Phantasy Star (1987)

Preliminary: Fingers-crossed the 3d first-person dungeon crawling parts don't make me unable to enjoy this. I need to get over that aversion! Especially as I approach the 90s' obsession with 3d experiments heh. I've never played any of the Phantasy Stars, but always heard of em. I will, of course, be playing a fan translation of the original Japanese SMS release. Starts off with a great title screen jam, great main character graphic, not to mention what seems to be a strong femme lead character? Fingers crossed that doesn't go astray. Here goes nothing...

I love the initial town's look! even if ya know it starts with a sad death and a very clearcut mission at hand--find Tylon and take down the evil Lord LaShiec (oh shoot just discovered my translation uses the original Japanese names, not what most guides and FAQs and whatnot have it seems). Welp, I'm already at the first first-person 3d dungeon crawling part, and luckily the tune is amazing so I'm not too mad. I suppose I like the lighting? Not sure yet. This'll likely get old but fingers crossed I enjoy it nonetheless. Because the top-down parts are beautiful.

Look: 9/10 All sorts of unique and cool Looks in this, even if a bit clunky and of-its-time, still very unique and well-done. I love that the menu has a "background" based on where you are, e.g.

Yes, there are a lot of repeated sprites, but the colors and Feel of the Look were just so excellent. Yessss

I like that there were actual animations in the background for battles, like the cool waves and sparkles in the water (also doesn't this Octopus look straight out of Alien?)

Sound: 9/10 Thoroughly impressed with the music. To think this came out so soon after Final Fantasy, yet feels so much more advanced. Outright chills/frisson from some of the tunes. As much as I love the tunes, they did get a bit old over time since they were repeated in all the areas. Still, the town jingle, the dungeon jingle, the world map jingle, tons of good ones. (Oooo some new ones later on like in the Island Tower, yes I made up that name for the tower)

Play: 9/10 I like that it is turn-based and the vibe I usually enjoy in JRPGs: grind grind grind. But you sure do start weak! And the enemies quite strong! Good thing there's free healing at the start ha. And it didn't seem the stronger enemies gave any more exp, but this is just the beginning. I'll shut up and just enjoy the game: trying to work on not such long reviews >.> Like I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong with the Devil Bat eye thing... but it sure does kill me every time and I have to reload lol.

Pro-tip: Run is your friend. The game is a bit askew where trainable enemies spawn in the same areas, or right near, brutally out-of-your-league enemies. And like I mentioned before, consistently the exp is often not worth the harder battles in a certain area. Just focus on the readily doable battles and crank em out. The grinding becomes enjoyable that way. (And this holds true throughout. Like I accidentally stumbled upon the Red Dragon in Maharu Cave, no... don't do it. Stick to the proper path your guide tells you to go on, trust me haha)

I feel like the menu and inventory and so many other things are way ahead of its time. I see others say the battles and menus are slow, but it feels comparable to, if not more advanced than, its contemporaries FF1 and DQ2. Opening the chest at the end of battle does seem tedious, but no more than most early RPGs. Tho the grinds were absolutely necessary (just like with FF1 that I played last week, I was never OP for dungeons despite spending hours grinding thinking I would be ha), the game is more forgiving and realistic about character builds: both Alisa and Myau had good Healing spells so I didn't have to be like in FF1 where I was spending hours in the menu using Potions to survive dungeons. Also, more forgiving/nice than FF1 is how early you can access a Warp esque spell ("Bypass" or "Exit" in this one, well and then the Flute item too ahhh and that guarantees Runs yay). Nice QoL there. (To be clear, though, this game is not "forgiving. Just some QoL things compared to its contemporaries that I like haha) Another nicety that comes to mind is that the hints actually tell you what to do (tho I am playing a fan translation which helps, still the idea remains). It's cheesy how many buildings in the towns are just to give you hints for other areas, but that's the Zelda/adventure game vibe from this era :-p And I like it. Not so nice/QoL of things that come to mind include still needing the Dungeon Key for random dungeon doors at end-game... like. That doesn't add any meaningful challenge except one inventory space being used heh. Also, the tackily frequent trapped chests from late-game enemies.

Feel: 9/10 I was already feeling the potential influence on Earthbound with the excellent different music, the way you make the menu show, and then I noticed you buy Cola and Burger! Love it! I'm loving this game on my first night! I know it's a long game, and there are many dungeons, so I'm praying this helps me begin to appreciate 3d dungeon crawling games more. I'm on to the port town to buy me a Light Suit! Bopping to the music and enjoying the Master System Look. Yesss the "Secret Thing" you buy from the second-hand shop lol. And the way the shops are labeled quite literally with Shop. So cute. Loving this.

