This review contains spoilers
On its own, Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millenium is one of the finest JRPGs of its era. After having played through the rest of the series, I would elevate it to one of the finest JRPGs, period. I would recommend the prior games in the series only with caveats. I recommend Phantasy Star IV without caveat and without reservations.
I am continually surprised at how early in the lifespan of the genre the Phantasy Star games are. Phantasy Star released within days of Final Fantasy; Phantasy Star II about a year after Dragon Quest II and a couple months after Final Fantasy II; Phantasy Star III within a couple months of Dragon Quest IV and Final Fantasy III. By the time Phantasy Star IV released, JRPGs were truly in their golden age — contemporary to Phantasy Star IV are such legendary titles as Final Fantasy VI, Dragon Quest V, Lufia & the Fortress of Doom, Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem, and Secret of Mana. Walking into the first three Phantasy Star games, I always had the feeling, conscious or otherwise, that these were early titles in the genre and gave them some leeway accordingly. Phantasy Star IV immediately hit me with the fact that the kid gloves were off. The minimum stakes for the genre had been raised, and Phantasy Star had more than kept with the times.
The Phantasy Star games have never been truly "typical" JRPGs. The setting is the most obvious measure of this, being sci-fi in a sea of medieval fantasy, but being different than the competition was a stated design goal of the series as far back as the first Phantasy Star game, which took pains to be as different from Dragon Quest as possible. That tradition of uniqueness is upheld: Phantasy Star IV's visual style, sound design, and combat system are unlike anything I've seen elsewhere in the genre.
I absolutely love how Phantasy Star IV tells its story. The comic book panels do a masterful job of setting the scene and the tone, and the way that the panels are timed to the narration add so much depth to scenes. Nowhere is this more present than the finale, where control over the text speed is fully taken away from the player, allowing the designers to fully control the exact pace of the visuals. The effect can be somewhat goofy when panels start piling on top of each other, but the game knows when to do that and when to keep the screen sparse.
Phantasy Star IV has been lauded for how it tells its story not only through its cutscenes, but through its gameplay and its battle system. Chaz's growth as a person is demonstrated not only through his dialogue, but literally in how he plays as he finds his own purpose and niche, his abilities being a direct outgrowth of Alys' advice. Hahn's increasing ineffectiveness in the combat leads to him leaving the party as he discovers that he's simply not cut out for that kind of adventure. Alys' loss is never really filled: as much as Kyra wants to be a big sister figure to Chaz, she can never truly replace what Alys meant to him, and their similar kits only serve to highlight how she cannot act as a stand-in for Alys. Gryz's meathead nature is reflected in how his stats prioritize strength, and his near lack of skills and techniques reinforce this. All of Seth's skills are skills used by enemies associated with Dark Force, a small foreshadowing of his true nature. Raja being an utter goofball would fool people into thinking he's washed-up if his kit didn't reveal him to be the single best healer in the game, joining the party with a massive variety of healing skills and techniques, showing how knowledgeable he truly is. Rika, a newborn, starts with no experience (combat or otherwise) and levels up quickly to reflect how much she's learning about the world.
The combat system itself is a wonderful evolution of the systems present in II (and, to a lesser extent, in III). In addition to the standard Techniques, which cost TP, there are now Skills which can now be used a certain number of times between rests at an inn. By being given specific numbers of casts, the use of skills is heavily encouraged — I've got 20 uses of whatever the hell HEWN and TELELE are, I may as well use them. The macro system provides what is probably the single greatest flexibility in turn order of any game that I've seen — I think the only way to improve it would be the ability to create macros on-the-fly in combat. The fact that Macro A is preset to "everybody attacks" is the icing on top. Items that cast spells aren't nearly as useful as they were in Phantasy Star II, and I would say that it's for the better given how much of late-game Phantasy Star II is using the items that can cast Gires. I love how the vehicles have their own battle mode with a unique interface and music.
