The Phantasy Star Compendium

You all know what this is by now, right? This document is quite old and dearly in need of a facelift.

From the book The World of Phantasy Star:

Yes, this is an officially-licensed PS book.

• Alternate PS2 Storyline Translation
  Also referred to as the "Conan the Lutz" storyline (due to Lutz being a swordsman here rather than an Esper here) or the "Bizarro Lutz" storyline (actually, Lutz's other party members (check the pic page near the bottom) look like Bizarro versions of the other PS1 heroes...); you might have seen the synopsis of it (taken from a Japanese webpage) over at Naflign's site. Basically, this is a detailed overview of one of the storylines originally considered for PS2 in pre-production, which was written and planned out to an unusually developed stage by a Chieko Aoki before it got scrapped.
  
• Short Phantasy Star III Chapter
  This was not initially on the top of my must-translate list, but flipping through the book did pique my interest as to why PS3 was relegated to a short four-page chapter in a 130-page publication (well, there're a couple more mentions scattered throughout the book, mostly in passing and mostly desultory). After doing a quick scan-through of the chapter, I was even more intrigued. Two points - 1) The World of Phantasy Star seems to have been published in conjunction with the release of PS4 in Japan, so one could argue that Sega had an interest in promoting the fact that their new PS title had more in common with 1 and 2 than the black sheep of the family (which would explain the repudiation of PS3 in here), and 2) hey, you can take comfort in the fact that Yuuji Naka's opinions are the only ones that count in the PS world anymore anyway.
• Phantasy Star II Preliminary Character Info
  More bizarre PS2 fun, this document compiles info and backstories on the PS2 PC cast heretofore found only in the production settei. It's questionable how much of the information is applicable, though, as these descriptions come from an earlier, different version of PS2 (after the Lutz-as-hero stuff mentioned above, but before the final version), as evidenced by the different hair colors, the "nationalities", the slight changes in combat stats in some places, the limitations on what items each character can use, etc.
• Phantasy Star I, II, and III "Best Character" Ranking
  Basically as the title says, but I think their criteria is a bit questionable. Why no Alisa? And is walking speed that big a deal for Japanese PS fans?
  (Oh, yes, and it is "Tylon", I suppose. The World of Phantasy Star says that Tyler was originally supposed to be his descendant.)

Translation of the manual for the Game Gear PS gaiden.

Phantasy Star Adventure Manual

A li'ler translation of the other Game Gear PS gaiden. Half the text consists of variations on "select the item you'd like to use with the control pad and confirm with the 2 button".

Phantasy Star Gaiden...er...Major Plot Twist Retranslation

A retranslation of the major plot-twist scene in Phantasy Star Gaiden; the rom translators changed around the content of the scene because they personally didn't like the original turn of events. In their words: "it's highly naive for young amateurs to assume that anything of artistic value can be crafted by copying a literal translation. Without multiple re-writes and revisions, to a cultured eye, all that literalism produces is a body of amateurish drivel." Wrong; stilted translations are more often the result of the translator knowing the words of the language but not the music. (Trust me on this. I speak from experience.) Then again, looking at the landscape several years later, the White Man's Burden school of translation has clearly won, so who cares what I think?

Toyo Ozaki's Phantasy Star III "FAQ"

Orakio and Rulakir tackle an FAQ posted on Phantasy Star III character designer Toyo Ozaki's site and come up with about as many answers as are offered in an average round of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. I'm (rather semi-infamously) not a PS3 fan - I don't consider it in the spirit of PS for a laundry list of reasons I won't go into here - but Toyo Ozaki's drawings and doujinshi infuse its story with a life and character the game, in my opinion, sorely lacked. (I think an "Ask Rulakir" column would be nifty.)

Phantasy Star III original Japanese script:

Why am I, of all people, doing this? Well, I was curious as to whether or not what I perceived as weaknesses/shortcomings in the English's script were the result of cuts or a hasty dialogue editing job. (My thoughts so far: Better. Perhaps not enough to fully carry off the romance angle (I don't think the PS1/2 narrative style they were trying to adopt here is conducive to the needs of that kind of storytelling, anyway), but an improvement. I'm surprised at all the small details the original translators chose to leave out of the story... (Space considerations? Yeah, but how many times in the SoA edition did they have 3 or 4 NPCs saying basically the same thing?)) The scripts to our English version can be found at The Phantasy Star Pages, if you'd like to do some English vs. Japanese side-by-side comparisons. Please understand that this is a very back-burner project, so progress will be considerably...slow. (And you're talking to a woman who left her site unupdated for several years.)

• Kein's (Rhys's) quest There's also the addendum/variant scene to this quest, where you can sell Kein's equipment before his interrupted wedding ceremony, use the proceeds to buy an Iguza Ocarina (Escapipe), and then use the Ocarina to teleport out of the castle dungeon instead of waiting for Lena's assistance. This bugs up the game so you can't get out of Riik (Landen) or proceed with the story, though. (At least you learn Kein's father's name as a small bonus, though.)
• Ayn's quest