What Happened to Phantasy Star?

You say "nearly". Does that mean they've made it a success in the end?

All games go through an evolution. Be it graphically or as a genre shift. Other times, they discard it all and press that shiny red button labeled "Reboot".

You should know by now that the Millennium Saga "Phantasy Star 1 through IV" ended as planned. Meaning, there was not much else to expand on it, outside of the many JAP-only spin-offs and remake extensions. Not to mention, the gameplay style was dated, by the year that Phantasy Star IV was released, many other RPG competitors had better gameplay to hook players away. And so, Sega decided to do the most logical move in gaming history.

Which lead to the creation of Phantasy Star Online, and the move to the next generation of gamers.

It could be argued that PSO didn't have that big a story, and depended a lot on quests. But it was a quick success! Back then, the RPG style in a psuedo-action game was impressive. Later came Phantasy Star Universe, Which is based on a far away galaxy in the same, well, Phanatasy Star Universe! There are some people who argue that PSU was the series "reboot" since it doesn't follow ANYTHING about Alis Lansdale's legacy and basically all planets are expies of the original three. But it was widely acclaimed as a great series, despite the purists hating on most of the designs of the story characters. They were the vocal minority.

This style of gameplay has now became the series standard, thanks to the first PSO. Which is why they are going to expand on it even more than before. Right now, you should learn to accept and adapt, because the original storyline, as well as the old gameplay style, was over and done with.
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On the Internet, there are no Ganons or Zeldas, only Links.
The Official Stiltzkin of all boards

BETRAYAL!! But still, the original series is done and over with. What do you want from them now? PSU is also technically over. PSO is all there is left until another galaxy is made.
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On the Internet, there are no Ganons or Zeldas, only Links.
The Official Stiltzkin of all boards

There is a conundrum that not even TV Tropes has resolved: The Base Breakng argument between "They changed it, now it sucks" and "It's the same, now it sucks". No matter what, nothing will be perfect. No matter what choices are made, there will always be someone unpleased. This is an unfortunately sad absolute in our society. For you see, there's a reason why they (the unpleasable) are also called the "Vocal Minority". They're the only ones who voice their opinions carelessly, and the ones who are heard first.

In any outcome, no one actually wins this. Which is why I said what I did say before: Accept and Adapt.

Fun Trivia: Most whiners and haters of a product take half of all consumers of said loathed product, while a third of the total are biased, regardless if they truly hate it or not. In any outcome, as long as the product is popular, from a business point of view, why fix what isn't broken? Of course, some of you out there can say the same for the Original Millennium Saga. Except, it's not the story that was broken, it was the gameplay.

OK, so I did a lot of extra research and revision, and indeed, PSO is a continuation of the original saga. Not to say I was right or wrong, but you can consider this game the official 7th entry of the series. Since, well, PSU was an alternate world, and PS:0 was the 5th entry, chronologically. Still, you can either take my suggestion of "accept and adapt", or just take your default option to ignore it and continue these topics, like most Sonic "fans" do with their respective fan bases.
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On the Internet, there are no Ganons or Zeldas, only Links.
The Official Stiltzkin of all boards

MMaestro posted...

The original Phantasy Star series was PSO with traditional JRPG gameplay..

The gameplay evolved. Nothing more.

Exactly.
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On the Internet, there are no Ganons or Zeldas, only Links.
The Official Stiltzkin of all boards

The thing is, bub, that it was indeed an evolution. Back then. Comparing old generation games to our Current Generation's library to win some kind of argument is a bit dumb, and you can't really justify your opinions with that.

So they chose to go the MMO route for the rest of the series. So what? All the Action RPG gameplay elements back then were tailored to work in what was still, at that time, Dail-Up Internet! A couple of years later, they upgraded the design, but yeah, it was still the same gameplay. It wasn't broken. And yeah! Nobody complained! Nobody.

It should be noted that it was also one of the first few MMOs in the Action Genre, outside of the Top-down Perspective PC Dungeon Crawlers.
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On the Internet, there are no Ganons or Zeldas, only Links.
The Official Stiltzkin of all boards