Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

According to Ms. (Mrs.?) Kodama: "I had just finished Final Fantasy IV and was blown away by how exciting and vibrant all the characters felt. The whole story seemed so thorough and I was certainly influenced by Square's universe when we started working with Phantasy Star IV."

Just what I said. The plot and character development of PSIV was influenced by FF. It is very clear. No one is stating that PSIV is a blatant ripoff of FFIV, or that, because of this influence, FF is better than PS. But it is obvious that they followed much more the successful Square antics in making the plot and characters than the traditional PS antics.

Kodama is mature enough to admit the influences of their "main rivals", as it is no shame and it brings no demerit to her or her creation.

Sorry for the late reply. I needed my sleep ANd like I said, I'm not really angry, I just like some good Final Fantasy VS Phantasy Star thread

But in any case, the link to the article is still missing. But I'll believe your words, and let's say she really said that. So what? I don't see anywhere that she was "STRONGLY" influenced by FFIV, to a point where you can call this game Final Phantasy Star. She admitted having played FFIV, having loved it, and got some influence out of it...So? She also admitted having played Dragon Quest like I said, and surely she played tons of other RPG, and like I said, of course everyone was influenced by everyone in this era where you had Squaresof, Enix and to some extent Sega for their own console making the big name RPG. Like I said also earlier, I'm pretty sure FFIV was influenced by some degree by PSII, and many other RPG did too. Does that mean that this game looks a lot like a Final Fantasy title just because she played other RPG in that era like everyone else??? Not one tiny bit. Like I said many and many times before, there's NOTHING ressembling FFIV in PSIV...AT ALL!!!

Though I'm kinda tired of being the only one writing big chunk of text to get my point across. I hope others could give their honnest opinion. But mine will not change. And your article just proved to me what I already said earlier, that she got tons of influence, Square being one of them. Nowhere do I see she was "STRONGLY INFLUENCED" by it.

PS: in reply to a previous comment, characters interraction and story developpement, and maybe some comedic scene are really not property of SquareSoft. SO saying that those are the reason why PSIV feels more FF is really absurb. Like PS need to be bland to stay true to the PS series. Do you really believe in that?

No, but it is pointless to say it all over again to you, as you are digressing by implying I've said something absurd, something I didn't say.

This is not a FF vs PS thread and the point of the thread is not to accuse PSIV of ripping off FFIV or denying it.

Your argument about she being influenced by many other games becomes moot point when she herself stated about PSI: "We would make an RPG, but it did not resemble any other RPG. There were no obvious role model for us, but Phantasy Star was born rather out of desire to do something that had never been done before."

The purpose of the thread is to comment about Kodama admitting she was impressed with FFIV and was influenced by it when developing PSIV, specially the plot and the character interation. To say PSIV has nothing of FFIV is to deny Kodama's own words.

I still say it. Characters and plots have nothing to do with FFIV at all. I'm not denying her words. The a big difference between some influence and total inspiration. But like I said, I'll quit there, because I seem to be the only one argumenting on this, and I don't want to look like some kind of angry forum poster when it's totally not my intention, so I let someone else give their own opinion.

Sorry if I sounded rude, I really didnt want to. My opinion have not changed (in fact it was even more enforced), but it was a fun topic to post

Don't worry, no hard feelings.

I'm glad then Anyway, I've read the article which was posted on Orakio Rob website. It was an interresting read. But the "Final Fantasy" part was really a tiny drop in the whole article, which, like I said, doesnt show at all any direct inspiration for Phantasy Star IV (even more that she didnt wrote the story anyway, she was actually the director as we all know).

The most interresting part of the article is really the fact that she now clearly say that she prefers the original saga to the new games. I mean, it may be an obvious thing, but up until then, her official words on the Online and Universe saga was always "Sorry I don't comment on those". Now she clearly say that she prefers her own saga, and would like to make another game if given opportunity of a new story driven Phantasy Star. THAT is the real gold of this article

It is another person who worked with her on classic PS and on PSO who stated that he considers the original series the real Phantasy Star and the new games "another thing", but this is really interesting.

I admit Google translate is pretty bad, and until a REAL 100% accurate translation is out, nothing can be proven, but I was referring to the part that begin with this sentence:

"Rieko Kodama makes no secret of the fact that she prefers the series' origin to its future. "

It can't be really another person now They even clearly spelled her name

Sorry, I was thinking about the other part of the text, near the end.

Well, considering that she made the original series, of course she would prefer it

Indeed, like I said, it was as obvious as an elephant in a mouses convention. But she never said it out loud (maybe because Sega), always going for the "No comment" answer (which was an obvious answer in itself). It feels so great seeing finally official words concerning that most obvious fact.