Cost, mainly, I'd imagine. I mean, in the case of PSIV it makes more sense because of the huge tech collapse at the start; best I can come up with in the case of PSIV is that it's much easier for the government to disarm someone with a sword from long range than with a gun of some sort, and there might be fewer restrictions for selling them (I must check out the distributions of weapons for sale compared to town size in that game), but also because a skilled hunter could probably one-shot a giant mantis without too much trouble with just a sword, making the low range not too difficult -- and of course there is still an issue of cost to manufacture.
Not so, in a way. (Spoilered for people who really want to see endings for themselves -- there's a mixture of coincidence and speculation here, be warned. :P ) Spoiler Phantasy Star Zero (0) was set on Earth (and the moon), Earthmen invade for the ending of Phantasy Star II; and the Mother Trinity/Mother Brain similarities can't really be coincidence. Phantasy Star III is set an apparent 1,000 years after PSII (although there is that one ship that crashed on Motavia, as noted, in Phantasy Star IV) and one of the endings shows the Alisa III finding a habitable planet in the third orbit from a yellow star -- an Earthlike planet. Who's to say they're not cyclical in a way; that this Earthlike would eventually end up as Phantasy Star Zero? Another thing to consider is that there are many Dark Force; an infinite number if a player walks around PSIV's final dungeon enough - the ProPhallus enemy. One of the Dark Forces is present in Phantasy Star III, which could have arguably been a ProPhallus that hitched a ride and collected power for a thousand years; energy of a different nature that may explain its different appearance. What is to say that there might not have been a few 'Trojan/Greek' ProPhalluses orbiting a lagrangian point (like Jupiter's "captured" asteroids) around Mota/Dezo/Rykros (since it's clear they can survive the vacuum of space, due to the first Dark Force fight in Phantasy Star IV's location)? SPEAKING OF RYKROS. It's clear that Rykros' orbit takes it into another dimension (this is explained in Phantasy Star IV) -- and there is a Rkyros (not to mention Dulk Falkis -- another possible mutation of ProPhallus/Dark Force? I have no idea, but it looks that way) in Phantasy Star Universe. The same Rykros, albeit in a different part of its dimension-leaping orbit? Some creative writing could possibly tie up all the various Phantasy Star series, like PSIV did with the classic games, and could possibly give us one hell of a fucking game. I wouldn't say no to a Phantasy Star V, if done correctly.
If Sonic 3 & Knuckles can get a sequel, so can PSIV. :v: Really, I just want a return of PSIV's battle mechanics. Those were so much fun to play around with.
Because RPG =P To be fair, in PSI only Parma is advanced, the other planets aren't, besides Alis really is just going on her own, so she may just have gotten whatever she could find. In PSIV there are no advanced planets either. So that leaves only PSII out of place, since Motavia is advanced and you're a government agent - but then again the text adventures pretty much give a good explanation for this anyway (Rolf was an awesome swordsman when he was a teen, so it makes sense he sticks with swords). S3K never attempted to close the storyline permanently :v:
Actually the earth and moon in PS0 are the planet Coral and its moon, Arca. They were called the earth and the moon because the people of Coral at the time had been all but wiped out and had no idea about the past until the later parts of the story and endgame. The Earthlings from PSII come from Earth, as in our planet, while Coral was referred to as earth in the sense that it is their earth, or ground. There's actually an art book that clarifies this. The Mother Trinity and Mother Brain situation is, in the plot, a coincidence. Mother Trinity is the result of the Mother project that is mentioned numerous times in PSO, a project that lead to the development of newmans, androids, and mags among other things. I believe Vol Opt, Calus and Olga were parts of it as well but I don't really remember. Either way, it seems the Mother project was being carried out both on Ragol and on Coral where it originated. As for Phantasy Star Universe, I haven't played the second and third episodes, but from what I've seen and read Rykros is not the same as the original series' planet. It does have strange dimensional distortions though, which lead to PSO areas. So it's a separate, alternate dimension. Upon further reading, it seems that PSU's Rykros was created by the ancient people of Gurhal. So yeah, it's definitely not the same planet. Dulk Fakis was the boss of the first episode of PSU, and resembled Dark Falz in both name and appearance, but if I'm remembering right it was a SEED mutation of the main bad guy, Magashi. There IS a Dark Falz in PSU, though. It's the final boss of the last episode... But it's a re-skin of De Rol Le. It's fought on Rykros, but I don't know if it's meant to be from the old games's universe or if it's just the PSU universe's equivalent of the profound darkness. So to summarize, the timeline goes like this: Original Universe: PSI PSII PSIV PSIII PSO Ep. 1 PSO Ep. 2 PSO Ep. 4 PSO Ep. 3 PS0 There is a difference of 1000 years between PSI, PSII, and PSIV/PSIII, and PSO. Episode 2 is 2 years after episode 1 and episode 3 is 21 years after. PSU Universe: PSU Episode 1 Phantasy Star Portable PSU Episode 2 PSU Episode 3 Phantasy Star Portable 2/Infinity
Well-played. Ah well, I tried. Still leaves the ProPhallus and the idea that they can travel through space, maybe hitching on a lagrange point of + - Rykros to give us a direct sequel to IV -- it'd be smaller-scale, but could still happen within Chaz and Rika's lifetime, for example. Again, I say some creative writing could give us a feasible story.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/we-couldn-t-continue-sega-europe-coo-on-restructure/098682 http://www.vg247.com/2012/06/28/sega-closes-offices-in-france-germany-spain-australia-and-benelux/ Sega Europe is gone. They will focus only on the titles that sell (Sonic, Total War, Footbal Manager, Aliens), everything else will just be digital (or won't be released at all).
It's a sad day today for sega fans in europe ( and all around the world, I'm sure this will not only affect European countries but at the long side also all over the world). We come back to 2002 again...
Devastated. Moreso at the fact you simply can't make new IPs and sell them any more if you're anything but an indie house. Gaming is slowly dying in a sea of bland FPSes and sports titles, all with added DRM shackles as we move entirely into download product. Utterly devastated. The only positive I take out of this is that Sega's EU presence isn't entirely gone as the UK office seems to have survived.... but man. Would any of us have seen this coming in mid-1994?
Just a quick question. While this obviously sucks, what exactly did the rest of Sega Europe do anyway? Regardless, it's really a shame to see Sega go into the crapper lately. Hopefully these money saving procedures will do more good then harm in the long run.
Translation, promotion, regional distribution, etc. Europe has been Sega's traditional heartland as well, which makes it doubly bitter, moreso that the American region which historically has always been the worse office is staying pretty much intact.
Well that's probably because there is only 1 us sega office, not 6. If sega of Mexico exists however well then they deserve to go as well since most of sega eu is gone. Granted, sega Australia probably should have stayed around, but sega London controlling all us distribution makes no sense.