Phantasy Star is an incredible series. Phantasy Star IV is not only my favorite Sega game but one of my top 10 games period. As a kid, in the days of internet-less discovery, when you dug into the used bin at the video game store and took a chance based on a cover/back case. Having discovering anime before it became huge, I was a sucker for anything with anime styled art. It may have been my greatest find with the PSX Revelations: Persona coming in second. The game blew my mind. As much as I loved it then, playing it over the years made me appreciate the groundbreaking science fiction setting, the story, the battle system, the characters, the deep lore, music etc. Great video. Not only do I love when Phantasy Star gets love but especially when it gets the care of quality content. Same goes for your Shining Series video. That and you reminded me of Vanguard Bandits. I forgot all about that game. Very impressive. Looking forward to new content. - New Subscriber
Ahhh... Absolutely love Phantasy star series! Phantasy star 1-4 absolutely amazing, and my favorite JRPG games! But unfortunately, Rieko Kodama left us in this year...
Really got me with the Street Pass Fishing. I thought you were gonna go Balan Wonderworld, or mention his legal troubles recently. Knew it wasn't gonna be Sonic or NiGHTS, but man. You went DEEP.
14:36 I believe PSIV didn't retcon PSIII and Kodama wasn’t actually back in the director’s chair, as she had never held that position in previous PS games. Instead, she worked as a designer on PSI and II. I think the director of PSI (if I may call it) was Kotaro Hayashida and Chieko Aoki was the director of PSII (Aoki also created the entire story for PSI and II, while T. Yoshida handled PSIV’s story). However, in PSIV, Kodama shared the role of director, alongside Toru Yoshida and Yasushi Takeuchi. Thank you for the video. Love these games!
The first RPG I have ever played on a Master System in Brazil. It helped me with learning some english and I just loved the game so much. It is till this day dear to my heart and one of my favorites.
4 was epic and will forever always be. But 3 man I love that shit. I played through that so many times just to get the different characters and different endings. 1-4 will always be a part of my childhood ❤️ awesome video.
I appreciate the way the series ended. Yeah, you can always come up with a way to continue the story, but I don't think I really want a sequel. There's something to be said for retiring gracefully and ending on a high point. So I'm very happy that the PSO games took the route they did, and kept the series alive without tarnishing the originals.
there was so much left unexplored, and it sucks it was tied up in a sloppy little bow and rushed out the door so they could use the name for shitty offshoots.
Final Fantasy felt so weak to me after playing Phantasy Star. Phantasy Star just hit the spot better, offered more challenge and the fact that there was continuity really helped me fall in love with them. Phantasy Star 3 is a work of genius trapped behind tech limitations. The reveal moments in that game blew me away.
I realise this is a late reply but I just wanted to say that I fully agree. I replayed PS1 last week for some childhood memories and eventhough it was goofy sometimes it always felt real and important. I've recently played Final Fantasy VI as well and that game is of course more modern and bigger but a lot more childish in how it portrays the world. I think that might be why I as a grown up more radiate towards PS than FF eventhough I hold my first playthrough of FF7 as a high point of my gaming history (and FF9). I see some similarities between PS and Chrono Trigger as well where CT feels like a mix between FF and PS. Oops, this became a bit ranty.. So, yeah, totally agree with you and the continuity with huge gaps and split story line (PS3-PS4) made it something extra in my eyes as well.
@@karlnygren Great points! I agree, another reason I prefer Phantasy Star is because it's definitely more grounded and mature compared to Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy Worlds (especially 6) often feel too outlandish to me, they don't feel built on practical laws. Whereas Phantasy Star is way more grounded, with science playing a much bigger part in them and anchoring them.
Phantasy Star came out before Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy in the West. Nintendo (the publisher of "Dragon Warrior") crippled DQ in the West by taking three years to localize the first one, and the series has only just recovered. "6 megabytes" - I think you meant megabits. 6 megabytes would make Phantasy Star 2 as big as the original SFC release of Tales of Phantasia.
