Phantasy Star IV is a game of sunny disposition. It starts off kind of fun and lighthearted and ends on a serious high note. As stupid as this is going to sound, this made my return trip to the game after several years ...well, kind of lame. After blasting through PS2 a few weeks ago (which, I'll remind you, was hard as shit) and taking into account how that game ended, I guess I was expecting some deep layers of ennui that I might have overlooked when finishing PS4 at a tender young age. This isn't the case. Sure, bad stuff happens in this game (dude, Alys gets killed. KILLED) and the universe sure as shootin' needs a bit of saving, but I never felt like life was just plain out to get me. PS2 was cool in that respect, I guess, and PS4 is kind of mundane because of it. But, for all intents and purpose, PS4 is still really f-ing good.
One gets the impression that series architect Rieko Kodama was probably at the end of her rope trying to make good games for SEGA (knowing the she would one day produce the deuce that is Project Altered Beast) and knew that the PS series would fall into the wrong hands (it has) and pretty much wrapped up everything she knew to be good with the series. What this all boils down to is that PS1,2, and 4 represent a trillogy in what the Algol star system is, its relationship with series antagonist Dark Force, and how everything is pretty much cyclical after a millennium. What that means to you and me is a game that elegantly touches upon plot elements of all three games while trying to tell its own story and refining PS2's game play. The graphics and sound are significantly improved over its predecessors (and a vast majority of its contemporaries), it's battle speed was amped up and adjustable (!) to ease through game pace issues, and its cut scenes are probably the most brilliant example of low-rent genius in that they simply use comic book frames that layer on top of each other when something new happens. And it was long without feeling grating, something a lot of other games could do think about, especially today.
Really, there really isn't much for me to say about PS4 that hasn't already been said by about a 1000 other people, which should also tell you that it's really, really good. Finding a copy for the Genesis is pretty easy through eBay and other means, and the Wii's Virtual Console has it for the low, low price of eight bucks. It's also represented on the Sonic Genesis collection for 360 and Playstation 3, so go getcha some. PS4 was intended to be remade through the previously mentioned SEGA Ages label in Japan but was dropped sometime during its development in favor of putting out a collection of the initial four entries in one Playstation 2 set. Of course, this was all Japan-only anyway, so you and I probably wouldn't have to sweat it.
Next up on the Summer of Phantasy Star is me forcing myself to either beat PS1 (also really f-ing hard) or to slog through PS3 (which really isn't that bad, just not that good). Eventually I'm going to have to make the hard decision of whether or not find English fan translations of PS Gaiden and PS Adventure, both for the Japanese Game Gear, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. I already feel as though I've screwed myself by playing the two shining entries of the initial series first, but I'm trying to hold judgment until August 31st rolls around. Keep the faith.
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