The truth about Phantasy Star 4 insane price (by Vic. Ireland)

[IrishNinja]

god, i was so hyped when that one dropped. i had a $100 gift card for EB from my aunt the christmas or so before, and i recall getting the game and having just about enough change to take the bus back...weird, maybe they had it for a bit less? i literally called day after day till it showed up, and was bummed on the way back since i think it was my first cardboard box game, but it's still a top 10 all time JRPG and i quickly let go of any complaints.

also i know many on here think about as highly of vic as they do kalinske, but i adore the man for WD's sega-CD & saturn offerings, so many classics we'd have never seen otherwise.

Thank Odin for not having Donald Trump, Melrose Place and ABBA jokes in my favourite game...

hahaha...harsh, but fair

To be fair, they weren't entirely wrong. Today's cult classics like Chrono Trigger and Earthbound didn't exactly fly off the shelves.

It was Sony that made RPGs cool, not Nintendo

agreed, but it was FF VII that clearly crushed the building there too. i love suikoden, but persona 1, wild ARMs and whatever else felt like slim pickens before that dropped.

[Sik]

And on that note, Final Fantasy VII got attention in large part because of its graphics (they may seem crude now but it was a big deal at the time). JRPGs never got popular enough to sustain that momentum which is how they ended up back into niche territory nowadays.

[IrishNinja]

oh, no doubt it was the graphics...i was just in college at the time, and my roomie & i had to show tons of people on our floor the CG's, to the point we just VHS taped em, haha. girls who didn't even play games wanted to see em!

which i feel like to this day has square thinking it's okay to skimp on characterization & have a plot that falls apart on the 4th disc or so as long as the presentation is high, which is a shame. but i'm still grateful for a full 2 gens of getting nearly everything we wanted localized! shame going into HD very clearly killed that.

[Gogogadget]

And on that note, Final Fantasy VII got attention in large part because of its graphics (they may seem crude now but it was a big deal at the time). JRPGs never got popular enough to sustain that momentum which is how they ended up back into niche territory nowadays.

Maybe if every developer didn't seem to exclusively aim their JRPGs at cringy weeabos the genre would have more mainstream acceptance. Either that or people realised that middle school tier stories combined with all the exciting gameplay of a DVD menu maybe isn't the best use of £50.

[Thief]

Is that $100 Canadian or American?

[Sik]

Maybe if every developer didn't seem to exclusively aim their JRPGs at cringy weeabos the genre would have more mainstream acceptance. Either that or people realised that middle school tier stories combined with all the exciting gameplay of a DVD menu maybe isn't the best use of £50.

The bigger problem I think is that JRPGs are traditionally turn based. That's not something that tends to sit well with Western players who are accustomed to everything being heavily action-based, especially on console. I know that turned me off RPGs for a long while, especially the part about whether you dodge an attack being essentially a dice roll rather than relying on your skill. It gets even worse if you try to start with one of those RPGs that want you to grind like hell before you can get past the first dungeon (the Phantasy Star games are particularly awful at this, you start with little HP and you'll need to go up several levels before you can stand a chance).

Yeah there's the weaboo thing but that's more of a recent thing. Amusingly when this gets brought up I keep thinking about how Neptunia is one of the most extreme examples of that yet it somehow took off way further than anybody would expect (I swear I keep seeing it pop up where I'd least expect it).

[Black_Tiger]

Is that $100 Canadian or American?

It was $136 at Zellers.

I don't agree the Snes had better soundhardware more colours and the slow pace nature of turn based RPG's meant the MD's CPU advantage didn't really come into it .

JRPGs aren't all slow paced and don't have to be. You're ignoring the specifics of what I said and insisting that all JRPGs should be reverse engineered around the SNES hardware. The "cpu" isn't the only technical advantage of the MD. (J)RPGs don't have to be full of mirroring, limited artwork, static sprites and management sim filler.

[GameUser-16-32-128]

I don't ever recall PSIV ever being $100 when I bought it. $80-$90 was what I paid for in Southern CA.

