As I put the controller down, we have reached a turning point of this franchise. For those of you who join me on Twitch, I have been on a campaign with this series, to both celebrate it in it's own right and raise money and awareness for Extra Life by playing literally EVERY US release of it. (I do this every Wednesday night.) And now we have finished the classic era.... and man did it go out with a BANG!
Story: It's been 1,000 years since the events of Phantasy Star II, and much of the events of the previous game have been rendered ancient history, though their dark reflection on the world remain to this day. With most of the details now missing and left to the halls of mythos, the people only know of the time from this previous game as "The Great Collapse" and that life has grown hard on Motavia. Where once the land was green and lush and thriving with life, there is just desert now and a people spanning the globe who have had to adapt and survive. Space travel, once fairly common, has now been regulated to the realm of science fiction. And even Palma, a whole other planet in their very solar system, is just asteroids now with myths of what life might have been like in ancient history... if at all.
It is in this world where our heroes Alys and Chaz (yes that is his name) find themselves. They are "hunters," people who's career is to defend the masses from the bio-monster that have made this new environment their home. Alys, herself a seasoned hunter, has taken Chaz under her wing as her apprentice and is about to take him on his first assignment: an investigation around the most prestigious school on Motavia: Piata Academy. It would appear the bio-monster menace has made itself particularly at home in the basement area of this school and they are asking for help... but not all is as it seems. Discoveries here about the monsters and even the school's connection to them will start our dynamic duo down a long and dangerous journey to finish a tail started 2,000 years prior in the first Phantasy Star game and for the most part, ending Algo's chapter in the franchise. (If you are curious, Phantasy Star III DOES take place about 1000 years after this game, but you could think of it more as an aftershock for this particular universe. It's not really connected beyond a certain dark entity's touch and desire for revenge still living on.)
But all journey's start with a single step, and this first one will point the duo to a much bigger threat coming from a place called Birth Valley and a mysterious and powerful man preventing anyone from investigating it named Zio to face off with. The path there, while fairly direct, will lead you across the globe, meeting several new cast members and colorful locations while collecting more information about what is going on and new issues you will have to resolve. The flow at which the story runs is absolutely perfect so be ready to enjoy it, and to that end I kinda have to refuse to say much more as even going beyond this simple beginning will give away spoilers I would rather you find for yourself. Enjoy the ride as you finish the epic journey of an entire era of the Phantasy Star franchise.
9/10
Graphics: Like many JRPGs of it's time, Phantasy Star IV is played from a top-down isometric view where you will for the most part guide your party of heroes through towns, dungeons, and the open world itself. In this case (as also in many cases of the time) the style chosen will be very anime-esque with representations of the people in each place wandering around very bright and colorful locations. Yes this is a desert world, but the detail work to represent the various places within is not to be ignored either as it looks really good if formulaic.
When you need to interact with things, you will usually do so through popup menus that, while clean are basic blue with a gray boarder affairs. Things said will also appear the same way for the most part, but with the character's portrait above and to the left to make it clear who's talking... and yet this is also where the game begins to separate itself from other titles of the type.
While Phantasy Star IV was absolutely massive for a console JRPG of it's day, it still had to fit within a mere 3 Megabytes of space available on the cartridge, so there was clearly no room for anything like actual cutscenes. And while still images were an obvious solution, this title uses them in a very comic/manga style. Many of your cutscenes are made of panels instead of trying to take up the whole screen, letting you see everything going on like you are reading it off the pages with the text bubbles replaced by the box below. It works amazingly well, especially as it keeps the art style of the whole game intact, looking the best this franchise has so far!
As for combat, this too looks great, if a bit more standard fair. If you've played the previous games in the series, you already have an idea of what you will be looking at for a layout: your character's stats are at the bottom of the screen with the cast's back to you facing the monsters you will be fighting. It again looks clean, and everything is detailed and frankly looks great. The monsters you fight as well as the cast will vary greatly as you play and even the environments are reflected with as much detail as the resolution a Sega Genesis could provide.
In short there really is little I can complain about with the look of this game. Within the limitations of the hardware, Sega managed to make one hell of a great looking one!
9/10
Sound: And the sound this time around is every bit as impressive as the artwork! With several scores written to lean into the kind of sound the Genesis was known for producing, this is one of those games with a soundtrack celebrated to this day among chiptune fans! The tracks are varied and fitting, be it because shit is hitting the fan in some new horrific way, the combat is fast and furious, or even the mistic tones of some strange new area that should be awe-inspiring (even if 16-bit graphics limit how much you can do that) the music this time around is absolutely on point! There is nothin I can complain about here.
But the sound effects are perhaps where the devs could afford to cut a few corners. For starters there are incredibly few of them. In fact most of what you will hear is the opening and shutting of windows (text or otherwise) and the blip of moving your cursor between and selecting choices. Most of the gameplay, being a turn based game, is controlled by these menus, so it is for the best the sound effects for them are there, but subdued so as to not get annoying long-term.
