The Blood Axe

One of the first "NOTHING" items discovered is one that I have dubbed the "Blood Axe." As the name implies to players familiar with Phantasy Star IV, this item is a weapon that can be equipped only by Gryz. It is a rather unremarkable weapon, aside from being a bugged item. In fact, if the Blood Axe were available through normal playing of the game, I would suggest not bothering to get it. It gives Gryz only slightly less attack power than the Struggle Axe (about 2 points difference), and seems to have no special effects. It doesn't even appear have a description programmed for the game's Look command.

What is it? Even the game doesn't know!

But if it's so ordinary, why wasn't it included in the game? One possible reason is also why I decided to call this item the Blood Axe. I believe that this item may have been pulled from the game as an act of censorship. The material that might have been censored is pretty bland by today's standards, but video game companies had a much stricter outlook on appropriate content when Phantasy Star IV was made. To see what may have been cause to censor this item, let us look at the attack animations displayed when Gryz has a normal axe equipped, versus that of the Blood Axe.

When each character lands a successful attack in the game, a graphic of that character making the attack and a graphic of the attack striking the enemy are displayed. To the right, you can see an example of these for Gryz's typical attacks. In this image, Gryz is equipped with one of the axes that can be obtained when playing the game normally. Note the purple streak. Each of Gryz's normal axes has a variation of this graphic, with slight differences such as alternate colors.

The Blood Axe, on the other hand, uses a very different graphic from all the other axes. To the left is an example of the graphic displayed when Gryz hits an enemy with the Blood Axe equipped. As you can see, instead of the purple streak, there are about 4 pinkish shapes, that look somewhat similar to inverted drops. Below, you can see another depiction of this with a different enemy. These images appear, to me, like the enemy is supposed to be spewing blood from a wound inflicted by the attack. Also notice that the "blood" drops are rather plain when compared to the purple streak graphic. Each drop contains only a single color, as opposed to the multiple colors used in other attack animations. The outermost drops are also oddly shaped, as if they were not completely drawn. If that is true, it would seem that the Blood Axe was dropped during the development of the game. This idea is supported by the apparent lack of a Look description.

In closing, here's some basic info about the Blood Axe: