Phantasy Star Series Reviews

Below are scans of magazine reviews and one preview covering the first four games in the Phantasy Star series. However, most of the coverage is of parts two and three as I've only got one review for the first game and one for the fourth. It's a significant series for Sega and the early days of Japanese role playing games (JRPG), specifically the first one that features a female protagonist. Phantasy Star is often overshadowed by similar games from the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior) series that appeared on the more popular Nintendo consoles.

Personally, I've only completed Phantasy Star II which I did a couple times in the early '90s. On the Master System I never had Phantasy Star because it released around the same time as Miracle Warriors, another Sega RPG that I got instead. While I also own Phantasy Star III on the Genesis, I never completed it and the fourth game released during my college days when I wasn't spending much time or money on video games. There were a couple of Game Gear Phantasy Star games too but those only released in Japan and one was not a RPG like the others: Phantasy Star Gaiden and Phantasy Star Adventure. After Phantasy Star IV Sega moved away from the single-player only format to Phantasy Star Online during the Dreamcast era.

Some of the reviews had to be edited to fit on one image. Video Games & Computer Entertainment's reviews can sometimes be split between multiple pages and with Electronic Gaming Monthly I like to line up the "Review Crew" next to the review (otherwise it only appears at the start of the magazine's review section). I'm also adding a video on the YouTube channel this week that looks at the Phantasy Star II package and the opening as well as the ending of the game. 

Phantasy Star

Phantasy Star II

Phantasy Star III

Phantasy Star IV

Year 7: January Update

A popular new year's resolution
is to shape up! Yo Joe!

Last year was a rather slow year and even though I didn't expect to do a lot here, I had hoped to post more than I did. Most months only had 2-3 posts and it's been months since I recorded a video. I'd wanted to get a video of Golden Axe done which I didn't do but I did finally cover SimCity. I've no idea what 2023 has in store for the blog or my personal life which I rarely mention here outside of talking about the past. One thing I did change recently was my Instagram account. Originally I created it for the blog, however, that was when I didn't own a smartphone and it was impossible to add photos via a computer. Two years ago I got my first smartphone and now you can post on Instagram using a computer but I decided I wasn't likely to post much there related to the blog so I converted it to a personal account. I briefly put it on private and removed the people I didn't know which I shouldn't have done, sorry about that! It was maybe three people as the majority of the very few followers I have are family. Feel free to follow again even though I probably won't post about the blog often and my life isn't very interesting: sutyak75.

When I was in Canada a few weeks ago I was a bit bored in between the curling matches I went to see and I decided to start following some of the athletes and write about that event which is why I suddenly started using the Instagram account again. Facebook is still my primary social media account as it is the easiest for keeping up with family (I don't live close to any of them, unfortunately) and there is still a blog-related Facebook page. Social media is something I'm not great with so I've never promoted the blog very well. The Twitter account never gained traction either and that platform declined quite rapidly last year. Since I don't have a lot to say today, let's take a look at a few all-time blog statistics. There is really only one stat I find interesting which is where the views come from but I'll start with the lesser stats: the browser and operating systems people use, and how they reached the blog. It's not surprising that Chrome and Windows are at the top which is what I use when working on the blog. Google and then Blogger (this website) are the top two referrers, also to be expected. YouTube is third and rather small so I guess people generally don't click on the blog links in the video descriptions which is too bad because I feel like the blog posts are better than the videos. 

The pageviews by country is unusual as France is by far the leader, more than tripling second place United States. I'm not sure why that is and I don't see a way to access which posts are being viewed most by each country. Maybe it has to do with the game ads about some popular French companies? I'd have expected Japan to have more than a few hundred views seeing as how I primarily post about video games, especially Sega, and have some posts about Transformers toys, as well as Japan-based Tomy. Following France and the U.S. are Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Canada, and Sweden as the only countries with more than 10,000 views. Obviously, the blog isn't exactly popular as I'm under 400,000 total pageviews after six years.

Thanks for visiting, especially the people of France for providing a third of my pageviews! Before I go how about some "Sentence Nonsense" from Tomy to kick off 2023:

Happy New Year!

-Jonathan