Phantasy Star IV: The Return of Alis (unreleased)

[airraid]

Phantasy Star IV: The Return of Alis

 

Perhaps one of the least-known titles in the Phantasy Star franchise -

Phantasy Star IV never saw a commercial release. Developed within

Sonic Team shortly after the release of Phantasy Star III - Phantasy

Star IV was to be the magnum opus of the Phantasy Star series for it's

time. A game so large, that the only medium which could justifiably

hold it was the Sega CD (though a stripped down Genesis version was

also planned). It originally weighed in at over 240MB, much of which

was fully digitalized music and FMV cutscenes. Though it also sported

game maps 20 times the size of previous games and highly detailed 3D

dungeon sequences similar to the first game.

 

Unfortunately, due to sagging sales of the Sega CD and numerous delays

in the project - Phantasy Star IV was eventually scrapped and

production resources were transfered to Phantasy Star: End of the

Millenium.

 

Had Phantasy Star IV been allowed to finish development, it would have

followed the events of Phantasy Star III and the continuing struggle

against Dark Force. It's a fairly safe bet that at some point, Alis

Landale would have made a return as well. Though part of the game

still lives on through Phantasy Star: End of the Millenium. For

example, the anime cutscenes which some consider to be the birth cries

of modern FMV cutscenes, were inspired by the actual FMV cutscenes of

it's unreleased companion.

 

http://www.phantasystarwiki.com/index.php?..._Return_of_Alis

 

 

GamePro July 1992 article

http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/6806/mdcdpsivcs2.jpg

 

 

SegaBase article

http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-index.php...egaBase+Sega+CD

 

In terms of software, the biggest news by far was with the Phantasy

Star RPG series - the closest thing Sega had to Square's Final Fantasy

franchise - with two Mega CD titles announced as being in development.

The more notable of the two was the all-new title The Return of Alis,

which was to take place immediately after the events depicted in

Phantasy Star 3 and tell the story of the fight against a revival of

the intergalactic slave trade. This new installment in the saga would

be 20 times the size of the earlier game and would incorporate both

audio and anime clips.

 

Sega cancelled the planned Sega CD release of Phantasy Star 4, opting

instead for a cartridge-based Genesis game that bore little

resemblance to its original Sega CD concept.

 

 

 

 

What a game that incarnation of PSIV would've been on MegaCD / SegaCD, even a cut-down cartridge version on Genesis.

 

No doubt later, the full CD version would've appeared in collections for Saturn, Dreamcast, Playstation2, Xbox, IBM PC, etc.

 

Dispite the vague decription of the story, I think it would've been a much better Phantasy Star than End of the Millenium.

 

It's a shame this game won't ever be made.

 

 

Even though Phantasy Star III was terrible in most people's opinions including my own, that does not, in any way, mean PSIV: The Return of Alis would have been a bad game.

 

Phantasy Star IV: End of the Millenium while very good, had alot of faults, and as a result IMO,

wasn't as good as II.

[Colecovision]

Sound great. The first game is my favorite game of all times so it would've been nice to see Alis coming back. The End of Millenium is the best Genesis Phantasy Star. I like the references to the first game. You even get the original music. I just didn't like Phantasy Star II. The blue background is dissapointing compared to Phantasy Star beautiful backgrounds and there is not enough bosses.

[gdement]

The story you tell about PS4 pretty well sums up what was wrong with the Sega CD - lack of commitment.

Sega thought they could sell those machines without investing in the development of great games, when it really works the other way around. I got pretty disgruntled with them during that time period, and ended up moving to PC games.

[Giltygear]

Sound great. The first game is my favorite game of all times so it would've been nice to see Alis coming back. The End of Millenium is the best Genesis Phantasy Star. I like the references to the first game. You even get the original music. I just didn't like Phantasy Star II. The blue background is dissapointing compared to Phantasy Star beautiful backgrounds and there is not enough bosses.

 

I think that just some of the regular enemies in that game make up for the lack of bosses - some of them are pretty friggin tough

 

BTW, isn't III considered a "side story" because of what little relation it has to I and II?

[Zap!]

Of all the planned-but-canceled games in video gaming history, this perhaps bothers me the most. I have always wanted to see Alis return in a Phantasy Star game, and I'm a huge fan of FMV cut-scenes (so sue me). Oh, what could have been.

[BillyHW]

CD-ROM had so much potential at that time to give us the massive RPG worlds were were all craving for with lengthy stories and epic music. But I guess the game companies just weren't ready for the budgetary commitments necessary to develop such wonder-games.

 

I didn't know that Phantasy Star IV was never released. I remember seeing screenshots in EGM

Edited December 16, 2014 by BillyHW

[Zap!]

