stolen from ga-forum:
I managed to obtain a July 1992 copy of GamePro magazine. It's got Alien3 on its cover.
This magazine is important (or should be important to Phantasy Star phans) because it contains some news on the never-released 'Phantasy Star 4: The Return of Alis' for the Megadrive-Genesis and MegaCD-SegaCD.
http://img374.imageshack.us/img374/7...ture0015qm.jpg
if you cannot read the text in the picture, I've got it typed out below.
on page 75 is the following, quote:
add to that, SegaBase also mentioned Phantasy Star IV: The Return of AlisQuote:
"Phantasy Star IV: The Return of Alis is due in 12 meg form for the MegaDrive this year. The CD version will be 20 times the size of the cart. The story involves an intergalactic slave trade and occurs right after Phantasy Star III, which rumor has it will also come to CD - suitably enhanced of course. Phantasy Star vets are fore-warned that the Alis connection is shaky. The name's in the game for nostalgia only, but rest assured that the Dark Force is involved."
http://www.goodcowfilms.com/farm/gam...0Sega%20CD.htm
http://www.eidolons-inn.net/segabase...se-SegaCD.html
(thanks to Goodcow and eidolons-inn.net for archiving these)
Quote:
"In terms of software, the biggest news by far was with the Phantasy
Star RPG series - the closest thing Sega had to Square's Final Fantasy
franchise - with two Mega CD titles announced as being in development.
The more notable of the two was the all-new title The Return of Alis,
which was to take place immediately after the events depicted in
Phantasy Star 3 and tell the story of the fight against a revival of
the intergalactic slave trade. This new installment in the saga would
be 20 times the size of the earlier game and would incorporate both
audio and anime clips."
now combined that with the mysterious picture of a Phantasy Star game inQuote:
"Sega cancelled the planned Sega CD release of Phantasy Star 4, opting
instead for a cartridge-based Genesis game that bore little
resemblance to its original Sega CD concept."
the May-June 1991 issue of MEGA PLAY magazine
http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/8...une91046fp.jpg
http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/3...asystar6pn.jpg
and you almost definitally have a Phantasy Star game (two versions of it even) that was designed between PS III and the PS IV that actually came out later.
for the love of all that is good, someone needs to interview Naka, Reiko Kodama and any of the other main PS designers about this unreleased Phantasy Star game!
