#phantasy star iv

[moshimoshibe]

rika

[kappa-artz]

When the star is phantastic, or something.

(I like Rika a lot, if you couldn't tell)

[animepopheart]

★ 【@moshimoshibe】 「 rika 」 ☆ ✔ republished w/permission ⊳ ⊳ follow me on twitter // bsky

[segacity]

PS1 Dungeon Arrange 1 'Phantasy Star IV' SEGA Mega Drive Masaki Nakagaki Support us on Patreon

[crystal-lake-managment]

Thank you to @d-manaceattorney for doing my Sega × Capcom commission. Took a lot of time and I hope everyone enjoys their beautiful art.

[pigminted]

Phantasy Star 4 for the Sega Mega Drive.

[gay-robot-boyfriends]

Phantasy Star IV characters but with mega man aesthetics! (I'm editing this post and adding more as I go. I deleted the original game artwork because the post was getting too long)

[vilkalizer]

Art from last couple of ttrpg updates.

[foxchainart]

I feel like these snippets deserve mention

[thekingdomofdong]

Was thinking about beating another steam game but she was calling to me

[leflairzone]

Fencer Slain VII: Lightning Reflexes

Based of some early sketches, so a little different in fashion - she'll get to rep one of the fighting "styles" (the system is class-less, but they're the closest in purpose).

[smash-64]

2024 Game of the Year Countdown #15: Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium Sega Genesis, 1994

I have always struggled to get into the old school, 16-bit style of JRPG. People would sing the praises of Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, even non-turn-based games like A Link to the Past. And I could never get into them. I still cannot quite put a finger on exactly why, but I just can't see what others do in these titles.

So, I wasn't expecting to enjoy Phantasy Star IV as much as I did. I always heard of it as the best JRPG on the Genesis, and since it's part of the NSO subscription, I figured I should give it a try.

I like the sci-fi aspect, especially the part where, despite the world being somewhere equal to Medieval times as far as technology goes, they are aware of much more advanced tech that had been lost in past centuries due to a major event. This might seem like the dumbest of footnotes, but I've always been intrigued when sci-fi does this sort of thing. Like when the Enterprise comes upon a seemingly undeveloped civilization, only to discover that they just either lost or rejected advanced tech for a more simple life. Anything to get around the Prime Directive, after all.

The game definitely takes some grinding, and I heavily abused the save states that the NSO so graciously granted us. There were a few battles that felt really cheap when my team would miss five attacks in a row, and then the enemy just so happened to paralyze half my team and critical hit the other half. I'm a bit suspicious of how the calculations go for these, but I didn't complain too much because frequently creating save states and reloading them was easy to do.

One really important thing that Phantasy Star IV does that I haven't seen too often in the 16-bit era was the Talk feature in the main menu. This would show you a brief conversation among your team, and remind you where you're supposed to go next and what you're supposed to do. Old games tended to figure you were actively taking notes or something, so a lot of times, I would be lost if I hadn't played in a week. This was a nice thing that felt at least somewhat modern.

Characters are pretty fun and unique, although some are perhaps a bit shallow. Can't really complain too much since that is essentially what comes with the territory of older games like this. The manga style presentation of cutscenes is interesting and a welcome change to what was the norm at the time.

I won't go into too many details on the story, but I was as interested as I can be with a 16-bit presentation. Like I said before, I have no idea why I can't really get into stories as easily when they're presented like this, but I at least wanted to see the story out. As is typical of older JRPGs, there were a few parts of the story where the plot points didn't necessarily feel like they led smoothly from one to the next, and there were plenty of MacGuffins, but I can't say it ever detracted from the story too much. And the finale definitely left a warm feeling.

One final note. I am a big fan of the pure turn-based combat that modern developers are desperately trying to kill. But I definitely struggled to keep at this game since it required a ton of grinding to defeat some of the later bosses. It sucks when this happens because a well designed game will have little to no grinding, and I do understand it's hard to hold that against older games, when that was the norm. But man, does it hamper my fun a bit.

[1bjavier]

Phantasy Star IV

Chaz, Rune, Alys studies More Chaz sketches and Cast Wren Studies

[cursedprince08]

And this is where I’m left off at and currently I’m grinding these characters

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Pao-Pao! 'Phantasy Star IV' SEGA Mega Drive Masaki Nakagaki

[veronicatriumphant]