CD-ROM had so much potential at that time to give us the massive RPG worlds were were all craving for with lengthy stories and epic music. But I guess the game companies just weren't ready for the budgetary commitments necessary to develop such wonder-games.

 

I didn't know that Phantasy Star IV was never released. I remember seeing screenshots in EGM

There was eventually a PS4 cartridge that got released, but it wasn't the same game. The original intended PS4 was to star Alis once again, and on Sega CD. Since this was 1993, they could have even hired Alicia Silverstone to play Alis in the cut-scenes! Oh, what could have been!

[NE146]

highly detailed 3D dungeon sequences similar to the first game.

 

 

Whoah.. that would have made the game for me. To me the 3D dungeons were a huge part of the Phantasy Star experience and it just wasn't "Phantasy Star" without them. I was so disappointed when Phantasy Star 2 came out.. After waiting for the game for months, I remember just waiting again for the 1st 3D dungeon to appear and it wasn't until maybe a third of the way through that it started to dawn on me that it was never coming.

[Zap!]

Although I love pre-Sonic Sega, they have one huge flaw. Way too many times their sequels strayed too far from the original. Zillion 2 is perhaps the best (or worst) example. Never including Alis in another game again was an awful decision.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Zap!

[108 Stars]

I think exactly the opposite.

What made Phantasy Star great is the change in cast with every installment, and of course the huge gaps in time.

Continueing stories are generally not a good thing. You may like a character, you may be attached to him... but in general, unless it's like a comic book designed for indefinite run, a character's tale should be finished. Story and characters are most of the time written hand in hand, and the result of making up a story for them to return is often disappointing.

 

Look at Final Fantasy VII. The additional stories made a decade after the game sure got fans excited at first, but in the long term I think they hurt the legend more than anything. Everything feels like an afterthought, a foreign object trying to tie in what was originally a closed story.

 

I prefer good story telling from fan-service.

 

 

And btw, Alis WAS included in another game. Phantasy Star Gaiden is a Japan only Game Gear spin-off to the series, but an English translation patch does exist. In the game the player does meet Alis again and she joins the party.

[Rex Dart]

Of all the planned-but-canceled games in video gaming history, this perhaps bothers me the most. I have always wanted to see Alis return in a Phantasy Star game, and I'm a huge fan of FMV cut-scenes (so sue me). Oh, what could have been.

 

"FMV" didn't necessarily mean grainy digitized video. Sega CD had some neat animation abilities that could've done PSIV justice.

 

Popful Mail used it to good effect:

 

[Gabriel]

 

Look at Final Fantasy VII. The additional stories made a decade after the game sure got fans excited at first, but in the long term I think they hurt the legend more than anything. Everything feels like an afterthought, a foreign object trying to tie in what was originally a closed story.

 

 

From my perspective, the Advent Children movie was great. However, the games which came out (Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerebus) were not very good. What I've played of Crisis Core has story bits which give me the warm fuzzies and remind me of those fun days experiencing VII for the first time. Sadly, I don't like the game those story bits are wrapped around, and find it not worth spending my time on. Without playing the game I'll never develop the attachment to the story and characters like I did with VII.

 

If Crisis Core had been a prequel movie, I probably would have loved it as much as Advent Children. Unfortunately, it has this less than interesting game in the way. That's why I couldn't get too excited.

[Gabriel]

 

Whoah.. that would have made the game for me. To me the 3D dungeons were a huge part of the Phantasy Star experience and it just wasn't "Phantasy Star" without them. I was so disappointed when Phantasy Star 2 came out.. After waiting for the game for months, I remember just waiting again for the 1st 3D dungeon to appear and it wasn't until maybe a third of the way through that it started to dawn on me that it was never coming.

 

I'm playing Class of Heroes 2G on my PS3 right now, and as I've been playing it I've been thinking about how I miss the mix of third person overworld exploring and the first person dungeon crawling of Phantasy Star 1. If Phantasy Star 1 had an automap and some spiffier graphics for the dungeon walls, it would be perfect. I'm pretty sure the PS2 remake had the spiffier dungeon walls part covered.

[108 Stars]

Well, each to his own. I found AC good visually, but quite terrible storywise as well as from character design standpoint. So basically for me, each of the compilation of FF VII titles really degraded what is a piece of video game art to more generic modern day anime style over substance stuff. I have really begun to despise SE for this, after they screwed with FF X's story in X-2 as well.

 

There's just a difference for me; FF VII, and the other PS1 and PS2 FFs, I appreciate as generally compelling stories. Works of fiction that could also stand as well-regarded novels or movies. The sequels and spin-offs... they are popcorn cinema at best in my eyes. Like sequels to classic movies that jump the shark, lose the spirit and soul of the originals, and just appear as cheap cash-ins. Psycho was followed by 3 sequels I believe. The first is genuinly a piece of movie art, but the rest? Halloween. Planet of the Apes... it's all just stuff that would have been better off being remembered for the originals imo, but the sequels come to mind quickly and "taint" the good image.