[Zebbe]

I don't agree the Snes had better soundhardware more colours and the slow pace nature of turn based RPG's meant the MD's CPU advantage didn't really come into it .

I can mention a few advantages which Pier Solar used: the higher resolution, use of sprites of more than two sizes, and many animated sprites at the same time. Plus the use of the CD-addon, if that counts.

[Thief]

It was $136 at Zellers.

And here I thought original SFII for SNES was the most expensive non-enhancement chip cart during 16-Bit era at $100 + tax (so my mom paid $115 for that game on top of the SNES with SMBW bundle).

You happen to also know how much Virtua Racing for Genesis cost?

The bigger problem I think is that JRPGs are traditionally turn based. That's not something that tends to sit well with Western players who are accustomed to everything being heavily action-based, especially on console. I know that turned me off RPGs for a long while, especially the part about whether you dodge an attack being essentially a dice roll rather than relying on your skill. It gets even worse if you try to start with one of those RPGs that want you to grind like hell before you can get past the first dungeon (the Phantasy Star games are particularly awful at this, you start with little HP and you'll need to go up several levels before you can stand a chance).

RNG in videogames can be a very good thing if done right. I know I hated it at first in any game, but then realised the positives about them. Shining Force 3 was the game where I first hated it then finally learned to love RNG.

[Team Andromeda]

I can mention a few advantages which Pier Solar used: the higher resolution, use of sprites of more than two sizes, and many animated sprites at the same time. Plus the use of the CD-addon, if that counts.

Can we use games made back in the day , not decades later on huge carts and made when all the systems development know-how is avaiable at a touch of a button. Back in the day the MD main advantage of CPU speed didn't really factor in to RPG's

[Team Andromeda]

JRPGs aren't all slow paced and don't have to be. You're ignoring the specifics of what I said and insisting that all JRPGs should be reverse engineered around the SNES hardware. The "cpu" isn't the only technical advantage of the MD. (J)RPGs don't have to be full of mirroring, limited artwork, static sprites and management sim filler.

No I'm just remember back to RPG's made back inthe day and with turn based battle systems and mostly simple 2D towns and maps having a huge CPU advantage didn't really make much difference and back in the day many RPG's were hugly limited to cart sizes and limits and many RPG's on the MD or Snes didn't knock people out graphically . That started to change with games like Landstalker, but even then most people would look to action or platform games as system gfx highlights rather than a RPG.

Even PS 4 wasn't that hot in graphics dept really

[Zebbe]

Can we use games made back in the day , not decades later on huge carts and made when all the systems development know-how is avaiable at a touch of a button.

That is so very incorrect it brings down your credibility a bloody lot.

[Da_Shocker]

Are some of you guys actually buying this BS story by Vic? The same guy that said he would NEVER work with Sega as long as Bernie Stolar was still employed there. Bernie got fired and Vic was asked about that and he said that he wouldn't go back due to the low DC sales. This is the same guy that wouldn't do cart games because of the risks involved with manufacturing. Something he has said for years up until the GBA so all of the sudden he had interest in publishing PSIV? ROFLMAO YTF is he still talking about SoA anyways like he's butthurt or something. Anyone knows what Tom Kalinske or Bernie Stolar is doing these days?

[Team Andromeda]

That is so very incorrect it brings down your credibility a bloody lot.

Just do a google about developing for the Mega Drive and see tons of pages and huge knowledge base that simply wasn't there in 1990, 1991 Ect , most teams didn't even have email back then. Looking over the state of the development environment back in those days . I'm sure Core Mega Drive development set up was an Amiga running deluxe Paint II for Art and graphics and Atari ST for coding to the Mega Drive and Factor's 5 high end set up was a 386 PC for its Snes development . We've come a long way and like the ex Prope Sound staff told Retro .. You can download a compression programme in less than 3 secs that will do a better job to what 3 weeks of solid coding for MD sound compression you achieve back in the day.