PS1 was my first console entry into the RPG world. I never owned it as a kid, but I played my friend Scott’s copy when he lent me his entire SMS collection after I purchased the Power Base converter for my Sega Genesis. I loved this franchise… didn’t get to play much beyond the initial 4 games… but tried the PSO on a private server about 3 years ago and it was “neat” but nothing I loved. The release on the XB360 felt all wrong and I was sad that Sega seemed to be done with the more traditional JRPGs I was familiar with. Phantasy Star 1 was a real adventure for me as a kid. I didn’t have a hint guide, I was busting out the graph paper and just powering through the game as an 12yo trying everything…. I eventually found some college kids at an Egg Head Software at the mall that had finished it and every time I got stuck and my mom took me to the mall, I would visit them and they would point me in the right direction. Beating this game was exhilarating and cemented my enduring love for 2D JRPGs. Phantasy Star 2 which if I’m honest isn’t the best of the 4 is the one I personally love the most. I played this about a year after completing PS1 and although I missed the 3D dungeons… the drama and setting of this game is what I find most memorable. The promised future paradise of the advances of technology and government control turning out to be a society stripped of its liberties and freedoms and powerless to defend itself… the Nei death I tried multiple times to undo but had to come to terms with it being just part of the story. The climatic ending is what really imprinted on me the most. Realizing that all this calamity that led us to the final battle were Terrans (Earth humans) that erected this oppressive existence and were willing to die to maintain that level of control to enslave future generations while convincing them they were content. That was a lot for a 14-15yo to digest. The third entry sounded awesome, the idea of playing through generations of an RPG in a single cartridge was just a wet dream to me… an RPG that was potentially 3x longer than PS2!? I’m in! The execution was laughable. The graphics were worse, the animations felt like a mockery of the previous 2 games and the towns and dungeons were as dull as a bag of rocks. Nothing about the story or characters gripped me enough to even remember the names of the previous generation soon after I finished that leg of the journey. It remains a void in my gaming nostalgia and the game I most want remade to its potential glory. What more could be said about PS4? It’s a 16 bit masterpiece. It did everything right, the presentation was perfect, it was so much more interesting of a game and after following up the dismal PS3 only amplified it’s greatness. Thanks for making the video. Happy to find people on the wild as passionate about this series as myself.
I agree with your opinion about 3. 3 was way too monotonous, but I really like the idea of having generations. I wish more rpgs had the generation idea, it makes new play throughs funner.
Pretty sure all the Text Adventures have fan translations. The Game Gear games might as well, but I haven't checked. Edit: also, just a minor correction, but Phantasy Star II came on a 6 MegaBIT cartridge, not 6 megabytes. There are 8 megabits to a megabyte, so Phantasy Star II was crammed into 3/4 of a megabyte
Well regarding PS3, Aron’s ending ties to the prior games as it explains how the events prior to PS2 happened. It also explains what happened _after_ PS2.
I have no clue how you connected Alisa to the terrorist group Antifa (that got me laughing), but the rest of your retrospective was something I enjoyed allot. These have been and will always be my favorite RPG series of all time. The characters are freaking awesome (some will die mid game and they did it long before FFVII) and the stories have shocking twists. I'm not a fan of PSIII like many. Would have been an awesome stand alone game (I agree) but it's too much of a departure. I'm going to have to go back and play these games again.
because idiots thing antifa was more than what it was, Alis was fighting to stop a tyrant, antifa was a bunch of disgruntled children burning things down for clout.
I've only had time to beat IV, but I really respect all the games even the online ones. The space fantasy genre is something we don't see enough of overall
Interesting comments on the change in planet names between 1 and 2. I chalked them up to language drift over 1000 years, however you are probably right about translation haha. The story line in PS 2 is is timeless. Such a great game. I just played it for the first time in 2024 BTW.
Playing this on the Switch 😮 it’s good wish I knew about it sooner I remember seeing the 2nd game in one of our movie rental stores back in the day didn’t know anything about it and rented Street Fighter 2 the new challengers!
i feel like psu were sega's attempt to remake this fancy rpg magic and sorcery into space genre that ultimately fail overshadowed by pso success pso2 great story(use elements i think fits ps3 aka time traveler boogaloo) and pso2ngs storyline is somewhat reminds me of ps gaiden in game gear(based on another youtube mentioning fan translation of this game) where the story were 500 years in the future rather than that 1000 years(while its technically 1000 years after pso2 story but the organisation is broken into piece 500 years later)
?? I don't get the political "antifa links". The story is rather staight forward, evil emperor killed my parents/ killed my bro, killed the cat or burned my village and I'll go have my revenge. The same way I would not say PSIII is a far right game as it promotes royal family ruling a kingdom (in France, Royalists are called far right) Nonetheless that's a good review, sound is well balanced, montage too and you also have a good voice, and I agree with you on most of your review Even now I am amazed at what they managed to do on PSIV and confused that the comix panel or the macro system didn't get popular in other games
What's your opinion on the "Phantasay star Universe" side games (Its story and gameplay)? did you ever played them? if you did. it is the same opinion as the "online series"? It was my first contact with the franchise and later on discovered these original games which I really like.
