It’s no mystery that Idola: Phantasy Star Saga being a mobile game disappointed many. We haven’t received a mainline Phantasy Star game in a long, long time, and the lack of a western localization for Phantasy Star Online 2 still stings.
Yet, today Sega released the first gameplay trailer of the game. I have to admit that it looks promising. You know I am not one to be big on mobile games, and it normally takes a franchise I really love (like Muv-Luv) or a really great game with awesome production values like Granblue Fantasy for me to get over that.
The trailer showcases a traditional turn-based JRPG battle system paired with very nice visuals and interesting systems.
The game lets you create “law” and “chaos” parties of characters. When a character reaches a certain bond level you can do the “fate branch” and choose whether they’ll go law or chaos. Their appearance, final blow, and story ending will change depending on that choice.
We also get to see the Idola Battle, that lets players gather the power of all eight characters in the parties to turn them into the giant Idola.
This being a mobile game still stings, but I have to give credit where is due: if the story is good, I’ll probably play it.
You can check out the trailer for yourself below. The game is coming out this year in Japan for iOS and Android.