When someone asks you, "Hey, what are your favorite games? Top 10 maybe?" So totally unfair. Have you ever tried to list several of your favorite games off the top of your head? If you're anything like me you'll get all ADD and not be able to get past two or three. Think about it: How many amazing games have you played in your lifetime? And you're supposed to sift through all of these fantastic memories in just a few moments? I'm going to take the time over the life of my blog and episodically update with some words on some of my favorite all-time games. Ready.....GO!

EPISODE 1:

Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium






1994
SEGA

Back in the mid-90's the name of the RPG game in the USA was Final Fantasy. For the majority of kids, it was really Final Fantasy or bust. I was one of those kids until a chance meeting with the cover of PSIV in one of the isles at Blockbuster. I had never heard of the Phantasy Star series at that time and was completely intrigued. The box art drew me in and the gameplay never let me go. Even 15 years later.

The game revolves around Chaz, an inexperienced monster hunter in the land of Motavia who teams up with grizzled and sexy veteran Alys. The land is becoming increasingly hostile, with odd climate changes and monster attacks becoming more and more common. One little contract from the local university to clear out the basement of baddies leads to one of my all-time favorite RPG adventures That, in my humble opinion, rivals any Final Fantasy experience from the same era.

A myriad of characters join you in your quests, each with their own unique abilities. The core of the game feels familiar, like any 8 or 16-bit RPG you've played in the past. You travel from town to town, fighting enemies and leveling up your characters. You all know this, it's RPGing 101. The thing that set it apart on the battle side was Macros. Macros worked like this: Queue up all of the commands for your characters in a single round, save it, and sit back and watch your characters do your bidding. Neat, right? Less button pressing and more killing. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. If you queued up your attacks/magic in just the right combination, you would get a massive group attack that dealt considerable more damage that just a normal sword strike or fire spell. Brilliant.

Another amazing thing about this game was the presentation. Any other RPG would have the characters play out their drama in the same style as you just talking to each other in some random town. Enter: the cut scene. I used to think the first cut scene I had ever seen were the CGI ones from Final Fantasy VII. Little did I know that i had seen them 3 years earlier in PSIV. Presented in a very colorful anime style that had you yearning for the leveling and dungeon crawling to cease and the next bit of story to unfold so you could bask in the bright, cinematic glory. It was absolutely unlike anything I had ever seen at that time and I can't say enough good things about them. The only other thing that I can think of that 'WOWed" me in the same vein would be the first time I saw Mode 7 graphics in motion, but I still like these cut scenes better :)

But enough about all of that. This is what you need to know: A huge open world to explore. A 30 to 40 hour campaign. Fan-TASTIC anime-styled cut scenes (as seen above). New and creative gameplay mechanics. An interesting and fun narrative to follow. Not to mention a 3-tiered screen encompassing final boss. Why does it seem like no one ever talks about this game? Maybe you do here at Destructoid and I'm just fresh meat and I don't know this. I hope that's the case. Do yourself a favor. Get a hold of this game. It's on about a billion Sega Genesis compilations. No excuses.