S3E05: Phantasy Star IV -or- Hazy Cosmic Jive
Ryan (Warboss5) is rejoining the party for another quest with Mike and Jaymo as they play Phantasy Star IV (Sega Genesis/Megadrive, 1993), continuing their epic quest to research and review every retro game in the Nintendo Switch Online catalog!
In this episode, we discuss when it’s appropriate to search through someone else’s belongings, try to figure out just how much Phantasy Star IV was really borrowing from Star Wars, and examine the virtues of direct translation compared to reinterpreted dialogue when translating media for an American audience.
Thanks for listening, and a very special thanks to Kristal Fields of The Lazy Circles for our catchy new theme song! Subscribe to The Old SwitchAroo to get more retro goodness delivered straight to your feed! You can also join the fun on https://www.theoldswitcharoo.com , where you'll find access to our Discord , voicemail, and so much more!
Game on, everyone.
(0:00) Intro
(1:05) Welcoming Ryan
(4:45) Phantasy Star IV
(39:00) Mini-Game Minute: Insanonyms
(43:28) Phantasy Star IV Cont’d
(1:21:58) NintenDO or NintenDON’T
You can find from Warboss5 on Youtube ( https://www.youtube.com/@warboss5 ) and Bluesky ( https://bsky.app/profile/warboss5.bsky.social ).
The audiobook that he’s recording, Mortzeel's Lost & Found, can be found on the author's web site: https://www.nickcennamosmith.com/
Phantasy Star IV manual:
https://manuals.sega.com/genesismini/pdf/PHANTASY_STAR_IV.pdf
Sega Visions Issue 23, February/March 1995, p20-21 | Archive: https://archive.org/details/Sega_Visions_Issue_23_February-March_1995/page/n23/mode/2up
The 100 Best Sega Genesis Games by Miguel Concepcion and Kevin Wong | Complex: https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/a/miguel-concepcion/the-100-best-sega-genesis-games
Phantasy Star IV [MD/G – Beta / Unused Stuff] | Unseen64: https://www.unseen64.net/2008/04/14/phantasy-star-iv-mdg-beta/
Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium - Animation Sample Video | The Cutting Room Floor: https://tcrf.net/Phantasy_Star_IV:_The_End_of_the_Millennium#Animation_Sample_Video
Ryan "warboss5"
Geek
Born into comfortable middle-class suburbia, I got into gaming early in life with Sonic and the Sega Genesis. Things were great, as all new romances are, but eventually I tired of her. And so I moved from the chunky cartridges of my youth to the sleek curve of the Playstation's CD-ROM disks. From there it was on to her sister the Playstation 2, then to their cousin the Xbox. They were fun times to be sure, but all the while it felt like something was MISSING. That's when I realized that what had been searching for had been staring me in the face since the beginning, the best friend that had been by my side all along: my PC. And so I forsook (mostly) the realm of the console and began the one great love of my life. And I haven't looked back since.
