Phantasy Star

There's two parts to this one: Phantasy Star and Phantasy Star Online/ Universe.

The Phantasy Star series began as Sega's answer to Final Fantasy. The original game appeared on the Master System, followed by three more on the Genesis. The last game in the "traditional" RPG series was Phantasy Star IV, a real highlight in 16-bit RPG gaming. The series had a futuristic setting, drastically different from the swords and sorcery of that other RPG series at the time, but the quests were similarly long and epic.

The graphics were impressive, offering larger characters than its competitor and a unique behind-the-back view for the turn-based battles. The original game actually had a pretty standard overworld, but once in a dungeon the game shifted to a first-person dungeon crawl. There were still random turn-based battles, but the vewpoint was more Wizardry than Final Fantasy (and, for the record, the first PS was freaking hard).

The three Genesis games were put onto the Sega Genesis Collection for the PS2 and PSP, while the only current way to get the first game is on the Phantasy Star Collection for the Gameboy Advance (that cart also has II and III on it as well).

Sega has pretty much forgotten about this series, morphing it into the online versions (more on those in a sec), but I believe that a return to its roots would be a huge deal. Hell, Final Fantasy has something like a gajillion games out in the series now, so why not bring a turn-based Phantasy Star back into the gaming world? Even a new DS version would be something, as long as it doesn't somehow become a clone of Pokemon or a card-based game or anything like that. Keep the same themes, the same settings, bring back Wren, and don't try to make too many changes to the formula. Tinkering with the basics has ruined too many other franchises (*cough*Sonic*cough*).

In the days of the Dreamcast, Sega released Phantasy Star Online. The first online console RPG, PSO let you make a character and join up with others on quests through a futuristic world very reminiscient of the original PS setting. Really, the game was nothing more than a "run through, kill monsters, raise levels, get loot, lather/rinse/repeat" kind of game, but now players were doing that with other players as well.

The addiction for a lot of people (including myself) was pretty serious, long before the days of Everquest and World of Warcraft. The game had an offline mode as well, which allowed you to bring your character through a slim storyline, but the real meat of the game was obviously playing online. Not long after, Sega released Phantasy Star Online version 2, really just an expansion pack. It had some more missions and items, raised the level cap, but wasn't the true sequel that fans were hoping it would be. It also introduced the idea of charging a monthly fee to play. I recall it only being like $5 a month or something to purchase a "Hunter's License", and if you didn't want to pay you could still play the first game online for free. You just couldn't access any of the V2 content.

PSO has been re-released on the Xbox, playable over Live, and also on the Gamecube, which you could play if you were one of the four people who bought the broadband adapter. Both of these games were dubbed Phantasy Star Online Episodes 1 & 2,as they included the entire original Dreamcast game as well as a new storyline. There was also an Episode 3 for the Gamecube, but this one was a serious departure: a card-based game. While one of the few video card games I can actually stand playing, it was a pretty big leap for fans of the series.

Just last year, Sega released the long awaited next entry, Phantasy Star Universe, for the 360, PS2, and PC. To be fair, I do play this game (tall green CAST by the name of Knight, so say hello if you happen to pass by), but I'm also painfully aware that I'm paying $10 a month for a game that's not very good. What went wrong with the winning formula from PSO to PSU? Simple: It didn't evolve at all over the years.

I know I just said that Sonic fails because it tried to evolve, so why does PSU fail because it didn't? Online gaming has come far in the past few years, and the wide-eyed innocence we had playing PSO has given way to a much more net-savvy culture. We simply expect more out of our online experiences, expecially if we're expected to shell out money each month.

Phantasy Star Universe, like its predecessor, has an offline mode. It's a really bad story with really silly characters, and it plays exactly like the online mode. Unlike its predecessor, though, there's absolutely no relation between the two modes. In PSO, you played your avatar through the single-player story, and any experience or items stayed the same through either mode. In PSU, nothing transfers between the modes, so that cool gun you're wielding as dorky Ethan Waber in solo play is never held by the kick-ass CAST you're running around online with.

In PSO, somehow we never got bored with the fact that there weren't that many unique missions, but again we just expect more for our money these days. Paying to play the same mission over and over again just doesn't hold our interest anymore. If you're going to offer a game that doesn't really get new content, has the exact same gameplay from several years ago, and doesn't really try to stand out in any way, at least offer it up for free.

I'll continue to play Phantasy Star Universe, because I really am that much of a fan, but I also feel like, as a fan, Sega is giving me the middle finger every time I play.