Whatever happened to Phantasy Star and Star Ocean?

Griffith

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I know Phantasy Star Online 2 is still a big hit and there's that mobile spin off, Idolatries (if that counts), but whatever happened to the RPG it used to be? Star Ocean too, where's that these days?
 

Dreiko

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Star Ocean 5 came out some years ago, it was a rather short game for a Jrpg and had mixed reception, not gotten around to it yet. Also they made a psn HD remake of SO4 which is pretty good if you never played the original. It's based on the superior ps3 version of the game so it has better artwork and dual audio and more chars.

Phantasy star I was never into but I believe they stopped making anything beyond the mmo games since like almost 20 years ago or something like that.
 
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CriticalGaming

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Star Ocean is a small niche jrpg that gets a new entry every few years or so. So i think its just two niche series that dont warrent regular entries.
 
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Chimpzy

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Star Ocean is a small niche jrpg that gets a new entry every few years or so. So i think its just two niche series that dont warrent regular entries.
Seems about right. Probably doesn't help that the latest entries didn't really turn heads. I mean, I wasn't even aware of the 5th game until this thread.

As for Phantasy Star, I'm guessing Sega are just not interested in making jrpgs anymore. I mean, they've got their subsidiary Atlus to handle that niche.
 
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meiam

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Well star ocean 5 was bad, 4 was really bad and 3 was divisive. So I'm not sure it needs to keep getting new entry. Of all the JRPG franchise from the golden era of JRPG, I think that's one franchise that could do with going dormant for a couple of year.
 
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Dalisclock

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I know of Phantasy Star and I find the idea interesting but apparently it's very old-school and I remember how much the old school JRPGs want you dead. I grew up playing them and still have flashbacks of that time BoF2 decided to throw you into a boss battle solo with a character you probably never used and were expected to suck it up because fuck you so....probably never gonna play them.

Star Ocean, I played the first one for SNES. I like the concept but not so much the idea you spend most of the game on a medieval fantasy world when you have the whole Star Trek with the serial numbers filed off setting and then tossed a whole new planet at you for the last hour of the game was another insult(apparently that planet was meant to be a much bigger section of the game)
 
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Dreiko

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Star Ocean, I played the first one for SNES. I like the concept but not so much the idea you spend most of the game on a medieval fantasy world when you have the whole Star Trek with the serial numbers filed off setting and then tossed a whole new planet at you for the last hour of the game was another insult(apparently that planet was meant to be a much bigger section of the game)
A big thing in star ocean is that you're not supposed to bring overly modern knowledge to the backwards planets, so the games are definitely just your standard fantasy fare for a good chunk of the time. The contrast of hi tech stuff and medieval stuff interacting is why it's fun.
 
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Dalisclock

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A big thing in star ocean is that you're not supposed to bring overly modern knowledge to the backwards planets, so the games are definitely just your standard fantasy fare for a good chunk of the time. The contrast of hi tech stuff and medieval stuff interacting is why it's fun.
Yeah, but for me I saw "Oh, cool, a JRPG riffing on Star Trek. There's even the Guardian of Forever....." Proceeds to spend the next 20 hours on a fantasy planet.

That's my beef, it could have involved planet hopping in your starship or something like that. Instead it ends up feeling like every other JRPG but with some Sci-fi bits....sorry, every other JRPG.

I had to wait till Mass Effect to get anywhere close to "Star Trek, but an RPG".

Yes, I know there's Force-like Space Magic, Shut up!
 

Dreiko

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Yeah, but for me I saw "Oh, cool, a JRPG riffing on Star Trek. There's even the Guardian of Forever....." Proceeds to spend the next 20 hours on a fantasy planet.

That's my beef, it could have involved planet hopping in your starship or something like that. Instead it ends up feeling like every other JRPG but with some Sci-fi bits....sorry, every other JRPG.

I had to wait till Mass Effect to get anywhere close to "Star Trek, but an RPG".

Yes, I know there's Force-like Space Magic, Shut up!
Hmm yeah, if you're into this looking for star trek it's definitely not gonna satisfy you. I just enjoyed the Jrpg as a Jrpg, it's just a unique Jrpg like how Persona has its own thing and trails its own, so on and so forth, it's definitely not overly unorthodox in any big way.
 
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