Phantasy Star IV Is A Masterpiece: A Retrospective + Interview with PSIV's Composer

[@brokenclavicle]

Only just dawned on me that you're an author I've read! Love having run into your video output. Subscribed, obviously. Looking forward to checking more of your videos out.

[@TieryasXu]

Thank you!!!

[@RAMPKORV]

I like how the game conveys "This is Chaz' story" by briefly having him separated from Alyz at the very start of the game.

[@KaskelotenZebbe]

Amazing!!! I love that you took the time to interview Ippo. She is so nice. I tagged her on Twitter when I got Phantasy Star soundtrack on my birthday from my wife, and Ippo congratulated me. That just made the birthday so much better!

[@iechromefox]

Loved it! I have some reservations about the Shmuplations translation here because I'm positive Fallen (PSIV's Wren in the EN translation) is a nod to Searren (PSIII's Wren from the PSIII EN translation), not to General Siren as mentioned. However, they didn't provide the exact source of that interview, so it's difficult to confirm. It's true that PSII had many crew members from 'I' (Kotaro Hayashida, Yuji Naka, Chieko Aoki-who started it all-and also Takako Kawaguchi, Rieko Kodama, Kazuyuki Shibata-that would become the Art Director in "II"-, Naoto Ohshima, Hitoshi Yoneda). Compared to this, PSIII only had the Director Hiroto Saeki (who was previously the Assistant Director for "II"), but it's also true that "IV" only had the directors Toru Yoshida and Rieko Kodama from "II" as well (and Yonesan if we don't want to dismiss the cover illustrations). It's interesting that PSIV may have had more crew members from "III" than from "I": Ippo (one of its composers), Will Cane (if he is indeed Minoru Kanari, the Director of Sega Consumer Research and Development Dept. #1 who made PSIV possible), and Yoshibon (if we recall that he was called to debug "III" just before its release). The same way PSII benefited greatly from the addition of two new staff members such as Yasushi Yamaguchi and Toru Yoshida (who also worked on almost all, if not all, PSII TA games), PSIV brought in two other important staff members who should absolutely be mentioned: the Planners Kazuyoshi Tsugawa (also the battle designer) and Akinori Nishiyama (also responsible for the dialogues).

[@Shuukuriimudaisuki-sama]

Man, my Blockbuster was trash tier. It hardly had any good games for rent during its time. I found PSIV at a freaking random grocery store for rent, and that's how I first played it. I still remember having to rent it like 4 times to finally get through the whole game, and I prayed no one else rented it and deleted my save file whenever I had to turn it back in lol. Then I managed to find it on sale at some video game store at the mall for $50 instead of $100 and that's where my allowance went. "Hey, Shorty. I'm amazed you managed to make it all the way up here on those short legs of yours!" - Rune I always loved the banter between characters in this game. It made it feel so much more realistic than many of its contemporaries, and I stand by that. Phantasy Star IV is a very deep and mature title for its time, especially when you consider how many games didn't make it to the West back then. There's a sense of real personality and growth in pretty much every character in the game that you are hard-pressed to find elsewhere. The localization may have some issues, but PSIV's writing is top-notch and I still hold it in high regard.

[@TieryasXu]

Thanks for sharing about the grocery store! And yeah, agreed, love the banter and deep themes.

[@analogmoz]

You lived the appropriate course of this game. Kudos.

[@mmpsp693]

Finally, I love how Chaz claims that following orders from the Great Light he would be no better than Zio. He fought for himself and his friends, not because a cosmic being said so.

[@mmpsp693]

The timing of the song on the ending was so appreciated, one of the best endings to this day.

[@dayzovc]

Always enjoy watching videos that show appreciation for Phantasy Star IV. It was the first RPG I ever rented and played. With no instruction manual I had no idea what I was doing but I became totally immersed by its world even if I couldn't get far into it and enjoyed the character interaction and the comic book/manga storytelling presentation. I'd really like to see a remake of this or a spiritual reimagination in the same universe. I didn't realize it at the time but this game had pretty good female characters and I never knew until later that Rieko Kodama was the director. It was sad to hear of her passing. This game did various things that were ahead of its time. It had its flaws and hasn't held up as well in the gameplay department over time but its world and characters remain forever engaging and compelling.

[@stefanswiss3760]

To me, the design managed a perfect balance between look and fan service, characters are gorgeously drawn with a unique yet distinctive style. Their moral character is also well expressed without falling into too much of annoying tropes. It feels that each characters has their own opinion and life. Rika could be just a love interest, an eye candy cat girl yet she is compassionate, has many talents in atk defense and healing, is naive about the world yet has advance technology knowledge. She also manages to seize the eclipse torch from the main boss of PS1 without receiving the instruction to do so, just by her own impulse and she does all that without ever being demeaning. All characters are multi-faceted and that's great to see.

