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!
As we continue our journey through the classic franchise in the name of Extra Life, we finish another entry from the Sega Genesis era, and probably the one that both has the least fans and the least audience to have played. This is not without good reason, however as it is also clearly the outlier that it takes little time to see was not even originally supposed to be a Phantasy Star game. Still, does it deserve the reputation it has? Or is all the hate just because this game is so different. Well, it may get harsher then it deserves, but... that doesn't change this is the lesser game of the set.
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.
This game was going to happen eventually, though to be fair, I wound up playing it on a different machine then I expected to. When it was announced, I knew it wasn't a traditional RPG, but it wasn't a dancing sim (like the Persona 4 offered as spinoffs to it's portable playing fans there for a while) and I honestly have had almost nothing but great experiences with the entire franchise. However, since the PC version would not have a physical copy to go with the rest of my collection, I figured I was going to wind up getting it on Switch. Then Steam came along and did what it does best... sales. So I picked it up and in time, began to play.
It was definitely worth my time, despite showing me why the game series it's play belongs to will never be for me. Step inside.
This is a game that's been waiting probably a lot longer then it should have. When it came out, I was excited to get my hands on it... until Atlus started coming after people for streaming the game like they thought people who didn't want to have it spoiled would not have the self control to just not watch. I put a damper on it, but ultimately I did get my hands on the game and put it in my backlog for several years... enough for me to play several other games in the franchise first. But I have to say it... this one was worth the wait.
Now before we continue, I must say that offhand, your experience with this game may vary from mine. My actual PS3 died a few years ago, so while I ripped the game myself, I was playing through an emulator. But with that in mind, let's get into it.
What can I even say about this game? Back when the Switch was announced this was one of the titles that drew my attention. I have been a fan of the franchise for many years now, starting with my first taste towards the end of the PS2 era with a copy of Persona 3 and there was no looking back. Since then I have gotten into as many of the franchise as I could get my hands on and while I know I will never be able to collect them all, I wasn't going to miss this. I had a the console ready and this was the second game I would play on it (and the third I would finish). I don't know how many more games I will play on this machine just yet, but this was definitely a worthy journey to get one for.
Today, we correct my gaming history by finishing a game I should have played way back on the Playstation 2. Back then, I had no idea what Shin Megami Tensei was and no real interest in the console vs the games I was playing on my Pentium II, so it had no chance of being discovered. In fact, it wasn't till Persona 3 that I took interest in the console at all. So when I found out the Persona games were a spin-off and part of a much bigger family of games called Shin Megami Tensei, it was already too late and this game was very hard (if possible at all) to come by. But sometimes, the world is kind and Atlus saw fit to release this one again before game 5 of this main series comes out. I bought and began playing very shortly after it launched. As I put the controller down, I am glad I finally did.
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.
Sometimes, it pays to troll the internet and forums… and while so far E3 has not revealed anything for PSO2, we may finally have reason for this. According to PSO-world.com, Sega has confirmed that the North American release of the game has been delayed. However, they have not explained why. The good news is that this means it is still coming. But this could also me we are waiting on a new version to be developed….
A little while ago, Gamespy produced a short article in which they suggested we might, just might, be seeing the beginning of a shift in PC gaming from Windows dominating to Linux taking over. In the short article, they promptly asked at the end if we as gamers would embrace such a change. Today, we explore the possibilities… what if we are about to see the beginning of this shift? How would it happen, and how would we be effected? Join me in a little “future history” and see if maybe you could see this happening.
Sometimes, when you try out a game the potential in the demo is so strong you can smell it. And while I don’t like playing anything that relies mainly on guns and aims with the camera on a controller, I had already decided when the price dropped, I would get this game on my PS3 because of such a smell. And then something wonderful happened… Binary Domain was announced as a Steam Download! Once the demo showed me just how right this game feels on my good old mouse, I couldn’t resist and this became my big Steam Summer Sale game. Now, I have finished it. It did not disappoint. Step inside.
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.)
