Do I need to play all of the Phantasy Star games just to play PS IV?

[c0ldb33r]

So I've got a hankering to play a phantasy star game. I've tried to get into the first Phantasy Star a dozen times (I don't have the original, I've got the GBA remake) - but I can't stand it. I haven't really played PS II, III or IV because I know the series is continuous and I didn't want to play them out of order.

I've read that PS IV is the best of the bunch - can I just play that one? I don't want to have to bother with PS I or PS III, and I'd rather play II over IV since IV seems better.

Any advice on the topic?

[Natty Bumppo]

PSI is totally different than the others - most of it is first person dungeon exploration. Fine if you like that sort of game, but if you don't have the inclination they are pretty boring.

2,3 and 4 are all overhead exploration types (which I prefer).

3 is probably the weakest of the three - the multigeneration approach was a good idea that just didn't pan out for me in terms of satisfying game play.

I liked 2 more than 4 but part of that was probably because 2 was one of the first RPGs I played so it was instantly addicting. The main drawback with 2 was that the dungeons were so repetitive. Enough overhead pipes to fill out all the sets of the movie "Brazil." But you wouldn't go wrong with playing 4 instead of 2.

And you don't need to have played any of them to play the others. They each work perfectly well as stand alones.

[Gabriel]

So I've got a hankering to play a phantasy star game. I've tried to get into the first Phantasy Star a dozen times (I don't have the original, I've got the GBA remake) - but I can't stand it. I haven't really played PS II, III or IV because I know the series is continuous and I didn't want to play them out of order.

I've read that PS IV is the best of the bunch - can I just play that one? I don't want to have to bother with PS I or PS III, and I'd rather play II over IV since IV seems better.

Any advice on the topic?

There were allegedly a lot of "in jokes/fan service" in PS4, however the translators botched it so badly that none of them are apparrent other than the ones painted with the broadest and most meaningless strokes.

I played PS4 after only having played PS3 previously. It was a decent, if pedestrian, RPG. Sadly, that did place it in the upper tier of the genre for the Genesis. Most fans of the series tend to think it's pretty good, but it can't begin to compare to it's SNES counterpart/competition, Final Fantasy VI.

My advice is to go ahead and play it. It's enjoyable enough, and I really doubt you'd miss anything by having not played the others.

[Blitzwing256]

4 does a very nice job of tying up some loose ends from the previous games, although you aren't going to be totally lost or anything by playing 4 first, i'd highly recomend playing 2 and 3 first as they are both excelllent and fun games just like 4. `1 is admitedly very hard to get into and has a very very high dificulty curve, (then the dungeons in 2 were pretty tough as well).

[gepeto]

I believe the sega genesis collection has like 3 of them and sword of vermillion for 20 bucks not bad.

[c0ldb33r]

I believe the sega genesis collection has like 3 of them and sword of vermillion for 20 bucks not bad.

Yes I know I've got the genesis collection for both psp ans ps2 - I really wish that you could share save files with both -I'll have to stick with the PSP version.

[Soviet Conscript]

4 is one of my favorite RPG's. you can play it fine by itself as a stand alone game but i don't think i would of appriciated it nearly as much as i did if i hadn't played the other games in the series.

if you don't want to play the other games but still want to have a better grasp on the story as a whole i would suggest going to a fan site and just browseing over the story of what happened in the older games