The soundtrack is, as always for the Phantasy Star games, absolutely stellar. This game may have the distinction of "Most Obviously a Genesis Game," with that sweet crunchy bass. The title theme immediately sets the tone, and its reuse for the credits is perfect. Motavia Field is one of my favorite overworld themes of all time. For dungeon music, Cave sounds straight out of Super Metroid. Behind the Circuit is a fantastic "tech dungeon" theme, especially when contrast with the upbeat Machine Center. The remixed dungeon themes from Phantasy Star are excellent, and my only wish is that they also included the Air Castle theme from that game for when that dungeon is revisited here. The combat themes are no slouch either: Meet Them Head On immediately gets into the action, while Defeat at a Blow encourages a more measured response to the boss encounters. Abyss and Ooze sell the sheer menace of the final boss, and I would argue that Laughter is one of the all-time greatest JRPG boss themes. Dezolis Town 2 has no right to be as much of a bop as it is. Pain and Her Last Breath elevate an already effective death scene and make it absolutely heartrending. The music for the final cutscenes mixes perfectly with the visuals, even including the rare bit of silence.
Phantasy Star IV is the grand finale of the series, and that fact shines through every facet of the game: from the obvious direct usage of things from earlier titles to the more subtle thematic throughlines, there is little in Phantasy Star IV that is not built upon in some way from the earlier entries. The brilliance is that it doesn't come off as fanservice, the common pitfall of this kind of story.
That said, I absolutely will gush over all the callbacks and continued elements. How the spaceship, the Landale, is named after Alis Landale, who also literally has a shrine (with Myau!) in Termi. The gift shop in Termi sells "perolymates", which were in all the food shops in the first Phantasy Star as "Cola" in the US. The final dungeon of the first game, the Air Fortress, is revisited with the exact same dungeon layout and final boss, who is somehow even more difficult than in the first game. At least you can't accidentally softlock in this one. Alis herself appears in a vision when Chaz first picks up the Elsydeon. As in Phantasy Star II, Noah/Lutz once again has a speaking role as Rune. The fourth planet that had to be cut from the original for space reasons is brought back as the mysterious hidden planet Rykros. The party once again stores massive vehicles in their pockets, with the Land Rover and Ice Digger making a triumphant return.
The events and fallout of Phantasy Star II are related to Chaz within the first minutes of the game by an NPC in the academy. Much of the game's plot is a direct continuation of the events of II: at the end of II, the party destroyed Mother Brain, who was keeping the environmental systems in place. These same environmental systems finally failing drives much of the early plot of IV. Rika herself is a reference to Nei — the story goes that the character designer Toru Yoshida wanted her to literally be Nei, but the rest of the staff objected so they went with making Rika a blatant copy. The vehicle combat that couldn't make it in to II was finally implemented here. An entire town on Dezolis serves as a grave and memorial to the one guy who sprung you from space jail in II.
A sidequest dungeon near the end of the game consists entirely of the basic bird enemies from Phantasy Star III. Androids of both Siren's and Wren's make and model are common enemies in the tech-based dungeons. The wreckage of one of the Alisa III's sister ships is explored, and it's even laid out like a typical Phantasy Star III dungeon. The scene upon the conclusion of that dungeon where the party learns of the colony ships meant just about nothing to me on my first play of IV. Now, having played III, it meant everything. Even now I'm tearing up thinking about it.
The core party members are each representatives of the games in the series: Rune is Noah/Lutz, Rika is a stand-in for Nei, and Wren is the best non-Sari party member (don't @ me) of Phantasy Star III. Gryz and Raja are the first playable native Motavians and Dezolisians (respectively) in the series. Alys is clearly meant to mislead the player into thinking she's the protagonist, and her name being a clear reference to I's Alis aids in that endeavor.
Overall, Phantasy Star IV: the End of the Millenium is the perfect end to not only the millenium but to the Phantasy Star series as a whole. Seeing Chaz and Rika in casual clothes in the credits roll nearly broke me. The final image of the statue of Alis had me sobbing. Now, a full day later, I'm crying all over again thinking about it.
