Designing a Phantasy Star Game

[Laxedrane]

*Which console/system or platform would you have it for?
PS3/4, Wii U, pc. And the servers would be international.(With a proper Gm system to deal with idiots)


*What would the story be?
I personally would like to revisit PSU world and better flesh it out. I personally believe PSU in the broader strokes and plot points especially in episodes 2 and 3 had the makings of a truly epic storyline. But sega rushed the story everything came and went to quickly and alot of the threats specifically the shit hitting the fan at the end of 2 were too quickly resolves to feel like threats.

I like to explore in more depth:
-The government that made up Moatoob before Tyler took over.

-The merchants they kept bringing up in the story but you never really get to meet in Moatoob.

-A better look into the three major into the three main weapon manufacturers. And the Kubura Article. Also to separate kubura article into only being knock off weapons and make all other weapons known as unsigned if not made by the big 3.

-A better look into both Nuadeiz and Moatoob culture. I feel Moatoob almost completely passed up. And Nuedeiz is always caught up with their religion and even then with only the top 2 people in there. They hint at a whole world of laws and shady practices that very rarely come up at all. Other leaders in the religion that just plain never show up. What about the middle and lower parts of the faction. What about the culture of the everyday people on bother planets? Huh

-A better build up of characters to power. I feel Maya is particularly guilty of this. She went from making very bad army rations to one of the foremost scientist out there, including head scientist for the guardians. How did she go from an air headed klutz to such renown. It can't be by "Oh my boyfriend I left a great deal of time ago died in front of me. I am going to take over his research. Oh btw I am awesome now." WHAAAAAT
I think that's enough examples>.>

As for new ideas, I like to bring back section IDs. They will be forms of various faction with the guardian community. I plan to have it be an added back story that the guardians actually used to be several separate mercenary companies that held the names of the old section IDs that came together built the colony. They did this becuase of the diversity of their members and the alienation they felt on their home planets for having other races in their ranks.

Yellowboze was the main financial backer to build the colony, being the richest group. However they passed leadership to Whitill group. And at the start of the game Whitil's Leader is usually names president.

Ids on players will only give them bonuses to finding certain weapon types both common and rare. Players can change section IDs once a month however the longer they stay on one the better the bonuses.

Each group will offer certain missions and under their alliance any ID can take them. However what group is offering the mission will determine the drop table. Not the players IDs.

*What would the areas be like?

What you come to expect but I also like to include more none main story mercenary missions. You know like actually doing strikes on the rogues hide-out and you know arresting them. Maybe assist the army in training. Escort jobs other then for the divine maiden. However I also in-vision between the Rogues and the eventual rise of the Illuminis. Going in and doing things like Thwarting bank robberies with hostages.(Somehow balance it so that you can like have your force or hunter rush in. Have the Force erect the shield or have the hunter deflect blows. While the rest of the group takes out the criminals.)

What kind of weapon types would you have?
What was already there but I like to give single handed weapons more of a point. Maybe turn sabers into katanas and drop handguns for gunlashes like in this game. I would also adjust grenade a bit. Drop the main, off hand function. Get rid of TCSM and RCSM. To give tech users more options I bring in Boomerang, Gloves and Broadsword. How they utilize them I'll explain below.

*What would the game play consist of?
I would go with a fighter system like PSO2 with an adjustment to photon arts. There would be now, Normal, heavy, quick and special attacks.

Heavy is a slower stronger hit with a slight knock back. Quick is a faster hit which can cause an enemy to flinch. The swing animation will change based on type of attack.

Special attacks for normal weapons are based on what they are tekked with. If they have poison all hits can inflict poison but special will increase the likelihood. It's like a normal attack Just costs a miniscule amount of PP.

I'll bring back zero system of Photon arts with a slight twist. There will be two types. One attached to normal attacks and one that can added to the pallet directly. The one attached to normal attacks behave like they did in zero however charge significantly quicker. You can attach these types of photon arts to normal heavy and quick attacks at your preference from the menu. Generally these photon arts are low cost and deal quick combos added to your

The instantaneous ones that can be added to the pallet directly. Can either be tap or held. If you hold them down they will charge like the other ones but these will take longer. These photon arts have longer animations when held similar to the 2 or 3 part photon arts of PSU. You can break out of these when circles appear like they do for exact attacks and then tap the photon art to continue the combo on the next circle without loosing the PP. If you dodge out you loose the combo though.

I like to bring in more platforming elements. Like double jumps, Long jumps, and dashing. However I like to keep the platforming elements light and not too challenging. Just kind of to break up the game-play. However I like to utilize these things to bring in new areas and style of maps. Have the penalty for fucking up be low or non-existent.

