#26

Phantasy Star 4 (Originally released in 1995 on the Sega Genesis.)

Something about the number 4 made games better back in the day. I believe Phantasy Star 4 was my first venture into the series. This game introduced a lot for rpgs. It had a deep story, interesting characters and even dealt with the death of a character you had grown fond of.

The game was visually beautiful for its time. To my knowledge this was the first game that added anime-styled panels to the main parts of the story. During the important segments the game would break away from the bland world graphics and show you boxes of beautifully created images of the characters up close. These boxes of art were found throughout the entirety of the game. From start to finish you were rewarded with good, still action shots of the characters as they progressed through the games most dire of situations. The death of Alys comes to mind. It was a very sad point in the story and watching it without those panels would have really taken away from the mood at hand. I had never before seen that in a game of this nature, so it stands out.

The game had a great cast of characters as well. The game was set in a futuristic world where space travel was something of the norm. The main planet is named Motovia, but you soon finds means to travel around the solar system and explore numerous different planets around the area. The main character in this game is a young hunter by the name of Chaz. He is young and kind of hot tempered, but he has no real experience doing any jobs. You see a hunter is short for bounty hunter, but he is still a green horn in that field. He is being mentored by Alys Brangwin, who by all accounts is the most famous hunter in the land. For the early part of the game she acts like the leader, but after stepping in front of a deadly arcane attack, she suffers a mortal wound and leaves the party permanently. Chaz takes the lead after her death and grows into a powerful leader of the team. You also meet Rune Walsh, who is my favorite character in this game. I am inclined to think that my sarcastic nature stems from me having an infatuation with Rune who was overly sarcastic in my eyes.From the early parts of the game Rune picks on Chaz and the two clash early and often, but Rune shows that he is a valuable member of the party and has a pretty important role in the games story as certain events unfold.

The battle system is decent and is one of the earlier rpgs to introduce team attacks. By selecting the order in which your team attacks you could accidentally stumble upon a collaborative attack that inflicts much more damage then two separate attacks would. The game also has a macro list where you can choose team order and attacks so you can program team attacks into your battle plan. Players have a wide range of abilities to choose from. There's magic, which is a dying talent. Skills are found in the characters that do not possess magic, but it acts in the same fashion. Only humans, espers and green people have access to these abilities. The robots that join you are not capable of either. Techs are found in basically everyone that joins your team. All these abilities work the same, its just that magic and skills work off the same point system where as techs use an entirely different one. You will find it hard to run out of resources in a game like this.

For what it was, PS4 at its time was a huge success. It is a huge shame that this was the last sequential title in the series. Afterward, Sega decided to go the MMO path for the series and stopped making games for us single player fanatics.Regardless, PS4 is still a prime example of what old school games were capable of. It maxed out the Genesis' potential and produced a game that will be loved for generations to come.