I am continually surprised at how early in the lifespan of the genre the Phantasy Star games are. Phantasy Star released within days of Final Fantasy; Phantasy Star II about a year after Dragon Quest II and a couple months after Final Fantasy II; Phantasy Star III within a couple months of Dragon Quest IV and Final Fantasy III. By the time Phantasy Star IV released, JRPGs were truly in their golden age — contemporary to Phantasy Star IV are such legendary titles as Final Fantasy VI, Dragon Quest V, Lufia & the Fortress of Doom, Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem, and Secret of Mana. Walking into the first three Phantasy Star games, I always had the feeling, conscious or otherwise, that these were early titles in the genre and gave them some leeway accordingly. Phantasy Star IV immediately hit me with the fact that the kid gloves were off. The minimum stakes for the genre had been raised, and Phantasy Star had more than kept with the times.
The Phantasy Star games have never been truly "typical" JRPGs. The setting is the most obvious measure of this, being sci-fi in a sea of medieval fantasy, but being different than the competition was a stated design goal of the series as far back as the first Phantasy Star game, which took pains to be as different from Dragon Quest as possible. That tradition of uniqueness is upheld: Phantasy Star IV's visual style, sound design, and combat system are unlike anything I've seen elsewhere in the genre.
I absolutely love how Phantasy Star IV tells its story. The comic book panels do a masterful job of setting the scene and the tone, and the way that the panels are timed to the narration add so much depth to scenes. Nowhere is this more present than the finale, where control over the text speed is fully taken away from the player, allowing the designers to fully control the exact pace of the visuals. The effect can be somewhat goofy when panels start piling on top of each other, but the game knows when to do that and when to keep the screen sparse.
Phantasy Star IV has been lauded for how it tells its story not only through its cutscenes, but through its gameplay and its battle system. Chaz's growth as a person is demonstrated not only through his dialogue, but literally in how he plays as he finds his own purpose and niche, his abilities being a direct outgrowth of Alys' advice. Hahn's increasing ineffectiveness in the combat leads to him leaving the party as he discovers that he's simply not cut out for that kind of adventure. Alys' loss is never really filled: as much as Kyra wants to be a big sister figure to Chaz, she can never truly replace what Alys meant to him, and their similar kits only serve to highlight how she cannot act as a stand-in for Alys. Gryz's meathead nature is reflected in how his stats prioritize strength, and his near lack of skills and techniques reinforce this. All of Seth's skills are skills used by enemies associated with Dark Force, a small foreshadowing of his true nature. Raja being an utter goofball would fool people into thinking he's washed-up if his kit didn't reveal him to be the single best healer in the game, joining the party with a massive variety of healing skills and techniques, showing how knowledgeable he truly is. Rika, a newborn, starts with no experience (combat or otherwise) and levels up quickly to reflect how much she's learning about the world.
The combat system itself is a wonderful evolution of the systems present in II (and, to a lesser extent, in III). In addition to the standard Techniques, which cost TP, there are now Skills which can now be used a certain number of times between rests at an inn. By being given specific numbers of casts, the use of skills is heavily encouraged — I've got 20 uses of whatever the hell HEWN and TELELE are, I may as well use them. The macro system provides what is probably the single greatest flexibility in turn order of any game that I've seen — I think the only way to improve it would be the ability to create macros on-the-fly in combat. The fact that Macro A is preset to "everybody attacks" is the icing on top. Items that cast spells aren't nearly as useful as they were in Phantasy Star II, and I would say that it's for the better given how much of late-game Phantasy Star II is using the items that can cast Gires. I love how the vehicles have their own battle mode with a unique interface and music.