Aside from this however, you will basically hear meaty thunks, whirs, and explosions for the most part as almost all the sound outside that amazing music is sound from combat. It sounds ok, but it's just nothing to write home about and pretty standard for the time.
7/10
Gameplay: As one would expect for the franchise so-far, Phantasy Star IV is a turn based JRPG, and as such you will spend most of your time wandering the various overlords, towns and dungeons as you explore and continue to move forward on your current goal and overall quest of the game. These wanderings can be pretty straight forward, especially at first, but that doesn't mean the game leaves you with little to do in these modes.
At these times you will have the option to look over, use, or discard anything in your collective inventory (yes we are back to one massive inventory instead of everyone carrying their own gear, which is a massive convenience if you ask me), which may not sound like much, but looking over items can explain what they do, making it a lot easier to decide if you want to use it, or if you are running low on space what to ditch. Although this last part is not as big an issue as might expect since when you open a treasure chest, if you choose to not keep the contents, your characters will politely just reclose the box so you can open it later if you desire.
You will also have the option to use techniques and skills at this time, and yes they are different. Techniques are the spells of this game, so being able to use some between battles makes perfect sense, although there are two you will want to use when they become available: HINAS and RYUKA. HINAS will let you escape back to the entrance of the dungeon, making it invaluable if a battle left you particularly wounded and you need to get back, but it's pretty much exactly the same as it is in every game of the series. RYUKA, on the other hand, has been enhanced this time, turning it from simply the way to get to the last town you saved in as it used to be (which is a good thing since, as long as you are not in a dungeon, you can save at any time you want with the start menu), to giving you a list of all the places you have been, letting you warp to any town you like. In short, this technique is now a quick-travel and as such, invaluable once Chaz learns it.
In addition, skills are much more unique actions, with each character having their own list that few others will be able to use. Unlike techniques, these do not cost technique points to use but rather have a limited number of times a character can use it. (Although both will fill to max when you spend a night at an inn.) Further expanding on these abilities, using them in combat can cause your characters to combine abilities to make far more intense attacks on enemies, making them far more attractive to use in battle (as well as for healing) when possible.
And to talk about that combat, this will also go for the most part as fans of the genre would expect. Before each turn, you will be allowed to go through each and choose their action (or to go defensive) before the turn plays out in front of you. Unlike previous games, you will not be able to select to just let the battle go until you stop it, nor will there be any rows of enemies that need ranged weapons, making for a more streamlined combat session that fits the usual style of genre. However I said you will be allowed because you do have another option in the form of macros.
These macros are several sets of prebuilt commands you can setup and then choose in combat with each character's actions determined in advance, letting you choose to act with 2 buttons rather then setting each character separate. Personally I didn't get much use out of this, but it is a convenience offered if you wish to.
Overall, this is a very smooth playing JRPG which doesn't stray too far from what one might expect a game of the era to play like, but at the same time, the elements fit together so well it really doesn't need to do much more.
9/10
Bugs: As seems to be the case a lot as of late, we have another game that ran perfect from start to finish. No issues here.
Digital Rights Management: The question of if this game has DRM is answered with both a "yes" and a "no" at the exact same time. Yes in that the default virtual room launcher indeed uses Steam as DRM, but No in that the Simple Launcher is DRM free. On top of this, however, this is ultimately a ROM and emulator: you can play the ROM away from the launcher and in any other emulator you wish if you desire, and while I haven't tried this, it's supposed to be as simple as renaming the file to a .bin before loading up the game in the emulator of your choosing.
Source: PC Gaming Wiki
Overall: This classic JRPG is often regarded as one of the greatest ever made and place with the likes of Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger. After finishing the game a second time, I can understand why. No it didn't try to do innovate the turn-based system itself or add new gameplay mechanics like the above to games, but it took what already was and polished it to such a fine sheen I would be hard pressed to find another game do it better. No it didn't try to come up with 15 different endings, but it ran with it's own story so brilliantly it I'd be hard pressed to find JRPG of the era who told their story so well and with such detail about it's own universe as this one.... and the genre back then lived and died on these two things alone.
Phantasy Star IV deserves it's reputation, not because it did much new (it didn't) but it did what was needed so well and so smoothly. This really is one of the best turn best JRPGs ever made, and if you like that kind of game, you owe it to yourself to go back in time and try it out.
Score:
System Requirements:
- Intel Pentium 2.0 Ghz
- Anything that supports Direct X 9.0c with 32 MB of VRAM or more
- 2 GB RAM
- Windows XP
- 50 MB hard drive space
System Specs:
- Ryzen 5 5600G running at 3.9 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- Windows 11
- PDP DX Wired Controller (Crimson)
Source: This game is no longer available as Sega has delisted the Mega Drive and Genesis Classics collection it was a part of from all stores.
No comments:
Post a Comment