Phantasy Star IV

The fourth Phantasy Star closed out a storyline Sega had started back on the eight-bit Master System, and it did so on the Mega Drive in 1993 — a point when Japanese role-playing games on the competing console had already set a high bar. The series always stood apart by trading standard fantasy for science fiction: characters travel between planets, and technology sits alongside magic instead of replacing it.

Combat is turn-based, but the game layers a system on top that lets you record a sequence of party actions and replay it with a single command. That speeds up routine random encounters considerably, since a winning combination does not have to be re-entered option by option every time. The other thing everyone remembers is the presentation of the story. Key scenes play out as comic-style panels, an unusual solution for a cartridge release of the period, and one that reads better today than most contemporary attempts at animation.

Seen from now, this is one of the Japanese RPGs that aged gracefully. The pace moves faster than 1993 norms, maps avoid needless sprawl, and the soundtrack is among the stronger work anyone got out of the Mega Drive sound hardware. Newcomers can start here without much trouble — knowing the earlier entries adds context but is not a requirement.

On OldGame.cz you can launch the game straight in the browser, so no emulator setup or ROM hunting is involved. It is worth your time if you enjoy turn-based RPGs with a firmly authored story and do not mind random encounters interrupting exploration.