*What kind of costumes and outfits would you have?
What was there. Plus outfits from today fashion. In that light I look to DoA5 for inspiration. Despite their legacy they had a very nice range of outfits there that went from fetishisic and skimpy to proper dress clothes and day to day attire. I especially loved the fact that all characters had proper dress attire with the exception of the two new ones and the ninjas. This game could use proper night Gowns and dress shirts on top of all the other fantastical outfits.


*What would the main enemy or goal be?
I like to keep away from having a main enemy until much later in the game life. Instead establishing the mercenary life that the guardians had before the Seeds came. It was under explored and I like players to feel like a mercenary joining the cause instead of just basically intergalactic police.

The over heading goal at the start would be to help make the guardian organization more powerful and trusted through=out the 3 planets. Gaining access to new areas and having more Jobs given to us from various groups.

*How would you implement the game content or updates?
I adjust how the game develops. I either shoot for a huge update once a month or small updates every 2 weeks.

What style would the graphics be?
What they always are in phantasy star. I feel a huge graphical style change would turn a lot of people off. Maybe have some special areas with surreal graphical style changes to enhances the uncanniness of that area.

What kind of music and sound effects would it have?
Techno mixes for battles and normal areas. Maybe a switch up into pure orchestra for grandeur events. Have other styles of music based on what characters are there. If the game does really well maybe have special mixes in other Musical styles added for each planet that the player can freely change.

*How many players would be on at once?
4 players per team. MPA style missions available. But each team will take their own path. Each path have things that will effect the other players play. 90% of the time it will be strictly beneficial. With poorly executed attempts making less enemies spawn or boxes unreachable. You might be able to kill enemies from other paths by causing rock slides etc.

*What kind of areas would there be and how would they be separated?

I like to have more missions that take place in un-ruined still inhabited parts of the cities. A better feel for all planets and their multiple communities not just the major one. I like to also pull in game-play from other successful titles by sega to enhance the play. Like taking from All star racing have areas where you have to chance down targets or follow them. Escape Avalanches or eruptions after successfully clearing a mission.

PSU did have the sense of progress from getting from lobby to lobby. However I like to make it so once you unlock a certain lobby you can access it's missions from anywhere. I like to use other techniques such as affinities to give that sense of working towards progress as well.(Towards factions within the guardians or jobs directly from specific groups outside of it.)

[Grady219]

As far as the lobbies go, I would have made the lobbies more like PSZ's hub. You would have your central hub, which is the ARKs ship lobby. Then you would go down to which planet you were wanting to play on. In each one of these areas, there is the place you go to accept quests and an area you go to that has all the shops. All the players that are playing in those areas would all gather there to do quests and it would make finding parties a lot easier. It's also not gonna make way too many lobbies like PSU did.

[Dongra]

I would make it PSO HD version 5, PC only. Why change something that was already great?

[Omega_Weltall]

Well for one I would completely break away from the Online aspect and go back to single player RPG like it used to be. PSO just never felt like a Phantasy Star game to me.

[Cyron Tanryoku]

my phantasy star involves catching them all

[gigawuts]

I was hoping this thread could get down to specifics rather than just being conceptual. Having "deep involving side stories", is different from actually sitting down and writing a story with one. What would be the general environment of the game (how would you set up the general layout), and what would be the basic premise of the story?

I think it's a bit much to ask for too many specifics. Also, I find the gameplay itself to be far more important than the story, simply because even the best writing and acting in the world will be for naught if nobody can control their character. A game with extremely good controls and gameplay but a terrible story would be better than that, IMO. Both being good is ideal, obviously, but side by side I value spectacularly designed gameplay more.

That said, the generic recurring story is something I've always liked, such as in PS or Zelda. Evil resurfaces, the light side fine tunes things to correct for evil's deeds in the form of one or two particularly able individuals, etc.etc. generic stuff. The specifics and sidestories are what bring that basic premise into great story territory.

Except...it was different in PSO. We'd just stumbled into it and gone "oh shit." I liked that.

I also like mysteries in games. Tracking down someone in PSO was a neat angle. Digging through logs from months prior was a plus as well. Anything where the story revolves around picking up the pieces and trying to figure the grander scheme out, whether it's a linear storyline or not, is interesting to me. The older the better.

Story-wise, something between Windwaker (Granted, the mystery aspect here was more in the real world as players tried to figure out how WW was meant to fit into the timeline) and PSO1 would be ideal for me.

As for the exact specifics of the story, well, those can go any route. What matters to me is that there would be a decent amount of it, and it would be interwoven, and make some amount of sense. I'm not too worried if some or even most of it is cliche. I can play a game with great gameplay but mediocre story and call it my personal game of the year just fine.