Night School

Author notes

#33 Timeless Snark

Evil Emperor Nick

on Aug. 24, 2008

I apologize in advance but my work has really been getting more and more hectic lately so I might not be able to respond to all your comments for a while, or at the very least not in as timely a manner as I'd like to. I'm sorry about that but it really can't be helped. Most nights Amelius is using the computer to actually MAKE the comic so typically I answered comments from work, which I don't think I'll be able to do very much in the future.

I recently downloaded the Phantasy Star games from the Wii Virtual Console. Now many games are not as good as I remember them but luckily PS has aged well with me. PSIII: Generations of Doom is my favorite despite it being a mechanically weaker entry in the series. I really enjoyed PSIII's flavor, setting, story but most of all its unique generational system. It really let the game makers do a lot of things that games normally don't get the chance to do like show consequences over time or show you how people's lives played out rather than just write off happily ever after endings. Now it is a Sega Genesis era game so while it is lacking on the graphics and mechanical fronts in a lot of respects I still feel its strong points have aged well.

Although most people consider FF the classic series, since I never owned a super nintendo I grew with Phantasy Star & Shining Force instead and I do not feel the poorer for it. I still very much enjoy the series today and I am very much saddened that they abandoned the original series storyline, setting and game play in favor of its story light and clunky MMO counterpart PSO & PS-Universe and in all its variety of bland flavors. If sega is listening: people, stop with MMO's and make PSV. At the very least release PS Generation I & PS Generation II in the US so we can enjoy the graphical and game play updates to the series. Whereas Shining Force has also taken a turn for the suckier as the new entires are LAME action based games with RPG elements rather than the classic SRPGs of the Sega era at least the excellent SRPG games from Nippon Ichi such as Disgaea or Soul Nomad have filled the niche left by the fall of classic series like Ogre Battle & Shining Force but I've yet to find an RPG series that has taken up the excellent legacy that is Phantasy Star.