WTF do you mean isometic dungeons in part 2? Clearly we have VERY different definitions of "isometric"... oiveh... LandStalker is Isometric.. Super Mario RPG is Isometric... Phantasy Star 2 is NOT isometric.. at all.
I would argue that the first game PS1 was a mix of the usual fantasy AND tech. I mean, there's swords AND dragons for crying out loud.. even mages.. magic. The later games for sure did lean more towards techno futuristic stuff though. Also, PS1 didn't have Techniques.. it had Magic.. actual Magic.. in fact they talk about this in part 4 when Rune uses ACTUAL magic. Techniques and TP (Tech Points) didn't come along until part 2.. again, you're mixing part 1 up with the other 3 games in the series.. even the Playstation 2 remake still has MP and Magic..
It had horrible music and limited animation while exploring the world and combat. Although it had some great moments of ambient illustrations. The magic/tech names were awful as well.
Anybody else Remember when you could call the Sega 1 800 number and you could help hints and codes ? That's how ended up beating that game 🎯
Phantasy Star is an incredible series. Phantasy Star IV is not only my favorite Sega game but one of my top 10 games period.
As a kid, in the days of internet-less discovery, when you dug into the used bin at the video game store and took a chance based on a cover/back case.
Having discovering anime before it became huge, I was a sucker for anything with anime styled art. It may have been my greatest find with the PSX Revelations: Persona coming in second.
The game blew my mind. As much as I loved it then, playing it over the years made me appreciate the groundbreaking science fiction setting, the story, the battle system, the characters, the deep lore, music etc.
Great video. Not only do I love when Phantasy Star gets love but especially when it gets the care of quality content. Same goes for your Shining Series video.
That and you reminded me of Vanguard Bandits. I forgot all about that game. Very impressive. Looking forward to new content.
- New Subscriber
Ahhh... Absolutely love Phantasy star series! Phantasy star 1-4 absolutely amazing, and my favorite JRPG games! But unfortunately, Rieko Kodama left us in this year...
Really got me with the Street Pass Fishing. I thought you were gonna go Balan Wonderworld, or mention his legal troubles recently. Knew it wasn't gonna be Sonic or NiGHTS, but man. You went DEEP.
Phantasy star 4 was so good. My favorite Sega game.
Yes it is great ! I would love to see a remake, but it's not necessary. Maybe one day we'll see phantasy star 5
I remember it being 80$... in 90's money! That and FF3 were two of the most expensive games of their time, because of how large the ROM was.
@@No_Use_For_A_Name1981 but they were worth it.
14:36 I believe PSIV didn't retcon PSIII and Kodama wasn’t actually back in the director’s chair, as she had never held that position in previous PS games. Instead, she worked as a designer on PSI and II. I think the director of PSI (if I may call it) was Kotaro Hayashida and Chieko Aoki was the director of PSII (Aoki also created the entire story for PSI and II, while T. Yoshida handled PSIV’s story). However, in PSIV, Kodama shared the role of director, alongside Toru Yoshida and Yasushi Takeuchi.
Thank you for the video. Love these games!
The first RPG I have ever played on a Master System in Brazil. It helped me with learning some english and I just loved the game so much. It is till this day dear to my heart and one of my favorites.
Phantasy Star 4 needs the FF7 remakeover. It is by far the best game in the entire series and was legendary back in the day.
Nah
4 was epic and will forever always be. But 3 man I love that shit. I played through that so many times just to get the different characters and different endings. 1-4 will always be a part of my childhood ❤️ awesome video.
Even though 3 is probably the worst I will always love it because my sister bought it for me for Christmas
@@GTSN38 sounds like a cool sister 🤙
I appreciate the way the series ended. Yeah, you can always come up with a way to continue the story, but I don't think I really want a sequel. There's something to be said for retiring gracefully and ending on a high point.
So I'm very happy that the PSO games took the route they did, and kept the series alive without tarnishing the originals.
Naw bro, I want a sequel. Phantasy star 5 !
there was so much left unexplored, and it sucks it was tied up in a sloppy little bow and rushed out the door so they could use the name for shitty offshoots.
Final Fantasy felt so weak to me after playing Phantasy Star. Phantasy Star just hit the spot better, offered more challenge and the fact that there was continuity really helped me fall in love with them. Phantasy Star 3 is a work of genius trapped behind tech limitations. The reveal moments in that game blew me away.
