How did Phantasy Star do so well before the "online" series?

[May0]

I like to think of myself as well rounded when it comes to gaming so I'm up for giving games a fair shake but I can't bring myself to enjoy any of the original Phantasy Star games.

The first one did not age gracefully and its predecessors aren't bad by any stretch but I don't see what made them particularly memorable apart from the high fantasy/sifi mix of a setting which arguably Final Fantasy was doing as well.

My first exposure to the Phantasy Star series was PSO so naturally I would prefer it. I sometimes wonder why Sega hasn't made any exclusively single player Phantasy Stars since the Sega genesis days. I would argue the original PS series was so mediocre there was no interest in pursuing single player sequels and the allure of subscription based payment model led the series away from any notion of a single player only adventure for good. This dynamic has of coursed been turned on its head with the free to play route PSO2 has taken but from what I've gathered so far PSO2 is one of sega's biggest money makers right now.



I wonder why no one has used the StarOcean property for an online game. That's a series that could go in a new direction. SO's most recent releases on the PS2 doesn't do justice to the original StarOcean or the PlayStation 1 masterpiece that is StarOcean the second story.


tl;dr. The original Phantasy star games aren't that impressive for me. If it wasn't for PSO no one would be familiar with them.

[Blackheart521]

Not really the main point of the topic but the latest Star Ocean was on Xbox 360 called "Star Ocean: The Last Hope"

[May0]

Not really the main point of the topic but the latest Star Ocean was on Xbox 360 called "Star Ocean: The Last Hope"

I'm aware of that, perhaps I didn't phrase it clearly enough but

SO's most recent releases on the PS2 doesn't do justice to the original StarOcean or the PlayStation 1 masterpiece that is StarOcean the second story.

my point being StarOcean and StarOcean the second story were really good whereas its predecessors ranged from laughably bad to "meh". I actually haven't played the last hope but it looks like more of the same from SOtteoT. If I had the money to get a 360 or a ps3 I'd give it a go.

That's a whole nother' topic right there... "why don't more console games get ported to PC?" I have a fat stack I'd be happy to part with if a few publishers would just put their software on steam or some other digital distributor.

This thread is about how mediocre the original Phantasy Star series is though :P

[xeku]

Oh, many reasons….where to start?
Art direction for one- the unmistakably Japanese character and mechanical designs were a big draw back in the day. Japanese games were the norm, but Japanese “looking” games? Man, this stuff was exotic, rare, hardcore….heh.
Release dates are another - in the early years, PS and FF didn't compete directly (at least not in North America). So, for many, there wasn't much of anything to compare it to. Myself?
It was PS or early PC/Mac RPG's - not much of a contest for a young Sci-Fi and anime nut (not to suggest that I didn’t get a kick out of the Bard’s Tale and company).

Phantasy Star, upon release, was Video Gaming state of the art, as far as consoles were concerned. The graphics were seriously killer at the time...even the magazine ads were damned impressive. Man, those cinema screens! I couldn't afford a second system at the time, but I definitely had console envy when this game was first released.
Also, you must realize that for many in the states, this was their first exposure to video-game RPG's....before this, it was all pen and paper and lead figurines. You have to understand - this is circa 1987-88!

The original Final Fantasy was rather primitive in comparison (not to mention that it took another couple of years before it reached North America) - it had to compete with Phantasy Star II, on the next-gen Genesis no less. Hell, PSIII was being hyped before you could actually go and buy FF in most places, if I recall correctly. The series never appealed to me until my younger brother got hooked on a rental copy (this was well into my HS years). In my opinion, I doubt the FF series would have survived, if it hadn't been exclusive to the NES (which was far more popular than the Master System)…but, I digress.

By today’s standards, they are mediocre. But, to experience this as a kid in middle school; It was pretty damned revolutionary, to put it mildly.

[Noblewine]

All I can say is their games are fun and addictive. We paid to play and that's probably how the game have been around for so long.

[Polly]

tl;dr. The original Phantasy star games aren't that impressive for me. If it wasn't for PSO no one would be familiar with them.

So nobody at all would be familiar with the Phantasy Star series if it wasn't for PSO? Then how is it that PSO magically come into existence without a following to earn the stack of cash, confidence, and resources it cost to develop an online game for such an unproven franchise? If nobody knew about Phantasy Star, why even attach the name to it at all?

Because people knew about and were familiar with it.

[Mike]

I don't see what made them particularly memorable apart from the high fantasy/sifi mix of a setting which arguably Final Fantasy was doing as well.

It was one of the big RPGs on the Genesis/Mega Drive. If you had one and were and RPG fan, PS was one of the games you play. It's easy to compare games across consoles now that emulators are common place on not only modern computers but modern consoles as well but back when 16bit consoles were in their heyday, most people only owned a single console. What Final Fantasy was doing was irrelevant because you only owned a Sega console. Final Fantasy was also a mixed bag regarding technology. Some had it, some didn't. Phantasy Star was always sci-fi.

I sometimes wonder why Sega hasn't made any exclusively single player Phantasy Stars since the Sega genesis days.

The Phantasy Star story ended with 4. You defeat the ultimage evil in the universe and live happily ever after. That's not exactly a continuable story-line. There's also the fact that you could strip the Phantasy Star from Phantasy Star Online and, aside from a few legacy items, be left with the exact same game. So why stick the Phantasy Star brand on to a Diabloesque ARPG? Simple: brand recognition. Perhaps the original PSO was a bit of a risky venture. I don't know. But attaching the game to a recognizable IP is a sure way to get the attention of people and assure some success by affiliation.

