Phantasy Star 4: The End of the Millennium

Platform: Genesis

Release Date: 1994

Game: Phantasy Star 4: The End of the Millenium

Producers: Sega

Genre: RPG

The Good: Interesting story... great illustration during conversation! INTELLIGENT dialogue.

The Bad: Slightly depressing on-screen graphics.

Reviewed by: Jethren

Jethren:

   I had never tried Phantasy Star 4 up until about a week ago at Amaron's suggestion. I quickly realized why he took a liking to it. The RPG is different, placed in a sci-fi fantasy type setting. The graphics during conversations proved very "anime" in their style, and are worth a thumbs up. The plot starts off at a steady pace... Sega did a good job keeping the interest level high. Something different is thrown at you as soon as you complete your mission, and I found myself playing for 4 hours straight.

   We start the game with hero Chaz and his partner Alys. They are Hunters, an elite mercenary force whose job it is to defeat troublesome beasts and monsters that may be a nuisance to towns. A job here, a job there, and BAM! We have a plot! Turns out there's some guy named Zio causing lots of problems for the people of the planet.

   Combat is pretty neat, following the traditional turn-based system. However, some neat things have been added; Macros, combination attacks, and techniques (It's magic. They call it techs, but trust us on this one.) help shake things up a little.

   Macros allow one to have up to 8 pre-set choices of attacks for your characters. Thus, one could program a macro to have two characters attack, and the others use techniques. When desired, the simple click of a button does all the work for you. This is vital when it comes to performing combination attacks, which occur only when using certain attacks with certain characters at just the right time. While some may be difficult to work, it's relaxing to see a swarm of enemies die in a fizzling blaze when you get a 5 character combo. You Saga Frontier fans should appreciate this aspect.

   It's a pretty sweet game... I enjoyed it greatly, and I think that this game must've been incredible when it came out. It has, after all, been dubbed one of the greatest RPG's of it's time.

Controls: 4

Graphics: 3

Fun Factor: 3.5

Originality: 3

Music: 4

Overall: 3.5