 

Coming back to Phantasy Star, it is of course a much more simplistic approach to story telling and such than FF VII. Yet for its time, I see Phantasy Star as an underappreciated great achievement. When I think of what Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest were doing in that time (FF I was released the same year, and DQ was only at part 2), I am amazed at the depth of story telling and characterization. With the little means they had, the devs really infused characters with some personality. They gave them memorable designs, introduced cutscenes and strayed from the norm by making the hero a woman. Not to mention the technical achievements, with graphics being leaps and bounds ahead of the competition (even the 8-bit computer RPGs of the time), and a balancing that allowed progress with relatively little grinding compared to others.

 

As such, I hold it in high regard, and also appreciate the approach of freeing the creatives from the boundaries of using known heroes and places again for sequels. Having those time gaps of 1000 years allow some connection through ancient history, but on the other hand new characters, a very much changed world and a different style. I am not a fan of PSII gameplaywise (imo terrible dungeons and too much grinding), but it again offered a great narrative for the time and a spectacular way to end a story (no spoilers).

 

Had they reused Alis... I honestly doubt they could have been so creative with the story's progression. Old characters and places are too restrictive imo.

 

 

That said, I would have loved to see a beta of the original PS IV, and read the script. Maybe I would be proven wrong, and maybe Rieko Kodama and her team really had a story to tell that would make sense and require Alis.

[BillyHW]

 

Whoah.. that would have made the game for me. To me the 3D dungeons were a huge part of the Phantasy Star experience and it just wasn't "Phantasy Star" without them. I was so disappointed when Phantasy Star 2 came out.. After waiting for the game for months, I remember just waiting again for the 1st 3D dungeon to appear and it wasn't until maybe a third of the way through that it started to dawn on me that it was never coming.

 

Yeah, never understood why they did away with the 3D dungeons. I thought it was pretty amazing that they managed them on the SMS, so why couldn't they do it on the more powerful Genesis? They are what set the original Phantasy Star apart from (and above) the NES RPGs. I love the Final Fantasies and Dragon Warriors in their own right, but I don't want Phantasy Star to be Final Fantasy. I want it to be different.

[BillyHW]

There was eventually a PS4 cartridge that got released, but it wasn't the same game. The original intended PS4 was to star Alis once again, and on Sega CD. Since this was 1993, they could have even hired Alicia Silverstone to play Alis in the cut-scenes! Oh, what could have been!

 

For Sega not to release a massive Phantasy Star 4 on the Sega CD is a total fail, really.

[BillyHW]

 

"FMV" didn't necessarily mean grainy digitized video. Sega CD had some neat animation abilities that could've done PSIV justice.

 

Popful Mail used it to good effect:

 

 

Great animated cut scenes with epic music and voice acting are exactly what the early CD-ROMs should have been used for, to complement the regular gameplay. I think the TG-16/PC-Engine CD-ROM did this for the most part, but then the SegaCD, 3DO etc. ruined it all with their stupid FMV.

Edited December 17, 2014 by BillyHW

[BillyHW]

 

I'm playing Class of Heroes 2G on my PS3 right now, and as I've been playing it I've been thinking about how I miss the mix of third person overworld exploring and the first person dungeon crawling of Phantasy Star 1. If Phantasy Star 1 had an automap and some spiffier graphics for the dungeon walls, it would be perfect. I'm pretty sure the PS2 remake had the spiffier dungeon walls part covered.

 

Automap?! Blasphemy. Part of the fun and a huge part of feeling like you were actually in the game exploring was making your own maps with pencil and paper.

 

The 3D dungeons were already impressive for the time on an 8-bit system like the SMS. They blew away what was found on the NES, and I say that as a Nintendo kid. I was lucky that I had a cousin down the street with a Sega, so we could play the best games on both systems. It sure was great times.

[NE146]

Yeah if you weren't completely blown away by the smooth scrolling 3D dungeons in SMS Phantasy Star, that just means you played it years after 1988 I couldn't believe the graphics on that.. there was really absolutely nothing anywhere else in the console world at the time that could even compare. Loved the lost feeling in it too and having to map it out on graph paper.

 

 

vs

 

 

 

 

[NE146]

Double post..

Edited December 17, 2014 by NE146

[Zap!]

Yeah if you weren't completely blown away by the smooth scrolling 3D dungeons in SMS Phantasy Star, that just means you played it years after 1988 I couldn't believe the graphics on that.. there was really absolutely nothing anywhere else in the console world at the time that could even compare. Loved the lost feeling in it too and having to map it out on graph paper.

