4/5 ★ – Brendan88's review of Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium.

Phantasy Star IV is a humongous jump up in quality from the previous three games, and finally feels like the series hitting it’s stride. A real shame it was the final single player entry. Finally, the battles include all the good parts of the former Phantasy Stars. There are detailed backgrounds, AND multiple animated enemies, AND visible party characters, AND - for I believe the first time ever - the ability to actually target the specific enemy you want to attack, not just a group. It’s a miracle! Because of this, the battles are the most fun and engaging they’ve been in the series. You also have just 1 combined inventory for your whole party. You don’t have to shuffle items between characters now! Praise be! The technique and skill names are still nonsense, unfortunately, and they didn’t include a world map item this time, when we really could have used one. But, the whole experience all feels better balanced than ever, the dungeons aren’t insane, and there are side quests now! Side quests! How fun! The plot is still a series of kind of disconnected events like the other games, but the characters are fun and memorable. I kinda wish I was able to choose my party throughout the game, at least to some extent, but this game is more like Final Fantasy IV, where your party composition is determined by where you are in the story. It’s fine, just not my favorite way to do it, which was something Phantasy Star II did right. Overall, the best in the series by a long shot, and maybe the only one I’ll ever return to.