[@Novastar.SaberCombat]

PStar4 is incredible because it took everything that was awesome from PStar2 and improved on all of it times 1200. Absolutely exemplary in almost every way: music, graphics, characters, story, mood, style, sound, etc.

[@subpar2283]

I grew up playing PS2, 3 and 4 (never got to try the first game, sadly). I had an absolute blast with all of them, I must've played through each of these games tens of times (I believe I did all the different main characters in PS3). PS4 was my absolute favorite though. And the music is so good. I was 13 years old in 1993 and now I'm 44 but I still have fond memories of all of these games. :) Thanks for the videos, they brought back many memories of the fun I had as a child.

[@Crocogator]

I played this game completely blind by a suggestion someone made a couple years ago, and I'm glad I did. Alys passing took me completely by surprise, especially for how early in the game they did it. Also why I brought Hahn into the final battle. Paladin Strike just... made sense.

[@dekky3908]

Just played through Phantasy Star 4 on my Genesis model 2 with a CRT using the retranslation of the game. It's an amazing 16-bit RPG, love the comic book style story telling.

[@Mari_Izu]

Most the spell names are corrupted German words, but because the menus only support 5 characters, they had to compress some to 3 (as they have gi and na versions), so Foi comes from Feuer (fire) Deband comes from Die Wand (the wall), Tsu in Japanese is "Gurantsu" which comes from Glanz (glint) etc. Since Phantasy Star Online they had more space for the localized names, so Tsu became Grants, Foi became Foie, and we have flavor texts explaining what they are.

[@TieryasXu]

Thanks for explaining that! I'll try to remember it next time I revisit the games! 😅

[@Novastar.SaberCombat]

@@TieryasXu As a completely minor homage to Phantasy Star's spellcasting, I included words (or prefixes & suffixes) like "Foi" and "Res" in my series of books. 🙂 They don't have the same meanings, but there are ALSO shout-outs to spell words from Ultima IV & V in there as well. *Lots* of homages to all sorts of exemplary storytelling projects, to be clear. 🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨

[@cattysplat]

According to Wikipedia, PSIV released in 1995 in March in USA and December in EU. This was super close to the PS1 and Sega Saturn launches, which likely doomed the sales of PSIV. I remember hearing tales of how awesome this game was, but I never saw it anywhere in stores. It's such a shame great RPGs were often lost and forgotten before RPGs went mainstream.

[@Stefanswiss]

I could say that I love PS serie passionately especially II and IV, (and I was pleasantly surprised when quite late I got my hands on PS1, I ended up liking a lot too, and more and more, the character of Alisa grew on me) I am thankful that at that time, the consoles were limited in power and the teams were not that big. They managed to shine through their talent and through the constrains they had. Macro, Combos, manga panels, those were superb ideas that were done because of technology constrains. I am going in detail for the manga panels : seeing how they were limited by the size of the arts they could put in a cartridge, they had to focus on dialogues that were full of personality yet rather efficient and to the point. Knowing they only had manga panel to express themselves, they masterfully managed to draw some meaningful panels, very cinematic, like story boards done by experts. On each panel you can see how the characters behave and interact, and who takes charge of the situation. (Rune who is suspiciously silent, trying to look away and in the background when Kyra appears despite having always been somewhat obnoxious and supporting strong opinions in every other scenes is one example but I could analyse every cutscene and discuss about how brilliant it was). Raja trying to talk yet no one ever looking in his direction (even when he is in the foreground is a funny joke too) This proves there was a good communication between the art department, programers, writers and musician. Nothing was worse for me than trying to love PSU thinking it would be as good and seeing how uninteresting they made the dialogues with no thought being put in the camera shots, no thoughts either for giving us good dialogues (they just go on and on and on again blabling about clichés) . I don't wish for a FFVII remake level of remake, but if a remake were to be done, I would love for PSII to have this type of cinematics and attention to details

[@TieryasXu]

FFVII Remake took me by surprise as I really liked it and Phantasy Star II getting something like that would be amazing! Ah, PSU = no good? I've always been curious about checking it out.

[@LITTLE1994]

Definitely the best Phantasy Star by far. That RPG Genesis title was a unique experience from beginning to end and had a good story.

[@ezg8448]

This was back when Sega was a real game company. Taking heavier risks and fighting for 1st place through technology and creativity. This game deserves a modern-day remaster with new and vastly expanded content, AND IT MUST stay in 2D.

[@JahWillBlessKwaz]

I love this game. So glad they put it on the Sega Genesis Collection!

[@mmpsp693]

A cool tidbit, was at a certain point in development, Zio was an esper that lost to Rune, as both were vying to be the next generation Lutz.

[@TieryasXu]

Oh that's super interesting! Thanks for sharing!

