New addition to my collection. Details on rare Phantasy Star merchandises!

[Drac_Mazoku]

Normally I don't post about my collection, but I finally receive a new item I didnt knew even existed until a few weeks ago, when I was browsing the Japanese page for the 20th Anniversary of Phantasy Star (I was actually searching a place where I could find a Rappy badge that was offered in the Deluxe pack of the Phantasy Star Complete Collection)...

When I stumble upon a t-shirt that was created for the 20th Anniversary. It was a picture of mother brain (pixelated, totally love it), with all her "engrish" text below her!!! It was so great in picture, I had to get it. And it finally arrived today (along with the official 20th Anniversary poster, which can be seen in my collection page in my sig)



I wonder if they will ever make more official merchandise for the official saga nowaday, because back then, we missed all those great opportunity, and I would like to find other things like that.

[FOkyasuta]

Cool story bro.

[Drac_Mazoku]

Thank you for this totally pointless reply. I was just trying to show a great merchadise to fellow Phan, you didnt need to post that if you were not interrested (and yes, saying "Cool Story Bro" is really like saying "who cares" for me, if this is not what you meant).

[CaptainPlanet]

Aww, come on Drac, maybe he wasn't trying to be sarcastic? It all depends on the tone of how you read it. Granted, he may not be quite as excited about it as you are, but he could have been thinking the statement in a neutrally positive way. He was merely channeling his response through a funny internet meme. I personally love internet memes and I was just going to say that I wish people on this site made subtle references to them more often. They're funny. :P But then I saw you took a mild offense to it, so I retracted my prior notion to encourage him.

But I digress. This is in fact, a cool story, bro! Any idea when this shirt was made? Did it make it's way into a Hot Topic and only a few seasoned gamers knew what it was? How did you come about obtaining it? I don't have a collection of merchandise from the classic series, so if I had that shirt, I would wear it all the time! Especially to all my on-set appearances while I filmed PS:Prime. I actually really love that shirt and I think it's a rich find for this day in age when such an epic treasure has been buried under the superficial nature of the rest of the franchise. You were right, upon my research, I did find that the classic games had an unprecedented level of story depth. I have been so engrossed in the classic story material in the past several months that I take a minute to come up for air and I suddenly remember the story from PSO and PSU. I can't help but compare the level of epic storytelling between them all and I am actually quite disturbed at how shallow the recent iterations (especially Phantasy Star Universe) have been in story compared to their forerunners. With PSU, all the allure and flair feels like nothing more than a face encounter. I can't connect with it like I did the classic stories. Granted they had very sparsely written text dialogue and I often wish the games had been a little bit more wordy in terms of what was going on and the motivation behind the characters' actions, but it was still there, left of to the player to fill in the gaps with their imagination, allowing them to do their fair share of work and meet the game halfway if they were really interested in becoming engulfed in the story. Phantasy Star Online used this tactic as well, and although this is where the franchise really started to dip off in terms of lack of storytelling, they did allow the player to fill in the gaps and piece together the big picture on their own, so points for that.

I think I have worked my way into your good graces with my undying dedication to the classic series (even though I didn't play them when they were being released on the Genesis), my razor sharp attention to detail and my powerful thirst to learn (which has actually been very rewarding). Any chance that Phantasy Star Prime might make it's way to your shrine to stand proudly with the other classic merchandise?

[Drac_Mazoku]

Maybe I took it wrong indeed, and if so, I'm truly sorry. But "Cool Story Bro" must really be the one internet meme I hate the most. Surely because every time I saw it used, it was always on the negative side of thing. IMHO, if all you can post is a Cool Story Bro, it means you don't have much to say and maybe it's just better to not post anything. But like I said that's just me, and if it wasn't "really" sarcastic or negative (hard to say when those are the only 3 words in a post), then I'm sorry.

Maybe I took it on the wrong side even more because this subforum is clearly almost dead, and I'm trying my best to put a little life into it...hence why I may have took offense on such an un-developped reply. Anyway forgive me again


But anyway, to reply to your own post, I agree to some extente about PSO, while it was not as epic as the Classic Saga, I could live with it if it was the only thing wearing the Phantasy Star name that was a big focus on the multiplayer aspect. Because the story, while not as good as the classic saga IMHO, was really mysterious and has some depth....everything have been lost starting with PSU unfortunately.

