't in 1989 and 1990. As I mentioned, it is much less advanced than games of its era, like FFV, DQV and Shining Force II, because they used resources for graphics, and not for enhancing the gameplay or making it less linear and improving the way of integrating the story to the gameplay.

This feels like someone trying to argue that Castlevania 2 was clearly the best game in the series and Castlevania 4 was a cheap imitation of that series.

Of course, because it is that internet ghetto mentality where one finds a few people with the same opinion as himself and then everybody with a different opinion is an idiot that knows nothing and is ridiculous, even if that person researched and discussed about the subject for decades, presenting logical arguments and clearly knows a lot of information the first person never heard about and refuses to believe in. All hail to generation metacritic!

Before answering in a rage that I contradict your arguments, consider that you have resorted to personal attacks in your last post, and it won't make you right, as it won't make you right replying my message just for the sake of "having the last word in the magical world of internet discussion". I have presented my case that PSIV created something about Dark Force and invented Profound Darkness, so if there are inconsistencies, it is the last game that introduced them. The rest had you angry because PSIV was criticized, and it doesn't fit this thread, so if you want to discuss PSIII or PSIV with me, do that by PM, not here.

It doesn't make any sense because in PSII the ones who plotted the destruction of Palma, Mother Brain and the eventual takeover of Algol (not destruction) where the humans, and PSIV simply destroyed PSII with the PD crap

Then why exactly is Dark Force in PS2 at all? If the Earthmen had absolutely no influence from them, Dark Force's presence is irrelevant.

It did. Repeating "factually incorrect" will not make you right

No, it didn't.

You invented that, play PSII again.

I've played PS2 plenty of times, more than you probably think I have. I'll point to Dark Force's presence on Noah to help illustrate my point.

The theory you invented in your mind to make PSIV perfect must be in line with that, not the real games.

You're also being pedantic and childish in an attempt to discredit PSIV.

I would love if there was any "evolution" in PSIV other than graphics and memory to cram it with dialogues. PSIV is just a technical evolution as a game, but it is a retrocess for the series in terms of being an alternative to what other RPGs were doing (not to mention vastly inferior than FFV, DQV and Shining Force II in terms of gameplay).

FF5 has major balancing issues due to it's class system (Which means if you pick the wrong classes, you get to do a lot of job point grinding to make up for it), DQ5 is decent but nothing special and SF2 also has some pretty severe balancing problems as far as character usefulness is concerned.

PSIV added Skills, added more useful buffs and better instant death abilities. Combat in PSIV is just a lot more fun. It's also more accessible than previous games but I suppose accessibility is a bad trait to you, eh?

Your use of "implies" when there is no evidence about it just makes your arguments poorer and poorer. And it is Alis, not Alissa.

I'm used to playing the PSI translation patch which includes the superior FM audio along with a much smoother translation, hence why I use "Alissa" over "Alis".

In PS2, the following lines pretty much blatantly state that Rolf is Alissa's descendant:

You finally made it. I'm Lutz, the last telemental on Algo. You seem surprised
that I know you name. Don't you remember? This is the second time we have met. I
saved you from death after an accident on a spacetrip with your parents when you were
10. What woke me was Alis' scream. So you are the last descendant of Alis who fought
to protect Algo. Beautiful Alis, the symbol of Algo, was fighting the dark force in that
dream. The dark force was trying to destroy Algo, but in the end was itself destroyed.
But that doesn't mean that there is no longer anyone trying to destroy Algo.
You, Rolf, must arm yourself for battle. One valuable item is the aeroprism-- it will let
you see that which cannot be seen. Also arm yourself with Nei's weapons. Prepare
yourself, and then I will tell you about the enemy's plans.

A photocopy of an accident in a experiment suddenly because a product of a extensive research to create the perfect creature for Algol. For people who only cared that "there was someone looking like Nei in PSIV, so it is PS" instead of caring about how this just throws PSII story in the garbage can, it must have worked.

You completely misunderstood the intent of both Nei and Rika. In PSII, Nei represented the bridge between what is natural and the jarring but unelusive technology of the world. Her death meant that the world simply wasn't ready to bridge that gap. Rika's existence in PSIV signified that the world was ready for that gap to be bridged. Both have an important place in the PS series.

I am pretty sure you are convinced about this "theory" because you invented it in your mind just to justify the series through the eyes of PSIV, so it must be very good. Like Lassic killed Nero because they were lovers and Lassic caught Nero cheating him with Odin, makes perfect sense.

You're spouting childish nonsense here, stop it.

It is perfect to create the theory that PSIV is pro and the rest is crap, the heroes of the other games were wussies, the story of the other games was irrelevant. Pretty convenient for some people's purposes. Strange to argue about the "feasibility" of spaceship thing and to blindly believe someone by himself invented a device to transmit all his memory to his "chosen sucessors"

Seriously? Again, you're acting childishly in a vain attempt to hold onto some kind of nostalgic attachment to PSII. Hell, I like PSII a lot for what it is.