[@Girichoko]

Whenever someone asks me to recommend a game... It's Phantasy Star 4. The graphics, music and story aged so well, it's a must play for any gamer. I play it once a year and the story touches my heart every time.

[@analogmoz]

Never forget! IV -II- I- III I swear that Kodama could have still written games 40 years later on MegaDrive software and almost no one would have cared noticed a drop in technology one bit. That being said I swear that when it comes to composing on MD soundcard, almost no one knew how to use the soundcard like Treasure or Noriyuke Iwadare, (Langrisser still is basically the best software on that system, IMO.) The powerhouse that was the Genesis will be a partially-buried genius for some years yet. Many amazing games will come out on this platform until its potential is realized.

[@Spare_Ombres]

Hey Peter, thanks for the nice review, was fun! Indeed PS IV is one of my best video game ever too!

[@TieryasXu]

Thank you so much! PSIV fist bump!

[@Josephryanbanks]

Awesome video essay man. Very well written and evocative of the original emotional experience.

[@TieryasXu]

Thank you so much for watching!

[@ribenasquash]

Awesome reply, man. It really summarised his video in a way which was impossible to tell what you liked about it.

[@Josephryanbanks]

@ username checks out.

[@Josephryanbanks]

@ I didn’t want to summarize his video. I wanted to tell him that his writing was very well crafted, and that he did a good job at capturing the emotional experience of the game. Because there are very emotional aspects to the story and gameplay. There are you happy now you curmudgeon?

[@ribenasquash]

@@Josephryanbanks he described emotion but did not synthesise it. TBH I fell asleep in the middle. This game is not emotional and I call you both liars.

[@torenwikberg]

Excellent work. Been really enjoying the PS retros.

[@TieryasXu]

Thank you! I'm sad this is the last of the classic retro ones!

[@mmpsp693]

Will watch tomorrow. PSIV is a masterpiece.

[@Dirk1Steele]

Excellent video. I really must go back and finish the game.

[@TieryasXu]

Thank you! And hope you enjoy it!

[@WanderlustZero]

Thank you for highlighting just how much heart and soul this game has ^^

[@TieryasXu]

Thank you for watching!

[@PabstOban]

Phantasy Star IV is objectively the best Phantasy Star game... but Phantasy Star 2 holds the most nostalgia for me and I regard it personally as the best RPG and I don't think it can be topped... it had such a profound impact on my perception of what RPGs could be. What I loved about Phantasy Star IV was the incredible upgrade in presentation and following PSIII it only seemed that more impressive. The comic book story booking was just such a joy. Every cut scene I just wanted to bust out some popcorn and take it all in. It had so many call backs to the previous games which made it fun to play after completing the first three multiple times. I remember the game just being impossibly expensive and I only got a copy of it used from Blockbuster and even still I think it was $39.99. When I sold my collection when I got married to help pay for a house I really missed it and eventually got it back... and the copy I got was practically new. These games are such treasures and they will all be very memorable and cherished (well, maybe PSIII not so much, but I hope one day it gets remade with at least some of the direction of the other PS development talent and still 2D in 16bit style graphics). I really hope Sega returns to this series, and does so with the classic JRPG style. I'm so looking forward to your PSIII review... not because I want to hear someone crap on the game, but to see other peoples impressions of it.

[@TieryasXu]

Yeah PS2 has a lot of nostalgia for me as well! Also, in case you missed it, the PS3 retrospective went up a few weeks ago! kzbin.info/www/bejne/eJW0q4emYtSnj9U

[@PabstOban]

@@TieryasXu How did I miss this!? Watching it right now!!

[@RaineyDaysStudio]

Well done man. The last version was great too. Man, this game.

[@TieryasXu]

Thank you!

[@TrueNeutralEvGenius]

Mot Brain should be proud. Excellent writing and narration.

[@TieryasXu]

Thank you very much!

[@blahlbinoa]

Phantasy Star 4 was my first Phantasy Star. I played it on Sega Channel back in the day not knowing it was an RPG, but I couldn't get past a certain point and just stopped playing. I played it on and off when I would get a different SEGA mega mix game. I played and beat 1 and started to get into 2 but I lost my disc. Playing 4 got me into playing Phantasy Star Online. Also, there is a Phantasy Star TTRPG coming out sometime soon, so I'm excited for that!

[@goranisacson2502]

I was a Nintendo-kid as a child- never did play any Phantasy Star but II and III, making some head-way in both before trailing off before the endings. Guess after them, I never had any interest in checking out IV, which looka like it was to my detriment. With the mamy combat options, the progression to vehicles and exploration of many diverse biomes AND call-backs to what seems to be every game... yeah, this game feels like a proper finale AND grand adventure in it's own right. I wonder if it hits as hard even when you haven't followed and played other games in the series though, but I can't deny that this really seems like a tremendous "take everything we've learned and pour it into our magnum opus" like SNES and Chrono Trigger. As a tribute to the series and Rie Kodama, this video practically glows with love and effort- especially liked hearing the story of how the composer worked so close with the others in the team to really synchronize and co-ordinate with everyone to create the best work they can. Nothing more to say- I'm just plain impressed, start to finish.

