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!
We have come full circle with the first Phantasy Star game I ever played. I did not play this on the Sega Genesis like so many others, however. Back in that day, I was much more of an SNES fan, so I missed this game until I had left consoles for PC entirely for a streak. Back then, I had stumbled on a CD-ROM called the Sega Smash pack which I picked up with the intention to play with Altered Beast more then anything else. But this game was also on the disc, and I fell in love with it the moment I started playing. So is it everything I remember it to be? Well, it's still pretty good, but... let's talk on it.
Another game that has been a long time coming. In this case, however, the control of that time was not exactly in my hands. About eight and a half years ago, Phantasy Star Online 2 launched in Japan. Originally for PC, Sega promised it's Western audience the game was coming our way as well. We waited as it made its way to the Sony Playstation systems and even the Nintendo Switch, but only in Japan.
Some grew impatient and hacked their way in. In fact there is a fan-made launcher which will download, patch the translations in, and let English players play the Eastern version of the game that was made out of this need to play. But I held off. After all, I had plenty of other games to play that didn't require such measures. Still, that did not mean I had given up all hope, at least at first. But I couldn't have been happier when the game finally showed up at E3 in 2019. Now what was once just a pipe dream was finally making it's way over, and when it became available in May of 2020 on PC, I was playing literally day 1.
Now almost a year later and with just shy of 200 hours under my belt, Im hanging up my mouse on this game. And while I am annoyed with Microsoft for milking the end of the game's story (it's been done for a few years already in Japan, so releasing maybe an hour of content a month is kinda dumb), I also walked away happy with the game in total. I had a great time in general, playing tons of general content, all the story available at the time I started writing, and having seen the absolute end of the game. It's just a good time to move on.
The drama is finally over. As of right now, Sega’s parent company Sega Sammy Holdings has bought Index Corp., and everything that goes with it. Atlus is now in their hands. Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about this. While I think Sega as a name fits well with a lot of the games Atlus makes in studio, I’m also a little disappointed, and Sega can directly be responsible for that.
The time is coming, my friends. We are about 1 week away from the Extra Life, things are looking great, but that doesn’t mean we can relax yet. It’s crunch time to bring as much in for the kids as possible. But it’s also time to reveal how we are doing here at the Red Sector. Read on to see a special message, a preview of what to expect, as well as links to participate/donate.
Interested? Read on…..
You heard right! First (that I know of) announced by PSO World, Phantasy Online 2 has officially been slated for a US release! I for one could not be more pleased at this news. To date I have an almost complete collection of the Phantasy Star Franchise for a reason… the whole thing rocks! And the original PSO is no exception. (PSO Episode 3 was… but I have a hard time considering a card game a main part of the series.)
