The crowd who enjoyed the Phantasy Star series on the Sega Genesis are surprisingly sparse. Not because the games weren't that great, or niche, but because the Genesis wasn't exactly the system to turn towards for your role-playing fix. The third Phantasy Star game, subtitled Generations of Doom, was the black sheep of the bunch and left a sour taste in many longtime fans' mouths. Why? Don't ask us, or Morgan Webb. We thought it was fantastic. Apparently Idea Factory, Red Entertainment, and Compile Heart thought so, too, because their new title Record of Agarest shares the most interesting factor to that "black sheep".

Record of Agarest puts you in a the position of controlling a main character, going through what we assume will be a paper-thin story, choosing a bride and having a kid. You then take control of the child and so on and so forth for five generations. Each generation explores a new continent, much like the "generations of doom" explored more and more parts of the Alisa III in PS3. We expect more partner choices and branching stories in Agarest, though. That aside, it seems to be planned out as a standard RPG -- turn-based battles and all. Does it sound like we're bitter? We're not. We're excited, since we thought the whole generation-spanning aspect of the Genesis classic was wonderful and we'd love to see an evolved form of it take shape. Our eyes are on this probably-import-only title, due out at the end of September in Japan.