If you mention where in PSI Dark Force is obviously linked to Lassic you get a prize. If you mention where it says that Lassic has given up his soul to Dark Force, you get two prizes.

It's a pretty common thing in literature for a person to bridge gaps left by the author with their own ideas and theories. Even in the most celebrated literary works this is a very common thing among academia. Someone filling in the gaps of a video game's plot isn't the most far-fetched thing out there.

Nice way to fend off something that you couldn't explain. It damages more the continuity of the series than bad animations.

That's an absolutely ridiculous notion.

Probably you haven't played PSII to know that they were already trying to travel outside Algol before Mother Brain (humans) prohibited space travel, so it is completely logical that many spaceships were ready or in construction years before PSII. Besides, it is not "no one noticed" because the only ones interested in screwing Algol were a bunch of humans living in a spaceship and using Mother Brain to control Algol environment and turn people into lazy and egoistical people. But you came up with the "3 hour" thing because you have an argument, but we are not talking about personal interpretations and fanfictions. The plothole (or retconning) is in PSIV, don't "create" a plothole in PSIII just to make PSIV look perfect.

You have an absolutely unhealthy obsession with PSIV to make it seem like it destroyed the franchise (Protip: It didn't). Of course, if I disagree with you it's because I haven't played the game (I have, multiple times) and not because I interpreted those events differently.

The 3 hour thing was an estimate of how long Gaira would take before it crashed into Palma since that detail is never discussed in-depth. I don't think it had very long before blowing it up.

Showing your true colors, eh? Confronted with the truth, you "refuse to believe PSIII was planned". If you are so interested, why you never read the articles people posted in these forums and other Phantasy Star sites and forums? Do your research, enlighten yourself.

General rule of debate demands the person making the claim to back up their supposition with evidence, not the one you're arguing with. You made the claim, you post the evidence.

Why your opinion about FFIV is relevant?

You brought up the game, I was merely responding to your point.

After everything you invented and justified with the word "implying", this was quite predictable. When you don't like to see someone disagreeing with your tastes or opinions and you take it to the personal level, things like that happen.

I haven't taken anything personally in this, and neither should you. It's the internet after all.

Offenses to people who have a different opinion about something you don't like or something you never cared to think about. I wonder how worse it can get.

There are some things in games (And writing) that can be objectively quantified. Would you defend the likes of Superman 64, Sonic 06, etc. and say it's just a matter of opinions? I highly doubt that.

There are zillions of contradictions, but you didn't name one relevant.

You have a very odd definition of "relevant" considering I already did list one.

Showing your true colors again. The problem are the animations, and throwing an obvious silly mistake that doesn't confuse anybody (unlike Myau in PSIV that has no justification and you dismissed as nothing) just to try to make your argument looks like it has anything to do with the plot.

True colors? I happen to extremely dislike Phantasy Star III? I've never denied that.

Although opinions are not debatable, I am sure many people would consider a rpg with a mix of Brave New World and 1984 dystopias a lot deeper than "heroes of light" taken from the anime cliché characters cookbook fighting "the ultimate evil". You don't need millions of words to write something deep. Keeping it concise is a strength and the mistake of many recent RPGs is the amount of unnecessary text just because they can.

Both 1984 and Brave New World are far from being concise and have many unnecessary sections, but that's an argument for another time and place. There's some interesting ideas in PSII's plot, but there's not enough meat in there to even come close to calling it "deep".

I. E., it appealed to a younger target audience.

Plenty of things appeal to a young target audience. Plenty of critically acclaimed pieces of literature appeal to a young target audience. I read the novel To Kill a Mockingbird when I was really young, and I'd say it's much deeper than PSIII is, despite the book targeting me at a young age.

Too bad a few fans take PSIV seriously and don't admit that it can be criticized or even liked less than PSIII.

It can certainly be criticized. Hell, anything can be criticized (I criticize The Beatles all the time!) And someone could like it less than PSIII, but I wouldn't take that opinion seriously unless backed up by some credible opinions.

Different styles of entertainment. Funny that more than 20 years after PSII and PSIII, now people seem to be very critical of games that don't try to talk about some serious subjects in a certain way, yet they continue to ignore PSII and PSIII attempts in favor of anime-like and easy to digest games like FFIV and PSIV.

PSII and PSIII are ignored because they're flatout archaic. Why do you think Link to the Past is much more celebrated than Zelda 1 is? It's a lot more fun and accessible. Same reason PSIV gets praised so much, it's easy to pick up and play.

Playing through PSII requires the player have access to the hintbook (or an internet resource) so they don't take 5 hours to clear each dungeon's labyrinthine design.

Even if one likes PSIII, it's hard to ignore the plethora of technical issues that plague the game (Slow walking speed, bland combat, copy/paste dungeon design, etc.). Those are the kind of issues that keep people from enjoying older rpgs.