The soundtrack is, as always for the Phantasy Star games, absolutely stellar. This game may have the distinction of "Most Obviously a Genesis Game," with that sweet crunchy bass. The title theme immediately sets the tone, and its reuse for the credits is perfect. Motavia Field is one of my favorite overworld themes of all time. For dungeon music, Cave sounds straight out of Super Metroid. Behind the Circuit is a fantastic "tech dungeon" theme, especially when contrast with the upbeat Machine Center. The remixed dungeon themes from Phantasy Star are excellent, and my only wish is that they also included the Air Castle theme from that game for when that dungeon is revisited here. The combat themes are no slouch either: Meet Them Head On immediately gets into the action, while Defeat at a Blow encourages a more measured response to the boss encounters. Abyss and Ooze sell the sheer menace of the final boss, and I would argue that Laughter is one of the all-time greatest JRPG boss themes. Dezolis Town 2 has no right to be as much of a bop as it is. Pain and Her Last Breath elevate an already effective death scene and make it absolutely heartrending. The music for the final cutscenes mixes perfectly with the visuals, even including the rare bit of silence.
Phantasy Star IV is the grand finale of the series, and that fact shines through every facet of the game: from the obvious direct usage of things from earlier titles to the more subtle thematic throughlines, there is little in Phantasy Star IV that is not built upon in some way from the earlier entries. The brilliance is that it doesn't come off as fanservice, the common pitfall of this kind of story.
That said, I absolutely will gush over all the callbacks and continued elements. How the spaceship, the Landale, is named after Alis Landale, who also literally has a shrine (with Myau!) in Termi. The gift shop in Termi sells "perolymates", which were in all the food shops in the first Phantasy Star as "Cola" in the US. The final dungeon of the first game, the Air Fortress, is revisited with the exact same dungeon layout and final boss, who is somehow even more difficult than in the first game. At least you can't accidentally softlock in this one. Alis herself appears in a vision when Chaz first picks up the Elsydeon. As in Phantasy Star II, Noah/Lutz once again has a speaking role as Rune. The fourth planet that had to be cut from the original for space reasons is brought back as the mysterious hidden planet Rykros. The party once again stores massive vehicles in their pockets, with the Land Rover and Ice Digger making a triumphant return.
The events and fallout of Phantasy Star II are related to Chaz within the first minutes of the game by an NPC in the academy. Much of the game's plot is a direct continuation of the events of II: at the end of II, the party destroyed Mother Brain, who was keeping the environmental systems in place. These same environmental systems finally failing drives much of the early plot of IV. Rika herself is a reference to Nei — the story goes that the character designer Toru Yoshida wanted her to literally be Nei, but the rest of the staff objected so they went with making Rika a blatant copy. The vehicle combat that couldn't make it in to II was finally implemented here. An entire town on Dezolis serves as a grave and memorial to the one guy who sprung you from space jail in II.
A sidequest dungeon near the end of the game consists entirely of the basic bird enemies from Phantasy Star III. Androids of both Siren's and Wren's make and model are common enemies in the tech-based dungeons. The wreckage of one of the Alisa III's sister ships is explored, and it's even laid out like a typical Phantasy Star III dungeon. The scene upon the conclusion of that dungeon where the party learns of the colony ships meant just about nothing to me on my first play of IV. Now, having played III, it meant everything. Even now I'm tearing up thinking about it.
The core party members are each representatives of the games in the series: Rune is Noah/Lutz, Rika is a stand-in for Nei, and Wren is the best non-Sari party member (don't @ me) of Phantasy Star III. Gryz and Raja are the first playable native Motavians and Dezolisians (respectively) in the series. Alys is clearly meant to mislead the player into thinking she's the protagonist, and her name being a clear reference to I's Alis aids in that endeavor.
Overall, Phantasy Star IV: the End of the Millenium is the perfect end to not only the millenium but to the Phantasy Star series as a whole. Seeing Chaz and Rika in casual clothes in the credits roll nearly broke me. The final image of the statue of Alis had me sobbing. Now, a full day later, I'm crying all over again thinking about it.