I realise this is a late reply but I just wanted to say that I fully agree. I replayed PS1 last week for some childhood memories and eventhough it was goofy sometimes it always felt real and important. I've recently played Final Fantasy VI as well and that game is of course more modern and bigger but a lot more childish in how it portrays the world. I think that might be why I as a grown up more radiate towards PS than FF eventhough I hold my first playthrough of FF7 as a high point of my gaming history (and FF9).
I see some similarities between PS and Chrono Trigger as well where CT feels like a mix between FF and PS.
Oops, this became a bit ranty..
So, yeah, totally agree with you and the continuity with huge gaps and split story line (PS3-PS4) made it something extra in my eyes as well.
@@karlnygren Great points! I agree, another reason I prefer Phantasy Star is because it's definitely more grounded and mature compared to Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy Worlds (especially 6) often feel too outlandish to me, they don't feel built on practical laws. Whereas Phantasy Star is way more grounded, with science playing a much bigger part in them and anchoring them.
PS4 is my second favorite JRPG story behind only Xenogears. Great game. Never could get into the earlier ones though.
Phantasy Star came out before Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy in the West.
Nintendo (the publisher of "Dragon Warrior") crippled DQ in the West by taking three years to localize the first one, and the series has only just recovered.
"6 megabytes" - I think you meant megabits. 6 megabytes would make Phantasy Star 2 as big as the original SFC release of Tales of Phantasia.
I love Phantasy Star IV.
I also have the Phantasy Star collection on my phone. Weird flex.
PS1 was my first console entry into the RPG world. I never owned it as a kid, but I played my friend Scott’s copy when he lent me his entire SMS collection after I purchased the Power Base converter for my Sega Genesis.
I loved this franchise… didn’t get to play much beyond the initial 4 games… but tried the PSO on a private server about 3 years ago and it was “neat” but nothing I loved. The release on the XB360 felt all wrong and I was sad that Sega seemed to be done with the more traditional JRPGs I was familiar with.
Phantasy Star 1 was a real adventure for me as a kid. I didn’t have a hint guide, I was busting out the graph paper and just powering through the game as an 12yo trying everything…. I eventually found some college kids at an Egg Head Software at the mall that had finished it and every time I got stuck and my mom took me to the mall, I would visit them and they would point me in the right direction. Beating this game was exhilarating and cemented my enduring love for 2D JRPGs.
Phantasy Star 2 which if I’m honest isn’t the best of the 4 is the one I personally love the most. I played this about a year after completing PS1 and although I missed the 3D dungeons… the drama and setting of this game is what I find most memorable. The promised future paradise of the advances of technology and government control turning out to be a society stripped of its liberties and freedoms and powerless to defend itself… the Nei death I tried multiple times to undo but had to come to terms with it being just part of the story. The climatic ending is what really imprinted on me the most. Realizing that all this calamity that led us to the final battle were Terrans (Earth humans) that erected this oppressive existence and were willing to die to maintain that level of control to enslave future generations while convincing them they were content. That was a lot for a 14-15yo to digest.
The third entry sounded awesome, the idea of playing through generations of an RPG in a single cartridge was just a wet dream to me… an RPG that was potentially 3x longer than PS2!? I’m in! The execution was laughable. The graphics were worse, the animations felt like a mockery of the previous 2 games and the towns and dungeons were as dull as a bag of rocks. Nothing about the story or characters gripped me enough to even remember the names of the previous generation soon after I finished that leg of the journey. It remains a void in my gaming nostalgia and the game I most want remade to its potential glory.
What more could be said about PS4? It’s a 16 bit masterpiece. It did everything right, the presentation was perfect, it was so much more interesting of a game and after following up the dismal PS3 only amplified it’s greatness.
Thanks for making the video. Happy to find people on the wild as passionate about this series as myself.
I agree with your opinion about 3. 3 was way too monotonous, but I really like the idea of having generations. I wish more rpgs had the generation idea, it makes new play throughs funner.
Pretty sure all the Text Adventures have fan translations. The Game Gear games might as well, but I haven't checked.
Edit: also, just a minor correction, but Phantasy Star II came on a 6 MegaBIT cartridge, not 6 megabytes. There are 8 megabits to a megabyte, so Phantasy Star II was crammed into 3/4 of a megabyte
Well regarding PS3, Aron’s ending ties to the prior games as it explains how the events prior to PS2 happened. It also explains what happened _after_ PS2.
Bruh, no mention of Miracle Warriors for the Master System along side Phantasy Star?
What a wonderful path down memory lane! Thank you soooo much for making this video! 🙏🏼✨✨✨
You bet your bottom dollar I've done D&D campaigns based on Phantasy Star, the route to space.