Oh and grinding. Grinding kind of sucks.

Every work of art or entertainment can be subject of criticisms, but you are only nitpicking or criticizing graphics, animations, and things PSIV ignored and that can be used as an argument that PSIV hadn't tied the series perfectly.

Presentation is a big factor in enjoying a game for many people. For one, I think PSII has an amazing sense of presentation for a 1989 rpg, and it does factor into my enjoyment of the game. PSIV only improved the presentation moreso. PSIII on the other hand, has a flatout bad presentation.

PSIII endings doesn't have connections to the rest of the series because PSIV team decided to end the story there, retconning what was not convenient and killing the chances of another PS game that could have any references to that storyline (after all, the source of all evil in the universe was destroyed and they lived happily ever after). The only way to try to link future games is when they force a connection of PSO, PSU and so on with the classic series, when it is known that PSO was developed as a completely unrelated game and somewhere down the line Naka came with the "brilliant" idea of naming it Phantasy Star, and threw Numans and item names to "make the connection". No wonder many Phantasy Star fans hate or dismiss every game after PSIV.

I view PS and PSO as different franchises altogether.

It is a bad sequel (not saying it is a bad game, but a game that doesn't badly the sequel part), that does not respect its predecessors, typical of sequels written after the original works were completed. They didn't make anything better other than using the resources available in 1993 that weren't in 1989 and 1990. As I mentioned, it is much less advanced than games of its era, like FFV, DQV and Shining Force II, because they used resources for graphics, and not for enhancing the gameplay or making it less linear and improving the way of integrating the story to the gameplay.

I already commented on my issues with FF5/DQ5/SF2.

As for your final point, I'm not at all angry (Oh man, someone on the internet disagrees with me, HE MUST BE RAGED). The reasoning in your final point just seems to be senseless meandering with the final conclusion that PSIV ruined everything (Which I counter with your nostalgia goggles). You can like PSIII all you like and hate PSIV all you want at the end of the day, but I find your reasoning silly.

Hukos wrote:No, it didn't.

I've played PS2 plenty of times, more than you probably think I have.

You're also being pedantic and childish in an attempt to discredit PSIV.

It's also more accessible than previous games but I suppose accessibility is a bad trait to you, eh?

I'm used to playing the PSI translation patch which includes the superior FM audio along with a much smoother translation, hence why I use "Alissa" over "Alis".

You're spouting childish nonsense here, stop it.

Seriously? Again, you're acting childishly in a vain attempt to hold onto some kind of nostalgic attachment to PSII.

That's an absolutely ridiculous notion.

You have an absolutely unhealthy obsession with PSIV to make it seem like it destroyed the franchise (Protip: It didn't)

General rule of debate demands the person making the claim to back up their supposition with evidence, not the one you're arguing with. You made the claim, you post the evidence.

I haven't taken anything personally in this, and neither should you. It's the internet after all.

Plenty of things appeal to a young target audience. Plenty of critically acclaimed pieces of literature appeal to a young target audience. I read the novel To Kill a Mockingbird when I was really young, and I'd say it's much deeper than PSIII is, despite the book targeting me at a young age.

It can certainly be criticized. Hell, anything can be criticized (I criticize The Beatles all the time!) And someone could like it less than PSIII, but I wouldn't take that opinion seriously unless backed up by some credible opinions.

As for your final point, I'm not at all angry (Oh man, someone on the internet disagrees with me, HE MUST BE RAGED). The reasoning in your final point just seems to be senseless meandering with the final conclusion that PSIV ruined everything (Which I counter with your nostalgia goggles). You can like PSIII all you like and hate PSIV all you want at the end of the day, but I find your reasoning silly.

That discussion had already spoiled the thread because of your insistence in posting here, because just the fact that you feel the need to post answers that are not worthy to anybody else and whose sole purpose is to present yourself in a superior light and the person you are "discussing" with in an inferior light. If my reasoning is silly, you don't do any reasoning at all, you just try to make the person you are arguing with look like an idiot, as it can be clearly seen in everything I quoted.

Other than that, your arguments about Nei and RIka have no grounds in the games, it is something you came up with, you didn't address the fact that Rolf is never said to be a chosen one, only a descendant of Alis, you blatantly said that you can interpret the game any way you want (so nobody can say you misunderstood it, but you keep saying I misunderstood it) and you put many random sentences to show a "cultural elitism" and that are completely out of place because they show you didn't even understand the points I was arguing, or unwanted because it follows the rule "what I like is inherently good and what I dislike is inherently bad, not a matter of tastes".

So, it may be internet, it may be a discussion forum, but I am not discussing with people who don't show any reasoning, argues by attacking and discrediting the author and is only concerned in looking smart. If you can't accept criticism to PSIV (you twist every point of criticism as if it were something good and the person complaining about that is an idiot), you shouldn't even pretend you are discussing it.