Unsung Heroes: Phantasy Star IV

I just beat Phantasy Star IV. As posited in this article, PSIV is one of the largely unsung classics of the 16-bit era. While I wouldn't quite put it on the level of Final Fantasy VI or Chrono Trigger, I do think it is a better game than Final Fantasy IV (which I do like quite a bit). It really is a shame this series hasn't seen any love other than Phantasy Star Online and its crappy handheld spin-offs.

Would I recommend it to someone who is used to the standards of today's RPGs? That's hard to say. Do you enjoy grinding a bit (such as WoW)? Sure, it'd be offline, but there's quite a bit of grinding. At least, that's how I played it - the nice part is, it doesn't take too long to level up - you get to a new area, level all your guys up once or twice, and then challenge the boss. If you are able to beat him, keep going. If not, level up another time or two.

You have Techniques, which is basically magic in this game. This costs MP to cast. You also have Skills, which have a counter on them - you can use them as many times as is listed, until you spend a night at an inn, when they are replenished. They are entirely separate from Techniques, so you don't have to split MP between them. Some characters (the robots) can't use magic, so they are limited to their Skills. Some Techniques and Skills can also be used in a certain order to cause special attacks, such as Nawat and Nazan to cause Blizzard, which is the only one I found myself. Apparently there are 14 of these and they are all pretty powerful.

If I have a complaint about the game, it really is that the battle system isn't anything exceptional. It's not bad - I would say its even above average! - but compared to the openness and flexibility of both Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI I would say it's pretty plain. Much akin to the Dragon Quest games, to be honest. The encounter rate can be somewhat high, sometimes, but it wasn't ridiculous.

Although it was a little more sparse than I would have liked it (due to what I'm guessing are space constraints, some of the scenes are a little lighter on dialogue than I would have liked), the story was presented excellently. I already mentioned those colored manga panels in my last post, and they really do deliver throughout the game. They are well-timed to the music for the ending as well, which is nice. It really does wrap up the story of PS1-4, too.

So I suppose I don't have too much more to say about the game. I am going to start up Phantasy Star II again, probably tonight, too. Whether I beat that game or not, we'll see - from what I remember, it's even more grindy than PSIV and a little slower, and also not as well presented. But I'm going to try! I have the ability to play Phantasy Star I, too, and I'd like to, but I really will need to buy some graph paper in that case. Which kind of sounds like Etrian Odyssey, so I'm tempted... We'll see how that goes, though. One of the blessings of playing PSIV and II is that they are on a PSP collection I have, so I can play them portably, and I only have access to I on my 360 Genesis collection. Anyway, though, I really enjoyed PSIV and will probably play it again someday. It's like RPG comfort food - lots of grinding, light story, excellent graphics and music.

Oh Sega. How the mighty have fallen.