Monthly Archives: March 2001

The End of the Time After the End

  • Reading time:1 mins read

I figured out the rest of where Phantasy Star Online fits into things. It obviously takes place after The End of the Millennium — perhaps a thousand years, to follow the series trend. Yet the disturbance in this game is related to PSIII, namely the piece of Dark Force that was on the ship Alisia. Unlike all the “major” manifestations of Dark Force, back in Algol, that Dark Force wasn’t destroyed. Further, at the end of the game it did supposedly vow to return in a thousand years.

What I’m thinking then is that somehow the residents of the ship must have buried him on Ragol. Then a couple of thousand years later (a thousand years after EotM), when the rest of the Algonians escaped Algol on the Pioneer ships, they just happen to take the same route as the earlier pilgrims and so find the Dark Force that was left behind by their distant relatives.

Just figured I needed to write this down where I might be able to find it again later.

Motavia and Opportunity

  • Reading time:2 mins read

In a way, Phantasy Star II was something of a loss of innocence for gaming. I think the music shows one of the attractions for the game. It was the height of a bustling civilization. Technologically adept; happy; bright; clean; optimistic. The dungeon and overworld musics both have a tone of simplicity to them. There is a childlike sense of wonder which pervades the world. Everything is safe. There are the little problems to be fixed, but then all will be right again. The world is safe. Nothing irreparably bad can really happen to our heroes. But then things begin to go very wrong… and suddenly this sense of innocence takes on a very desperate sort of tension, as if the game is trying to cope with what is going on. Like it doesn’t understand how what is happening could possibly happen, and refuses to believe it.

I don’t think there had ever really been events this portentous in a video game before… Now, of course, characters are killed left and right and worlds are destroyed without much of a thought. But a plot this complex was a real novelty at the time. As with a lot of things Sega does, it really showed the potential that games would come to have…