[@TieryasXu]

Thank you so much!

[@rchassereau2]

Good video!

[@TieryasXu]

Thank you!

[@XenosbioZ]

Great essay, I finished phantasy Star II and IV for the first time back in 2020 in the sega Genesis collection (helps that you can fast forward for grinding)… everyone’s talking about Dune but I’m thinking nahh I’m not getting into that I’ll just replay phantasy Star iv!

[@analogmoz]

I would argue that PS2 requires retcons for modern gamers but PS4 does not, but your mileage may vary.

[@DezorianGuy]

You forgot it's fabulous soundtrack in your initial reasoning. Despite of that I endorse this video.

[@TieryasXu]

Ah good point- I left the praise for the music to the end when I bring up Ippo's interview, but in retrospect, should have mentioned it there. Thanks for pointing out and thanks for endorsing. 🙏

[@L2Nuku]

One of my alltime fave games, I also think that as a JRPG it aged like a fine wine compared to many others. Any idea why so many name changes are needed? I get it for longer names, but short names could've just stayed (like Rudy became Chaz for example) Also I do wonder how the game could've been if the original planned Mega-CD release was actually finished.

[@TieryasXu]

Good questions! I'm not sure about the name changes, but assume those were done by the localization team? And yeah, we can only imagine what a mega CD release would have been like!

[@neonkenomi320]

I'd love to see your thoughts on the Phantasy Star V concepts that were talked about in an interview in the PS Compendium.

[@TieryasXu]

Whoa! I'll go look it up.

[@mattmaddogwheaton4724]

There are few 16-bit JRPGs greater than Chrono Trigger and I'm glad to say Phantasy Star IV is in that short list. Also any idea of when the next book in the United States of Japan series will be?

[@TieryasXu]

Yeah! CT and PSIV! And thanks for asking! Books are done for now, but please stay tuned for other info about other stuff. 😂

[@johnschwartz1641]

Greater than Chrono Trigger? That's high praise indeed!

[@mattmaddogwheaton4724]

@@johnschwartz1641 Oh very high praise indeed. It's my 2nd favorite JRPG franchise with the Xeno series (Xenogears definitely included) being my numeral uno. One could even say the Xeno series is very much Tetsuya Takahashi's own spiritual successor TO Phantasy Star.

[@TieryasXu]

@@mattmaddogwheaton4724 I def feel Xenogears would be on the masterpiece list if they'd had time to finish the second disc properly (even though I did enjoy the mostly text-based story in the second disc). I haven't played the Xenosaga games but really loved Xenoblade Chronicles X.

[@mattmaddogwheaton4724]

@@TieryasXu Speaking of Xenoblade Chronicles X, Definitive Edition is coming next year baby.

[@CYI3ERPUNK]

its a good list , i might add lunar silver star story 1/2 , FF9 , and tales of eternia

[@TieryasXu]

The Lunar games are great!

[@Fauntleroy.]

PSIV is perfection. I'd put it in the same class as games like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, and Dragon Quest V. An absolute masterwork that took the greatest elements of its predecessors and improved upon them in every way. While PSII holds the most nostalgia for me, I recognize IV as the distillation of everything that made Phantasy Star great. Oh, to return to Algo one day! We can only hope!

[@TieryasXu]

Yeah def, and DQ V is amazing! It'd be great to return to Algo one day too!

[@michaeljedlowski4227]

What can I say about PSIV that has not be said? It is a fantastic game. And one of my top games of all time. I always thought Alys was pronounced like Alyssa, not Alice. Maybe I'm wrong?

[@TieryasXu]

You could be right! While recording, I kept on accidentally changing the pronunciation for Alys so I had to re-record parts to keep it consistent, ha ha.

[@LiquidNeon00]

I adore the phantasy star series, 4 is such a great cap-off. 2 and 3 are rougher for sure, but still great games. I wish they could get some remakes like FF got with the pixel remasters. some enhancments and QoL improvments would be stellar.0

[@azurecorviknight4189]

Phantasy Star 4 needs a Remake

[@danielcrystal3943]

I'm still holding out for a proper Phantasy Star game, none of this PSO nonsense

[@analogmoz]

Wait until you play Xenogears on PS1.

[@ribenasquash]

I don't like the game, neigh, hate it? The art, the too fast walking, the poor character designs, poor story, hateful main protagonist, clunky awkward combat, tedious combat. Long winded and with a phoned in sound track. I'm a PS3 man all the way.

[@TieryasXu]

I love PS3 too!