So, I decided to pick up Phantasy Star IV again, because of my heresy that it's the best RPG of the 16-bit era, and there are a few things that I've noticed, from the top.

-Our hero, Chaz Ashley. While he does have a couple of tropes attached to him that would become more common in jRPG protagonists, they exist in just enough quantities to make him interesting rather than infuriating. He has a bit of melancholy about him, but it only ever really comes out when things get bad, and he's never so brooding that he pushes people away when they want to help. He's just dense enough for it to be funny, such as when he can't quite figure out why the cute android girl would prefer him to turn around when she installs a new weapon in herself, but not so infuratingly dense that he can't catch onto when the cute monster girl is hurting too, and wants some hero cuddle-time, or not know when he's in over his head and needs outside help.

-Subtleties! Even though this game doesn't have the benefit of a Ted Woolsey translation, there are some fin things in there, like how the cute android girl- being a far more recent model of android, has a much wider range of emotions and human-like behaviors than a much older android you meet later.

-The game throws you into the main plot pretty quickly- you never really feel like most of the early game is spent following false threads.

-Just what definition of "basic education" includes things like "cracking the internal network security of a thousand-year-old spaceship?

Really, this game is full of callbacks to the history of the series- one of the advantages of having a game series that's actually one complete story, I guess.

Well written; this is my favorite RPG to present day. It's one of the very few that actually made me shed a tear or two. It's got a great story, great pacing, really good graphics and gameplay for its time.

I would really enjoy another stand-alone (non-mmo rpg) game in this story's canon; be it a prequel or sequel.


You have good taste, R-9.