16-bit veterans like to think of Sega’s acclaimed Phantasy Star series as Sega’s answer to the Final Fantasy series during gaming’s Silver Era. It was simple: If you owned a Super NES, you loved Final Fantasy. If you were a Genesis person, you bragged about how good Phantasy Star was. Recent plays certain games in the respective series, however, showed something. Final Fantasy has managed to withstand the test of time, a test which is known for being especially cruel to video games. Final Fantasy gives you a great playing experience no matter what game, no matter what year. Phantasy Star IV may have ruled Role-Player’s Realm when Nintendo and Sega were bitter rivals, but today it’s likely to be remembered as just a really good 16-bit game. It’s still capable of hanging with the big dogs, but it will no longer be admitted to the VIP lounge where Final Fantasy is discussing philosophy with Lunar and Chrono Trigger.
The main story of Phantasy Star IV revolves around a bounty hunter named Chaz, who is hired by a respected academy to round up the monsters in the basement. After he and his mentor, Alys, do the job, the academy’s principal confesses to hiding something. From there, Alys and Chaz get thrust into an epic battle with the dark wizard Zio. The plot grows and develops great twists, and of course the ultimate object of the game is to save the world. Pardon me, I meant Save the World. It’s become so routine in role-playing games that you have to use caps. Chaz and Alys wouldn’t be very good world saviors if they didn’t gather a motley crew of oddballs with their own motives, abilities, and personality quirks, which of course they do.
Now here’s where the Square-Enix creations pull ahead of Sega. While the characters in Phantasy Star IV are all different and unique, Sega doesn’t seem to understand the concept of non-pious heroes. The attempts to make characters stand out reek of the effort it took to create them. Alys, for example, has a tough chika attitude. However, as there are no situations in which her attitude could be seen as a character flaw instead of a shield, it doesn’t make Alys tough, angry, hotheaded, or anything other than a potential criminal with a bad temper and a penchant for strong-arming people. When she died in the first leg of the game, my feeling toward her death wasn’t the shock of Aeris’s death in Final Fantasy VII or Tellah’s self-sacrificial death in Final Fantasy IV. My feelings leaned more toward the “Okay, she’s dead, let’s get on with the game now” angle. Another major character, Raja, was memorable only because he had a love of telling awful jokes. Rune is an arrogant word-I-can’t-say-on-a-family-website when you meet him, but he’s one of those guys who does an instant presto-chango 180-degree attitude turnaround when he needs help.
Like the other games in the series, Phantasy Star IV uses a sci-fi setting in lieu of a fantasy setting. Every now and then you’ll see an element which would belong more in the fantasy realm. But for the most part, the sci-fi setting leans as far into sci-fi as Final Fantasy VII and Phantasy Star II. It is often indicated that the characters don’t know what magic is, and when Rune pops open a passage with a spell, the other characters act as if it’s the most amazing thing they’ve ever seen in their lives. This touch was also in Final Fantasy VI, and the concept of a forward-thinking society taking a step back to use magic is one that’s always appealed to me. This was also done in Final Fantasy VI. Both games make excellent use of this plot device, but the Squaresoft telling of the story does it just a little bit better.
An odd thing about the Phantasy Star series is that magic and tech spell names are all written in Japanese. I don’t know the reason behind this, but I can tell you I find it very distracting and confusing. It’s not that I have a problem with other languages, but I can’t think of any situations in which I might need the Japanese word for a spell name. It’s confusing because if you’re not fluent in Japanese, it can be a pain to put down the game for awhile – a month or so is what I mean by “awhile” here – and pick it up again and remember what techniques did what. You have to take the techniques entirely on whether the arrows are pointing at your enemies or allies when you make a selection. Even then, it’s a gamble because of the different effects techniques can have. What you think is a healing spell may be a shielding spell, or you may cast a light, single-enemy offensive spell instead of seeing the sleep effect you had hoped for.
Other than the Japanese names, there’s not much in the Phantasy Star IV battle system that stands out. Where you used to attack groups of enemies, you can now use the more traditional RPG system that allows you to attack enemies individually. Veterans of the first three Phantasy Star games may balk at this idea, but the change is actually a good one because it allows you to concentrate all of your attack power onto a large opponent who might otherwise suck away the scant few hit points of a weakened character. There are also big spells called combination spells which are like the multiple techs in Chrono Trigger: They really wallop the enemy, but they also require you to use the turns of many characters.
There are at least 14 combination spells. Sega claims there are more, but a quick google search or a more exploratory search on one of Phantasy Star’s many fan websites reveals that no one could come up with more than the initial 14. While I’ve always loved the idea of combined techniques, Phantasy Star IV’s way of using them is terrible. To use them, you have to select the spells the combinations require by using the individual characters. This is a bad idea because it may cause you to use a combination without meaning to. Conversely, it could also limit your ability to use combinations when you really need one at a critical moment. Fortunately, you also have the ability to use programmable attacks called macros in order to combat some of the other problems that may come up while trying to use combination attacks.
Whereas airships have always been stalwarts in the Final Fantasy series, the Phantasy Star games have always had ground vehicles. In Phantasy Star IV, you are now allowed to enter combat in these vehicles! Unfortunately, I haven’t quite figured out the twists of vehicular combat in Phantasy Star IV. A downside is that you only get a single attack per turn instead of one for however many characters you’re fielding when battles occur. Another downside is that you can’t use magic. Furthermore, the enemies seem to be more powerful and they have more hit points. And for this extra power and life, you get less experience and meseta. If you find that fighting inside the cruiser is just a way to waste time, like I do, you can’t really do anything about it. You are not given the option to get out to fight. Vehicle combat may be an innovation for Phantasy Star, but it’s also a tedious exercise.
It’s almost disappointing how basic the dungeon designs in Phantasy Star IV are. There are a few exceptions, like Zio’s tower, but a lot of dungeons tend to follow the basic point-a-to-point-b layout. In many of the space dungeons, there’s even a line on the floor for you to follow in case you get lost. I’ve seen dungeon designs thrown into many RPG’s as an apparent afterthought, but considering how beloved the Phantasy Star series is, I was really expecting more.
If you’re strapped for cash, a great thing about Phantasy Star IV is the guild system. One of the major ways people in this game make their livings is as hunters. They’re like bounty hunters but they don’t limit their bounties to just people. You can earn cash and experience fairly quickly by taking on one of the numerous jobs being offered by the Hunter’s Guild. It’s also a great way to waste time if you start to get bored by the story.
The graphics and sounds in Phantasy Star IV are purely workmanlike. There’s nothing that stands out about any of it. The character, scenery, and dungeon designs are functional, but they’re there just to help you play your way through to the conclusion. The sounds are generic, and the music is forgettable. Phantasy Star IV may have once been one of the conquering kings of role-playing, and it’s still a great game with a handful of ideas that are fun to play with. But playing Phantasy Star IV now will just make you run out and buy the more recent Phantasy Star for the Playstation 2.