The original Phantasy star games aren't that impressive for me. If it wasn't for PSO no one would be familiar with them.

It's possible that without the Phantasy Star name, PSO could have been left on the roadside like several other similar offerings on the Dreamcast.

[Sinue_v2]

The first one did not age gracefully and its predecessors aren't bad by any stretch but I don't see what made them particularly memorable apart from the high fantasy/sifi mix of a setting which arguably Final Fantasy was doing as well.

I'd say a mix of two reasons. One, they were pretty much the flagship RPG series on the SMS/Genesis, and since those consoles didn't have a whole lot of competition in the JRPG arena, PS tended to get a decent level of hype.

The other reason is that, from my experience, the Phantasy Star series was one of the first JRPGs to really push a strong narrative with established characters. It may not seem so now, but compared to FFI and DQ, they were well ahead of the curve. Phantasy Star II continued this with a shit-ton of supplementary material that provided character interactions, back stories, and other narrative expanding minutia. Sega wasn't convinced that having a strong characterization and story elements was something players would even be interested in when they bought an RPG. The success of it's contemporaries generic protagonists seemed to indicate that was the case, but the design team recognized the potential for the setting and characters, so that's why they largely split it up into two different mediums.

Turns out the supplementary material was a huge hit, and Nei kind of became mascot of the Phantasy Star series. So going into Phantasy Star IV, Sega decided gave Sonic Team the go ahead to make PSIV into a much more story driven and dialog heavy title. Originally it was going to be on the SegaCD with fully animated cut-scenes, but that eventually got scrapped for a Genesis version which was smaller, yet still implemented cut-scenes via highly detailed (for the time) illustrations.

Phantasy Star has never really been popular enough to pose a competitive threat to Square or Enix, but they did help define what JRPGs would become. (Tons of dialog, needless drama, pretty cut scenes, etc). For that alone, they deserve to be remembered fondly. So yeah (except for PS4) they haven't aged well at all. Although they're still pretty impressive within the context of the time they were released, if you're not one to let that influence your impression, they're not going to really make a good impression on new fans.

I would argue the original PS series was so mediocre there was no interest in pursuing single player sequels and the allure of subscription based payment model led the series away from any notion of a single player only adventure for good.

You know, there's a reason why PSIII is considered the black-sheep of the PS series. It was created by a different development team and failed utterly to capture the spirit and atmosphere of the other titles. I think it's more the case of Phantasy Star IV being developed by a sub-group of Sonic Team employees called "Team Phantasy Star" (I think), who split off to join OverWorks at the end of the Genesis era. Most of the big talent behind the series left (Kodama, Yoshida, etc), but Sonic Team retained the property. Sonic Team can (or could, one upon a time) produce a good title, gameplay wise, but they were never known for their ability to write and pace a decent storyline. Even PSO was only decent in Ep I, and only so long as it stayed more or less in the periphery and added to the atmosphere rather than try to tell a coherent narrative. PSU tried, and it became a trainwreck of tropes, meaningless ad-lib references, and characters that are little more than 2D placeholders who's only reason for existence is to fill a stereotypical role that corporate suits think are required in anime to make it marketable.

Phantasy Star went on to focus on the Pay 2 Play online model, not because the original story somehow inherently sucks, but because the writing talent at Sonic Team sucks. Why wouldn't they? They're a sausage factory for hedgehog games, only occasionally pumping out a side project to fund more hedgehog games. I won't play PSO2 till it launches stateside, so I won't judge the story till I play thought it, but I'm less than optimistic about it.

Kodama and Yoshida (who were core members of the original Phantasy Star development teams) did go on to create another highly regarded RPG at OverWorks. Skies of Arcadia, which pretty much became the flagship (traditional) RPG on the Dreamcast, as well as one of it's most beloved titles. As far as I'm concerned, they've more than proven themselves as capable RPG developers when given the chance.

PSO went in a different direction, not because the original series was bad, but because PSO was not even initially intended to be a PS game at all. The talent behind PS had largely left Sonic Team, but they were still sitting on the unused property... so they dig it out as a way to generate buzz for the title by announcing "A new Phantasy Star" in development. Then they just flavored their Diablo clone with a little PS gloss, tweaked the art and music to invoke a PSII vibe, and slapped the PS name on it. Once PSO was established with a new fanbase, and the pay to play model in place and profitable, there was no need to appeal to the old fan base or return the series to a single-player traditional RPG.

[Zeota]

PS3 was actually my first Phantasy Star game when I rented it back in 1994. Only reason I tried it was because I saw the screenshots that reminded me of the FF games. I didn't play the others until a few years later when emulators started becoming the norm.

If I'm not mistaken, it was one of the first RPGs to have a story that spanned multiple generations. That "black sheep" wasn't without its merits though. One of which was the replay value brought on by the aforementioned generations. My only real beef with it is the style change, but whaddayagonnado?

With PS3 actually being set 1000 years after 4, in spite of PS4's "happily ever after" ending, in hindsight they ended up illustrating that evil would still be out there, no matter what. People would still fight and die in the name of ideologies no matter where they were.

The story of PSO I always felt was done the way it was so one could come up with their character's own personal story and somehow fit it into that of the game itself. At least that's what I tell myself to somehow make sense of it.