 

 

vs

This. I got it for Christmas 1988 and was totally blown away. My father came in and asked why he had to spend $69.99 on a video game. My reply was "Just look at it." Unless you had an Amiga or something, every sane person was amazed by it in 1988.

[Gabriel]

 

Automap?! Blasphemy. Part of the fun and a huge part of feeling like you were actually in the game exploring was making your own maps with pencil and paper.

 

The 3D dungeons were already impressive for the time on an 8-bit system like the SMS. They blew away what was found on the NES, and I say that as a Nintendo kid. I was lucky that I had a cousin down the street with a Sega, so we could play the best games on both systems. It sure was great times.

 

Blasphemy? No, just practicality. I love games like Wizardry, Bard's Tale, and Phantasy Star, but that manual mapping requirements adds a tedious barrier to sitting down to play. Sometimes I just don't feel like that. You can still have a good game of the style with automap. But ideally, maybe there could be an options switch: Automap on or off. That way the people who see manual mapping as part of the challenge wouldn't be tempted to use the automap, and those who don't want that extra layer of work could enjoy things too.

 

And yes, the 3D dungeons were impressive in the late 80s/early 90s for the SMS, but they look more than a bit plain and boring now. The repetitive dungeon looks combined with having to manually map everything really sapped my will to continue when I finally got to play the game via the GBA compilation cart (but on a big screen via the Game Boy Player). The rest of the game still looks vibrant, but those damn walls... ugh. That part hasn't aged gracefully.

[Gabriel]

Yeah if you weren't completely blown away by the smooth scrolling 3D dungeons in SMS Phantasy Star, that just means you played it years after 1988 I couldn't believe the graphics on that.. there was really absolutely nothing anywhere else in the console world at the time that could even compare. Loved the lost feeling in it too and having to map it out on graph paper.

 

 

I don't know. I'm getting the feeling that y'all are thinking I'm saying Phantasy Star 1 sucks. I'm not. Even when I played it for the first time in the mid 00s, I was blown away by how far beyond it was anything on the NES, and how well it compared to RPGs on the 16 bit systems.

 

Indeed, the thing which caused me to set it down (and not get back to it) was a section in the above-world game. There's a point where there's some lava, and you need to get to the other side in order to continue the game. Since it was lava, I thought I needed some kind of special item to cross it. My gamer logic said "It's lava. It's gonna instant kill you. Look for Hot Shoes or whatever." I was so convinced ot this I backtracked to every previous spot in the game, and never found anything. I was convinced I had missed something. Of course, I hadn't. It turns out I just needed to hotfoot it across the lava field and heal up my guys. In the CRPG terms I normally think in, the lava wasn't so much lava as it was a red colored swamp.

 

Most dungeons I didn't even map. I just used the right hand on the wall trick, and that was serving me well. I did wish there was an automap though. Grinding in the dungeons was monotonous because of how homogenous they all were, but it wasn't bad by any stretch.

 

I had planned to go to Suikoden after I finish Class of Heroes 2G, but this thread has me thinking if I'm still in a dungeon crawly mood, I may just start up a new game of Phantasy Star either on my PS3 or my Mega Everdrive.

[NE146]

Yeah the right hand on the wall trick works pretty good in the game... until of course the part where you have to find the hidden door. Man that blew, but was very rewarding finding it.. (i.e. realizing there's no way out.. stuck for a long time.. wtf.. gotta be something, checking each wall methodically, etc.). Not sure if that mechanic would hold up today though..

 

I have the GBA version btw and played it (and encountered the bug a few times).. is it any good on GBA Player? I'm wondering if the graphics became a little less than what they were on the SMS simply due to the scaled down graphics on the GBA. Guess I could try it myself.. just a hassle to get all the parts out.

[BillyHW]

Yeah the right hand on the wall trick works pretty good in the game... until of course the part where you have to find the hidden door. Man that blew, but was very rewarding finding it.. (i.e. realizing there's no way out.. stuck for a long time.. wtf.. gotta be something, checking each wall methodically, etc.). Not sure if that mechanic would hold up today though..

 

I have the GBA version btw and played it (and encountered the bug a few times).. is it any good on GBA Player? I'm wondering if the graphics became a little less than what they were on the SMS simply due to the scaled down graphics on the GBA. Guess I could try it myself.. just a hassle to get all the parts out.

 

A friend's older brother had to tell us about the hidden door and how to find it. After spending the better part of a day trying to figure out the apparent dead end, we started asking around school if anyone knew. Blew us away when we heard it. Does any other game have such a cryptic waypoint? Those were the days before you could just Google up a walkthrough.

 

It still blows me away.