Phantasy Star 4: The End of the Millennium is a fairly late jRPG for Sega Genesis. It's the last part of the classic Phantasy Star saga. The explosive finale! Albeit you don't have to play previous games, with 1k years gap in between them in plot, but it does have a lot of references. And no, Online is barely related. It originally came out in Japan at the end of 1993 and came to the West by the beginning of 1995. Made by Sega of Japan. Maybe CS team. 24 Megabit ROM. 3 save slots. Notably, Sega of America decided to sell it for near 100$ back in the day. Crazy.
Game actually was supposed to be subtitled The Return of Alis and have 3D dungeons but as you see it didn't go that way.
The game that you have here is nothing more than emulation of Sega Genesis version. Western version sure had decent translation albeit they removed one nekkid spirit enemy.
Game has a bug: Level 99 will lower stats. You aren't likely to reach it anyway.
Now, technical part about Sega's emulation here:
The Sega Classic games that you purchase on Steam count as DLCs for "Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics" game that should appear in your library.
It has Bedroom HUB which is the one with many features yet lags for many and Simply Launcher which lacks Workshop and Online but at least it works just fine for everybody.
However, Simple Launcher has it's fair share of glitches as well. It can crash. And it does the second time you go to main menu, so always quit after saving there so it doesn't crash when you want to save next time!
Emulation itself, mostly sound, isn't that good but it does it's job. Also, yes, emulator supports quick saves.
As alternative, you can use external emulator to run games that you purchased. Sega kindly placed in all games that you purchased in "uncompressed ROMs" folder that program itself doesn't use, just change file extension to ".bin" or so. The file for this one being "PhantasyStar4.SGD". Sadly, Sega has mistakenly put in Japanese ROM instead. Looks like you will have to find a tool to uncompress the compressed ROM from “data” folder, the one that this emulator actually uses. Don't remember which one.
I also demand you to read digital manual of this game first. You can find it here on store page or go to "manuals" folder of game root and open "PSIV_PC_MG_EFIGS_WW_HR.pdf". Albeit you are better finding scans of US manual on Internet or just FAQs to find out what each magic does. Unless you like figuring it out yourself.
And yep, this game includes saving. In-game saving, not emulator one. Bedroom HUB works fine but Simple Launcher one is buggy:
You have to remember, you have to close emulator in proper way, otherwise it will not have them actually saved in files. That means that you have to avoid crashing it or closing in different way.
Even more, if you load emulator-side saves, the emulator will not see in-game saves and will not be able to do in-game saves either. Even if it makes look as if it does.
Phantasy Star is ready for the last round. It's pretty usual jRPG. Gameplay and plot continues from Phantasy Star 2. You get game over if all party members die. Albeit it threw away unique system of putting your own party out of existing characters and no more autocombat. There are only few elements that they brought in from Phantasy Star 3, such as being able to target enemies individually and having max 5 characters on your party. Fun.
Protip: Order impacts who gets hit more.
Plot is awesome this time around. It's a true finale, it answers most of the questions in franchise. But what brings it over previous parts is that there are finally personal dramas. Or, rather, there are actual dialogues, characters showing personalities, character growth, some actual talk, dammit! Much more detailed environment. You can even inspect various furniture.
And the menu and shops are near player-friendly now. Telling who can equip what. You can look at items to find out if they are magic items, the tech of which you can activate by 'using' this equipment as item during battle. Only missing stats comparison with equipment in the shop. Inventory is one again shared, just like in PS1.
Furthermore,with ROM space being 4 times bigger than what PS2 had devs filled it with an incredible amount of cutscenes graphics. And those graphics are comic-like images that overlay on top of each other. What a pleasure to watch and it's unique as well.
Another thing that help the game age so gracefully is how streamlined it was. They finally got the pacing down, you get good amount of story, good amount of random encounters and you get a lot of bosses for some long-term jRPG tactics. Of self-buffing and then healing party, but still. Dungeons were simplified, they aren't huge mazes that require mapping anymore, albeit they got places to explore. Not to mention that there are few optional ones you may skip so it still feels like an adventure. Walk speed is just right, much faster than before. You don't have to grind anymore either, you can beat almost all dungeons on the first try as long as you beat optional dungeons on the way.
Protip: Psyco-wand can be used not only for sake of plot, it removes all enemy buffs.
The game also tried to put some innovations into gameplay of jRPG, albeit core of it is still space-less turn-based combat, nothing experimental First, there are macros. You can set commands that each party member shall do. The game will wait for the turn of the current member before doing later one. Macros aren't very useful aside from all-attack one, as I want to target specific enemies and other decisions. Macros are good for magic combo: there are 14 hidden combos where if characters pull off certain magic without anybody else interrupting in between turns they will pull off a single powerful magic. There are no hints in game, you have to discover them for yourself. Sadly, these two mechanics feel like afterthoughts, not part of core gameplay.
Though, talking of combat. In this part there are 'skills', that have limited amount of use but require no TP. They also still haven't fully balanaced all the techs nicely – stuff like poison is rare this time around and debuffs of enemies aren't that useful, not usable on bosses. Also, they still use short silly names for techs, so you should look up at original manual to find out what they do.
Another change in this PS are elemental protections. Some characters and enemies are weak against certain attacks or techs. You have to figure it out yourself too.
Oh, and in additional to optional dungeons, there are few jobs – sidequests. That's a new in PS too. They weren't spread over game all too good, seemingly breaking pace of a main quest. But what I can say is that each one of them feels like a worthy piece of story, not some “get 5 wolf pelts”.
Protip: In one job, the dog went north-west, not north, over quicksand, somehow. You can find him in the towns, it's randomized.
Protip: Moving outside city walls will get you into 'secrets'.
There are options menu during game. You can save anywhere outside of dungeons. Change Msg and Btl speed, that impact how fast messages get typed out in dialogues and same for battle messages. No need to change those, game already got the pacing down. And usual controls.
And yep, as it was released late, the graphics are quite well done. Albeit I think overworld could be better. Cutscenes rock. The combat looks awesome, using the incredible behind-party look as opponents are animated to beat each other. Like PS2 but with backgrounds. While FF games had 1 frame monsters at a time, aha.
The music is also totally rad. All memoriable, even sometimes nostalgic.
Overall, it might be the best 16-bit jRPG, as far as I care, that is. Or at least from the ones that keep old turn-based gameplay. It has a plot that will grab you and won't release until the end. Dissapointing final dungeon aside. Still, excellent!
