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Sega Remakes Phantasy Star, More For PS2
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Gamespot story that indicates Sega's remakes of Phantasy Star, Fantasy Zone, and Monaco GP will be available for Playstation 2 this August in Japan. According to the article, "Phantasy Star: Generation 1 will feature enhanced graphics and sound, cover artwork done by members of Sonic Team, and a special making-of booklet. Fantasy Zone and Monaco GP will feature 3D elements as well as a making-of booklet." No word on a US release, or, indeed, on the Slashdot Games' most-wanted remake, a next-gen conversion of Power Drift.
fortunately, though, I'm travelling to japan for business purposes in the end of august.
But when a company rns out of fresh ideas and starts redoing their games, you know it's the end of the line. Look at Sierra. I loed Kings Quest, Space Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry. But when their product lines consisted of half a dozen games that only ran under windows 3, remakes of their old games, and boxed sets of their old games running under DOS, the handwriting was on the wall.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Game companies are sitting on a gold mine of old games. People look at their past console experiences through gold coloured glasses. Phantasy Star/Monaco/Fantasy Zone, those were gold for original Master System. Sega, to prevent losing funds on these titles because they are basically abandonware, decides to rerelease them individual. The only extra content is a glorified emulator so that these games are playable on the new hardware. Listen up folks, compalin to Sega, don't purchase these. The amount of revenue Sega is making off of these barely justifies the cost that they are expending on them. Hold out for the Phanasy Collection or the Alex Kidd Collection. Let Sega know that you want your money worth.
I'm not sure if this is the same thing, but Sega is doing a Phantasy Star 1 remake.
Check out the screenshots..
I'm a huge Phantasy Star nerd (I own the Japanese PS1 remake for Mega Drive! Shoot me.), so I guess I'm buying a playstation 2 if this thing ever comes to the states.
I think it is great that the game is more technologically advanced, but is remaking older games going to make Sega more appealing??
Why are they remaking Monaco GP? It seems like racing games are everywhere now, and it takes something special to get noticed with racing games: overall - GT3, crash mode - Burnout 2, etc. Maybe Sega is just using the name for recognition?
I'm on top of my game like I'm standin' on Xbox.
I played and beat the original Phantasy Star in 1988. Seems simple and insignificant on today's standards, but at the time it was revolutionary. I'll probably pick this reincarnation up, and dabble a bit the Agol star system ... even though this is an obvious money making half ass effort.
Sega's games have always been much better than their consoles.
Perhaps they've realised this and are using a release of a classic game to a non-sega console as a little more of publicity teaser. An indication of what's to come, so to speak.
Please release "The Star Wars Trilogy" onto a console. I wasted too many quarters on the game to send this through the mail.
Love,
Me
I never played Phantasy Star 1 or 2, but I bought 3, and to this day, it's one of my all-time favorite RPG's. You started with 1 person, played through about 1/4 - 1/3 of the game, then picked a wife from the women in your party, had a child, then played the kid (after he grew up a bit) through another 1/4 - 1/3 of the game... then did the same thing over again. There were 7 possible lead-characters with 4 possible endings, depending on which lead character you were. I played through it for 3 of them, but never got around to the fourth.
One of the other things I liked about it was the story. I won't ruin it for anyone who hasn't played it, but in the third generation (after you get married and have kids twice), you realize that your "world" isn't at all what you thought it was... so afterwards, you play through it again to see if it all fits, and yes, it does.
I would absolutely LOVE it if they made a remake of Phantasy Star 3 for the PS2 (or even PS3, whenever it comes out)... but they'd have to put a lot of time and effort into it... not one of those Final Fantasy "remakes" that turns out to be a cinematic opening and a cinematic closing, with the same graphics, sounds, badly-translated dialogue, etc. in between. Then again, I'd also love to see a Metal Gear 1 and 2 (not Solid) remake...
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
Sega's original Phantasy Star trilogy is among the most underappreciated in the gaming world.
I played through them all when I was younger, barely defeating the final boss each time. Like others who've posted in this thread, I was completely taken by the storyline and universe presented. By the time the 4th game came around I didn't have the time to play through it, but I've heard it wasn't up to par with the first 3.
Fast forward 6 or 7 years and Sega announced that they were bringing back the franchise! I'm sure a lot of us were ecstatic when we found out that we could go back to the (Algo?) system and adventure with others. Instead, we were given a weak stat-building exercise with few ties to the original universe.
Sega needs to revisit the original design of the series and bring out a fifth game. A single player RPG, with the epic storyline of PS III. A title like that would bankroll quite a few of Smilebit's innovative (and sadly, under-performing) titles for years to come.
If you could be anything you want, I'll bet you'd be disappointed.
There's a direct port for GBA for Phantasy Star 1,2,3. It's out under the name Phantasy Star Collection. I'm playing right now (actually bought GBA just for this game) - it's great.
:)
Now I can level up in my "spare" time at work.
I remember in the Master System days, wow that brings back memories. The Sega Master system accepted game cartridges and a very knew technology that's only been used with the TruboGrafix system, credit card size game modules. These credit card modules would slide into the Master Systems card slot and there was a game that I loved called Zillion. Now that I think about it, I don't know if it was a cartridge or credit card module, but it was a very known game that I had borrowed/bought (can't remember) but it was my first taste an an RPG. It was GREAT! Before Sonic the Hedghog came along it was the Opa-Opa that was Seg'a mascot. Anywayz, Zillion was such a great game that my family got in it where about three or four of us would play at the same time as a team with one or two people taking notes, one playing the actual game and another person helping along, making recommendations because it was HUGE (in those days) and you had to travel back and forth, rememer secret codes and paths. It was really really fun. This game then led me to the Phantasy Star series and I played most of the Phantasy Star games getting paper that had grids printed on them and making a HUGE booklet of maps and directions, a very detailed booklet. Then I lent the game and booklet to a friend who lost the booklet but was kind enough to give me a game back, sans the cartridge casing and the game manual. FUCK that friend!!