I hear a lot about these games. I'm surprised there hasn't been more remakes/ remasters
The sheer amount of handhelds, consoles, laptops and phones that I have PS2 installed on is crazy…. 😂
I have no clue how you connected Alisa to the terrorist group Antifa (that got me laughing), but the rest of your retrospective was something I enjoyed allot. These have been and will always be my favorite RPG series of all time. The characters are freaking awesome (some will die mid game and they did it long before FFVII) and the stories have shocking twists. I'm not a fan of PSIII like many. Would have been an awesome stand alone game (I agree) but it's too much of a departure. I'm going to have to go back and play these games again.
because idiots thing antifa was more than what it was, Alis was fighting to stop a tyrant, antifa was a bunch of disgruntled children burning things down for clout.
Appreciate the post I played shining force as a kid and just discovered this series . I started with four and I’m loving it so far
I've only had time to beat IV, but I really respect all the games even the online ones. The space fantasy genre is something we don't see enough of overall
Interesting comments on the change in planet names between 1 and 2. I chalked them up to language drift over 1000 years, however you are probably right about translation haha. The story line in PS 2 is is timeless. Such a great game. I just played it for the first time in 2024 BTW.
Phantasy Star 4 is absolutely amazing and is one of the best games I've ever played.
Great comprehensive review. Excellent to see you keeping at the deep reviews.
Phantasy star III is the mario 2 of Sega
Uh huh, uh huh... so, is there a link to this EP regarding Phantasy Star II...?
Fortress in Space - Antitheist
i really went crazy in increasing the difficulty from 1-2
Playing this on the Switch 😮 it’s good wish I knew about it sooner I remember seeing the 2nd game in one of our movie rental stores back in the day didn’t know anything about it and rented Street Fighter 2 the new challengers!
Very nice overview of the original 4 games.
i feel like psu were sega's attempt to remake this fancy rpg magic and sorcery into space genre that ultimately fail overshadowed by pso success
pso2 great story(use elements i think fits ps3 aka time traveler boogaloo) and pso2ngs storyline is somewhat reminds me of ps gaiden in game gear(based on another youtube mentioning fan translation of this game) where the story were 500 years in the future rather than that 1000 years(while its technically 1000 years after pso2 story but the organisation is broken into piece 500 years later)
?? I don't get the political "antifa links".
The story is rather staight forward, evil emperor killed my parents/ killed my bro, killed the cat or burned my village and I'll go have my revenge.
The same way I would not say PSIII is a far right game as it promotes royal family ruling a kingdom (in France, Royalists are called far right)
Nonetheless that's a good review, sound is well balanced, montage too and you also have a good voice, and I agree with you on most of your review
Even now I am amazed at what they managed to do on PSIV and confused that the comix panel or the macro system didn't get popular in other games
Phant4 is my favorite game of all time
What's your opinion on the "Phantasay star Universe" side games (Its story and gameplay)? did you ever played them? if you did. it is the same opinion as the "online series"?
It was my first contact with the franchise and later on discovered these original games which I really like.
There are flying "cars" wizardry ya know lol
PS4 was supposed to be a Sega CD game
Subscribed for this.
that's the intro song, anyone knows ? :O
Great video!
Has to be in order 4,2,3 I haven’t played 1 yet looks slot like shining in the darkness
Yes
Wondering what a 2DHD remake could look like??
I've made a little video on that!! 🙂
Thanks for your recap of my favorite RPG series.
Great!
WTF do you mean isometic dungeons in part 2? Clearly we have VERY different definitions of "isometric"... oiveh...
LandStalker is Isometric.. Super Mario RPG is Isometric...
Phantasy Star 2 is NOT isometric.. at all.
No mention of PSU alongside PSO?
Amazing series. One of my all-time favorites.
You lost me at glorifying Antifa though.
12:26 this
Diwn with Demi. Raja all the way
I would argue that the first game PS1 was a mix of the usual fantasy AND tech. I mean, there's swords AND dragons for crying out loud.. even mages.. magic.
The later games for sure did lean more towards techno futuristic stuff though.
Also, PS1 didn't have Techniques.. it had Magic.. actual Magic.. in fact they talk about this in part 4 when Rune uses ACTUAL magic.
Techniques and TP (Tech Points) didn't come along until part 2.. again, you're mixing part 1 up with the other 3 games in the series.. even the Playstation 2 remake still has MP and Magic..
It had horrible music and limited animation while exploring the world and combat. Although it had some great moments of ambient illustrations. The magic/tech names were awful as well.
Limited animation?