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Trivia / Phantasy Star IV

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  • Creator's Favorite: Rika was this for character designer Toru "Yoshibon" Yoshida, although it would be more accurate to say that his real favorite is Nei from Phantasy Star II, since he wanted Rika to be Nei outright. There was strong opposition to this from the rest of the staff, who preferred an Esper girl design. Yoshida was stubborn, however, and insisted on his cute Numan girl, making the tips of her ears black and changing her name so he could keep her. The Esper girl was retooled into Kyra, and the rest is history.
  • Dummied Out: The Acacia and ShadMirage, being nude women, were both removed from the English version.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Rika was initially meant to be Nei herself from Phantasy Star II as stated by Toru Yoshida in an interview; conflict within the staff compelled him to make subtle alterations to keep Rika in.
    • The game was originally supposed to get a full remake that would have been at least on par with the PS2 remakes of Phantasy Star I and Phantasy Star II, but it was cancelled when they decided to retool the PS2 Sega Ages series as straight ports. To twist the knife deeper, this also resulted in the US releases of the other remakes being cancelled, as they were planned to be released in a compilation set with this one.
    • An early concept for the game would have seen Alis(a) returning to the series, and this is what Phantasy Star Gaiden was setting up for.
    • Also, early concept art and magazine articles stated the game was being worked on as a title for the Sega-CD with a tentative working name of "The Return of Alis". Just imagine, a Phantasy Star game with redbook audio and enhanced graphics that very likely could have saved the console had it been made. Its also been stated that this hypothetical CD version would have brought back the 3D dungeon mazes from the first PS game, a real loss.
    • Taking the above into account, with a cameo of Lutz, the wreckage of one of the ships from III, Nei, and a return by the franchise's main heroine, it would have brought back all the iconic elements of each game for an even greater finale than what we got. As it is, these elements are only vaguely implied by the game itself.
    • An interview with Yoshibon in PHANTA! Phantasy Star 30th Anniversary Cosplay Book revealed that he originally planned on a much more detailed backstory for Zio in which he would have been a "dropout" from the Esper Mansion who competed with Rune for the position of Lutz's successor and lost. This apparently didn't make it into the final game due to time constraints.
    • "Third", a sort of proto-comic of an early version of Chaz/Rudy meeting a Nei clone, has him waking up from cryosleep in Vahal Fort. In the completed game, Chaz doesn't remember anything about his early life or having parents prior to his time at the orphanage in Tiria, but combine that with the Amia-focused text adventure (where Amia bears a striking visual similarity to Chaz's portrait in End of the Millennium) and it gives us the implication that "Rudy" is actually the son of Rolf and Anna of Phantasy Star II, named after Rudo/Rudger Steiner and preserved in cryosleep until Seed had confirmed successful plans for a production-model Nei clone.

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