I'll continue to read and watch your project grow because you're the proof to me that even today, people are still interrested in discovering the Classic Saga. Maybe this could show to Sega that we really want another story driven Phantasy Star.

[CaptainPlanet]

The million dollar question:

Where did you find the shirt?

I want one! lol


P.S. Getting my movies on your wall is my personal goal. If they join your collection, not only would it feel like we produced something that is truly worthy of being considered worthy to join the rest of the classic series, but also it means that we amateur filmmakers have successfully set the standard for what it means to make a video-game based movie. Looking at the garbage I've seen come out of Hollywood as far as video game movies go, I can honestly say that I feel like I single-handedly did more research into the source material than any of the writers of the scripts for the past video game adaption disasters that came out of Hollywood.

It takes more than knowledge and a big budget to create a good video game movie, it takes a passion to propel the project forward, which is something I think Hollywood is lacking. It's a business and it's goal is primarily to make money. We feel a sense of payment by doing justice to the material at hand.

[Drac_Mazoku]

There:

http://www.mars16.com/cgi-local/main.cgi?id=sg080a05s

But with a price at 3990 Yen (around 50$), plus shipping, and also add the fact that I paid some extra fee to my contact in Japan to get it for me, it can go to 65$ only for a t-shirt....I don't think it's really affordable except if you are kind of a freak like me with money to spend (read: waste).

EDIT: Anyway, I've decided to do something more with this topic instead of talking only about a shirt, which may seem really boring. I've updated the title to talk a little bit more about the new additions to my collection as they arrive at my place.

Next item: The official 20th Anniversary Poster. Everyone playing PSU have seen this picture I guess. I always loved it, it was a great proof that Sega have not forgot the Classic Saga. While there's presence of PSO and PSU character too of course, the main focus really seem to be the classic saga. I always wondered if you could buy an "official" poster of it. And finally found one link on the official 20th Anniversary page from Sega. It came in a plastic wrap to protect it, which is why the quality is bad on the picture, didnt want to remove the poster from it



I bought it there: http://ebten.jp/p/4974365109592/

Next item will be a really special trading card I didnt knew existed until a few week ago. More on it when I receive it

[CaptainPlanet]

I have the website you post your collection on bookmarked. It's really impressive.

[Drac_Mazoku]

This one, I owe it all to Thoul, the administrator of the Fringes of Algo to make me even aware of its existence. Supposedly, the cover art for US PSIV was painted by a famous fantasy artist called Boris Vallejo…which I never heard of, but he seems to have done other Genesis game covers (Ecco the Tides of Time comes to my mind). In any case, it seems that this cover picture never made it in any of his artbook (maybe because of the ugliness of it), but made it in one place. A trading card set of 90 cards, showing many of his drawings. The card #80 of the 1995 set is called “Blackstar”. And what do you know, it’s the cover of Phantasy Star IV. It has metallic reflect on the card, and really look like quality material…too bad the art is not…

[Deco_Bryl]

I love this stuff! The t-shirt is awesome; the 20th anniversary poster is beautiful; and the PSIV Western cover art trading card is a great piece of 1990s memorabilia. I actually liked the cover art!

I often liked the Americanized (or maybe Westernized) video game cover art of the late eighties and early nineties (especially the ones with the big, muscular men and women). They brought a fresh perspective to the original Japanese artwork. The only ones I didn't really like were the American Mega Man and Mega Man 2 cover art. Ug-ly! But I can look back and have a good laugh about the former.

I love the beautiful, soft style of the 20th anniversary poster. I can't help but wonder, however, why Alis' armor looks more like fabric than metal. Also, I feel Karen should have been there instead of Laia. And while I like Sil'fer from PSO Episode III, Sue would have been a better complement for Ash. I suppose the artist was trying to cover as much of the series as possible.

My favorite so far, though, is the Mother Brain t-shirt! I'm surprised they took the text from the English version of PSII (assuming that's where it came from) instead of the Japanese version. Maybe they were trying to appeal to die-hard Western fans with deep pockets or deeper credit lines; I dunno. I wish I could afford one so I could wear it all around town and menace everybody. Or perplex them. Or just wow them with the iconic retro artwork. Any one of those works.