Well that's thirty-nine down...

So after finishing the last 4 side quests (two of which the party didn't make any money on), I bought a whole bunch of super healing items (at up to 20,000$ each) and sent the arty into space to find whatever it is they were looking for. It turns out that it's a 4th hidden planet that contains the knowledge of an ancient civilization, but before it can tell the arty what is happening they first have to kill a couple of boss monsters. The fight against these bosses is really hard and frustrating since not only are they super powerful but also immune to magic, so my mage is useless in the fight and I only had 4 out of 5 party members as it was. Since my mage can't heal, all he could do during the fight it give out all the potions i just bough in order to keep the other 3 alive and constantly fighting, so by the end of the fights all the stuff I bought to fight the big bad was used up fighting things on my side!

The big powerful intelligence at the heart of the planet then explains the back story of what is going on. Billions of years ago a massive power of light and a massive power of darkness fought, and in the end the light won and sealed the darkness in another dimension. To make sure that the darkness couldn't get out it placed a solar system of 4 planets over the gateway as a lock, the system that the story takes place in. once every 1000 years though the lock becomes weak enough to let a little bit of the darkness through, and this bit takes to from of Dark Force. To counter this the 4th planet's orbit brings it close to the other planets also every 1000 years and it's proximity spurs on heroes to go out and destroy Dark Force. But since the last time Dark Force showed up it managed to destroy one of the planets, weakening the lock, so this time the whole darkness can escape and the Party must stop him.

Chaz then asks where is the power of light during all this, and he's told that it basically just left for parts unknown, leaving this mess behind. He gets pissed off about learning his whole existence is just to clean up after a neglectful being and says he's not going to jump through hoops for it. They then leave for the ice planet and Rune tells Chaz to look in the basement of the sage mansion, there he finds the sword that Alis from the first game used and it contains the memories of all that fought Dark Force in the past. With this Chaz then decides it's worth fighting for his own reasons and not what some light force says (duh). The party is then told that a big black it has opened in the center of the main world and is killing everything around it, so they fly back and are meet by all the previous party members (now leveled up to the same range as the party).

Before the final battle I have to chose which of the previous party members I want in the 5th space, and since the arty has been hurting for healing since he left, I picked the Raja. The fight with the darkness was in 3 forms and not as hard as the test fights I had to do since it was vulnerable to magic and Wren's barrier spell actually worked on it (first time so far). The first from was a chaotic mass of fanged mouths and eyes, and not all that threatening since it didn't seems to have any way of moving in that chaos. The second from was a pile of thorns and claws, looking more like a plant than anything, but it did look more intimidating since all the thorns were pointed at the party. The final form looked like a humanoid female with metal spiked wings and huge green hair, what's with all these games that make the personification of all evil be a woman?

So in the end the party wins and with the darkness killed the dimension it in begins to collapses, but the power of Alis' sword protects them. Everyone then says their goodbyes, but at the last moment Rika decides to stay with Chaz.

So that's the end of the original Phantasy Star series, and the end for now of Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection. I might come back to it later to play the shining force games, but I have a lot more games to get through, and what better way to start off 2011 than with a game that mostly takes place in 1911!