Video about Phantasy star series

I've found this video on youtube and it was interesting. The guy talk about all the Phantasy star series and about the story for each of them...

Good listening^^

Part one


And the second one

I've seen these; they're pretty good!

The guy goes on about his keyboard a bit too much, but otherwise what he says matches up with how I feel about the series for the most part (although I don't really care about PSO and later games). I'm glad he didn't completely shred PSIII to tiny bits. It's a fine game.

I have to get this off my chest, since it comes up in this review: Am I the only "phan" out there who could take or leave the 3D dungeons from PSI? Everyone complains about only having 3D dungeons in the first game and none of the follow up games. Honestly, by about the fifth dungeon in PSI, I was really tired of the sameness of those dungeons. If they had gone with their original plan and used 3D dungeons at all in PSIV, I would have preferred they only do it with a few dungeons, just to keep things interesting.

I haven't watched the videos yet, but as far as the 3D dungeons... I think it could have been better in PSIV than it was in PSI. The problem with PSI is that all the dungeons look the same, just with a little color change. PSIV would have likely changed this to give each area a more distinctive look. A natural cavern would probably not have been identical to a prison or castle.

Generation 1 did this to some extent, too. The caves all look pretty similar, but non-cave places tend to have separate designs that add a more appropriate atmosphere.

I think it would have been a little better if PSIV did use the first-person dungeons, but only in the basement floors of the Air Castle.

Thoul wrote:

PSIV would have likely changed this to give each area a more distinctive look. A natural cavern would probably not have been identical to a prison or castle.

I wonder if that was the one of the reasons for abandoning the idea. I bet it would have taken more memory than they were willing to use to make really interesting 3D dungeons and caves, ones that weren't just color changes. PSIV is already a pretty short game; I wouldn't have wanted it to be shorter just to save space for 3D dungeons.

Snorb - That would have been really cool, especially if it was a surprise!

(Sorry to hijack your thread, Gryz! )

It probably was. Memory wouldn't have been such an issue when they were planning the CD version of the game. Switching to a Genesis cart must have eliminated any chance of 3D dungeons.

If they did go with 3D dungeons on the Genesis version, the price to buy PSIV would have been higher than $100 like it was when it first came out. In fact, PSIV was large enough that they had to build a special chip for the cartridges just to hold the amount of data PSIV had compared to other Genesis titles at the time.

I LOVE these guys!

I think these videos are pretty intriguing, and I agree with much of what he said concerning the series; PSI was just groundbreaking, PSII IS super hard to play (but has an amazing storyline and is totally sci-fi), PSIII isn't really Phantasy Star (I am of the consensus that PSIII is Phantasy Star with moustaches and harems), and PSIV brought back that "magic" felt from playing PSI. There's no denying that PSIV, while almost too easy, is incredibly compelling and engaging of a RP game. I never played the PS Online series, so I can't comment on those.

I have to agree with the guy in the videos regarding the original 3D caves; I prefer them more than the overhead view. The 3D caves seem to be more of a realistic experience to walking through a cave, as you're not sure where you're going or what's ahead (unless you use the cheat maps!). You never know WHO or WHAT is right around the corner (see my avatar), and that makes a particularly exciting game playing experience. The preference of the 3D cave design is more about the anticipation associated, but that's just my two cents.

Thanks for sharing this, Gryz!

Atlinsmere wrote:

If they did go with 3D dungeons on the Genesis version, the price to buy PSIV would have been higher than $100 like it was when it first came out. In fact, PSIV was large enough that they had to build a special chip for the cartridges just to hold the amount of data PSIV had compared to other Genesis titles at the time.

It cost $100??? Sheesh! I heard that PSII cost $80 back when it first came out, and that price is almost as ridiculous.

Yeah, PSII was somewhere around $70-$80 when my family got it new. However, the amount of memory it had on it for a cartridge at that time was very high (it even weighed more than our other Genesis cartridges), it came with the hint book, and regular Genesis cartridges were already expensive at $50 a pop (or something like that). A lot of the cheaper, 3rd party games initially had a lot of play problems with the Genesis (and there were almost none in 1989-1990, anyway), so getting a $30 game made by, say, Accolade was a risk (they always looked wavy on our Genesis). Eventually 1st party games got cheaper and 3rd party software was better quality, but at the time Phantasy Star II was released, everything about the Genesis was expensive.

PSIV wasn't $100 when it came out. At least, I don't remember it being that expensive. It was probably $40-$50 or so when it came out. It was a very late release for the Genesis. Edited: Oh, I forgot, Atlin is in The Great White North. That would make a difference in price, right?