Review: Phantasy Star IV (Replay)

This was recently re-released on the Sonic's Ultimate Sega Genesis Collection for Playstation 3 (and it has so many games, I don't know what to do with myself). I remember this as one of my favorite games as a kid. It was lone, decent Sega Genesis RPG left to fend with the likes of Zelda, Final Fantasy and Breath of Fire on the Super Nintendo. This is an interesting take on the RPG genre. The travel and journey's on the map are done very similarly to Final Fantasy and Breath of Fire's "looking down from above" perspective. But the battle screen is done in first person, putting the player behind the characters. And that, coupled with decent battle music, makes for an exciting battle experience (and that's key in role-playing games, because you'll spend a good deal of the time in battle).

Here's the story:

Phantasy Star IV takes place in the year AW 2284 (1,000 years after the events of Phantasy Star II). It is the story of Chaz Ashley, a young bounty hunter, who along with his friends and allies, unwittingly becomes the savior of the Algol solar system. The story takes place on the planet Motavia, which has suffered through dramatic climate changes over the past 1,000 years.

After an event called the Great Collapse, much of the once-thriving ecosystem has been reduced to desert, and life has become difficult for the planet's inhabitants. To make matters worse, there has been a marked increase in the appearances of "biomonsters", strange and violent mutations of the normal plant and animal life.

Keeping these creatures under control is the job of "hunters" like Chaz and Alys, and it is during an investigation into an outbreak that the characters learn that the biomonster problem is related to the planet's ecological crisis. In truth, the planet is only reverting back to its natural desert state, which had been changed into an ecosystem more suited to human life by climate-changing technology thousands of years earlier. For reasons to be explained later, and relating back to the events of Phantasy Star II, this computer network suffers a system-wide malfunction, leading to the series of catastrophes throughout Algo.

Chaz and his allies connect the world's troubles to a man named Zio, whose aim seems to be nothing less than total annihilation - not only of Motavia but of the entire solar system. Their aim then becomes to defeat him in order to restore the computer systems maintaining Algo. However, it soon becomes clear that Zio is merely the vanguard to a much larger threat. Amidst great tragedy and struggle, Chaz and the others must eventually fight against an evil from time uncounted to restore peace to Algo once and for all.

Once again, we have a story where the people of the planet come from a fallen civilization elsewhere. In keeping with my method with Final Fantasy IV, I'll reserve judgment on the game (as my critiques would be remarkably similar with those voice in Super Mario RPG--all the RPGs back then had the same problems) and focus instead on some unique narrative features:

(1) Narrative scenes are done in an anime style- note the picture shown here. Text intermingles with multiple text boxes, making for a comic style appearance. The drawing style is also unmistakably anime. The main character Chaz, is also very nationalistic. He's dressed in his red and white like a Japanese flag.

(2) We have a Messiah- Like Final Fantasy IV, like Breath of Fire II and the Obama Candidacy, we have a "chosen one." At a certain point in the game, the characters journey to a Church of Espers ("Espere" is French for "Hope") where they worship a legendary magician (Lutz) who died 2000 years ago, but lives on in the Church to be passed on to the one "chosen" to carry the will and memory the magician. Very Calvinist. Predestination anyone?

(3) We have an absolute evil Devil, but no God- According to the story, there was a great spiritual being that split in two. For whatever reason, the good part "Le Roof" decided to leave, but left all sorts of stuff behind to kill off the evil part, "Dark Force." (This is also the same scenario seen in the Breath of Fire series and others. A true Satan, but humankind must defeat it with only the help of some weapons, etc. from God).

Oh, and the evil dude is apparently pentacostal. (a)It's a rapidly spreading church movement--there are numerous church's run by Dark Force's fall guy "Zio" but none by Le Roof. What up). And (b) these churchgoers faint in the spirit and speak in tongues.