Phantasy Star 0

The next Phantasy Star game has been announced. This one is Phantasy Star 0 (that's a zero) for Nintendo DS. Here's the official site:

http://phantasystar.sega.jp/pszero/

Don't get your hopes up, though - this may not be an addition to the classics. As you'll see from the site, it borrows a lot from Phantasy Star Online. It has similar races and classes, a close battle system, and so on. Very little has been revealed about the story so far though, so perhaps this will be a connection between Online and the classics. We'll have to wait and see as more info is released.

Damnit, yes I can understand how PSO is good to a extent, but branching it off into multiple things just because they closed the PSO servers is just ridiculous. They're beginning to act like SquareEnix now and are milking just one game for all its worth. If the higher ups at Sega would get off their lazy * they could easily make a new game for the Phantasy Star series. Hell let me go to Sega company for just two weeks, I'll have a Phantasy Star V story up before they even finish with three new games!

Although disappointed, I am not surprised. I doubt there is anyone producing games for Sega with ties to the original series. The current development teams will take the series in whichever direction they see fit. If they think this style will be more commercially successful than a "retro" RPG then that's what they'll produce.

I will admit, this image looks nice:


..but I'm not sold at all on what appears to be the main character:


Nintendo has been wise enough to keep Shigeru Miyamoto in a prominent position so while Mario & Zelda games evolve they stay true to the classic series. With Rieko Kodama out of Sega you can see how the Sonic the Hedgehog and Phantasy Star franchises have devolved.

Despite all this negativity.. I'll probably buy this when it comes out in the US.

Oh, has Kodama left Sega now? I know she was working on other types of games, but I didn't know who for. Yuji Naka was involved in both PSO and the originals though, IIRC, so I guess even having someone involved with them didn't help us much.

The main character doesn't look so great, true. He reminds me of a lot of PlayStation 2 games with the plucky kid hero vibe. It's supposed to have online capabilities and a character creation mode though, so hopefully we won't be stuck with him.

Thoul wrote:

Oh, has Kodama left Sega now? I know she was working on other types of games, but I didn't know who for. Yuji Naka was involved in both PSO and the originals though, IIRC, so I guess even having someone involved with them didn't help us much.

She hasn't been involved with a game that I know of in two years at least. I peeked at her game list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rieko_Kodama and after 1993 it looks like her influence at Sega was fairly limited (compare 1984-1993 with 1998-2006). I don't know if she's technically "gone" but she doesn't appear to be a major player there. I forgot that Yuji Naka was involved with all the latter PS games.

The main character reminds me of the main character from Chrono Cross (Serge). It's a game I enjoyed despite the impossible to follow plot. I didn't care for him either but the cast of sidekicks made up for it. Maybe this will be the same case, we can hope.

I goota keep my eye out for it when its done. I like pretty much every and any phantasy star games

I'm kind of bummed that Sega chooses to do all this stuff with PSO and not the classic series--but when I think about where Sega's franchises are today, especially the Sonic franchise, it's probably better that Sega doesn't do anything with the classic series.

After seeing this, I am almost glad, relieved even, that they're not doing a PSV. If attempted, I feel that they'd ruin it and kill Phantasy Star for me.

Back on topic, this game does nothing for me. If I wanted to play a PSO-esque game, I'd simply play PSO. ^_^

I kind of wish Sega hadn't called this Phantasy Star Zero. Granted PS0 looks like PSO, but it doesn't have anything to do with the classic series. Too bad they already used the name Phantasy Star Portable. The only other name I can think of though, is Phantasy Star: Double Saber.

If anything, they should remake PS3 the way it should have been from the beginning - populated towns and all