Attachment: 9/10 Both the Look and Sound were giving me outright chills. Love it so much

Welp, I'm on my first true dungeon. I never like having to have "Lamp" etc to explore dungeons, but a) that's standard for early adventure games and gave me some nostalgia for text adventures and b) it looked kinda cool in this game (but uh, the mid-game and end-game enemies should stop dropping the consumable items for lighting up... you surely should have the mag lamp/light pendant by then). But anyway, the dungeons will be the true test of whether I will push through this game, because I'm loving everything else so far.. maybe this is the game that will get me into 3d dungeon crawlers! after all, early 3d corridors were something I enjoyed like that Windows screensaver! Ha.

It wasn't bad at all! (and indeed the 2nd cave was fun with a map, tho I was surprised I wasn't overleveled ha--oh early RPGs, they really demand grinds--and gave so much Exp and Meseta/currency!) And now I have the Compass in case I ever get lost! I love following maps (tho I'd imagine making my own would've been a headache, that's also standard to early adventure games so not a valid critique of this game), and I especially love following the world map available on Gamefaqs. My mother-in-law's name is Eppi and now I'm in a town called Eppi! Okay I will shut up before this review gets super long like all my others--but this even passed the 3d dungeon test! This feels so advanced for its time, way ahead of its contemporaries DQ2 and FF1. I'm hoping I engage this well with 90s DOS 3d first-person games too.

I love websites like Phantasy Star Cave, it shows how loved a series can be and is a nice reference for those of us new to the series. It was also nice finally playing an early RPG that I was under-leveled/not OP for. Made it a bit of a headache at times, but usually manageable. I just played FF1 similarly much less leveled than I usually would (for sake of getting through backlog heh) and it's nice to finally step up to the challenge, rather than resorting to afk grinding while playing other games until I'm OP. I'm growing up! Now if only I could shorten my reviews...

The frequency of random battles was way too high in the Ice World and the game became more and more tedious around then. Like just getting back to the town hospital was such a chore (ohhh I should've used the cathedral and then the spell that brings you to your last cathedral.) But still, overall, one of my favorite early RPGs and quite possible better than the other early JRPGs of DQ1/2 and FF1 (or at least on par with them... future playthroughs will test this). Turns out this wasn't the final boss but at last! Endgame is tough!

They certainly make it seem like that's the end! Just have to go visit the Governor. As if! I only had 2 characters left after that battle too, that was tough! At last, time for the real final boss! Great jam for it too, if only late game hadn't gotten so difficult and tedious, this might still be a favorite tho!

Lol lame excuse for attacking us as Dark Force. And of course Alisa, unknowingly, is the heir to the throne--classic early RPG ending trope there.

Yessss, great ending screen of the party and neat credits being displayed as crawling through a dungeon, again reminding me of the old Windows screensaver

Overall: 9/10 Completion: Main Story + Extras Playtime: ~12 hours

Phantasy Star é sem sombra de dúvidas uma franquia que merece mais reconhecimento. Nesse primeiro jogo, somos apresentados a uma história onde a fantasia e tecnologia existem entrelaçadas, montando um pano de fundo para a estória e suas sequências.

Eu vou tentar fazer uma resenha sem muitas comparações. Sem levar em conta o contexto da época, afinal, joguei recentemente. E mais uma coisa, mesmo tendo jogado a coletânea para Game Boy Advance, foi o primeiro jogo originalmente de MasterSystem que eu jogo mais do que alguns minutos então não tenho muito embasamento sobre o potencial do console.

A estória de Alis e companhia é um tanto simples e boba, até. Ela parte em busca de vingança após seu irmão ser morto pelo ditador do Sistema Algol, grupo de três planetas onde a estória se passa.

O jogo possui elementos bastante comuns para jogos de RPGs: um grupo de personagens, batalha em turnos, menu de textos, vista aérea em cidades e no mapa mundi, nível de personagem... Mas também tem elementos que o deixam aquém de outros jogos do mesmo gênero lançados na mesma época. E o maior de seus erros é a forma de navegação em masmorras onde o cenário é visto em primeira pessoa, com corredores e curvas labirinticas, paredes idênticas que fazem com que seja fácil de se perder. Você tem 2 escolhas: desenhar um mapa você mesmo ou procurar por mapas prontos pela internet. Esse foi a característica que me chamou bastante atenção de forma positiva quando iniciei p jogo, mas se tornou muito cansativo no decorrer da história.

A trilha sonora não é muito inspirada, mas competente. Graficamente é bastante agradável, o pano de fundo de batalhas é muito bem feito e o design dos monstros e personagens são bastante decentes. Exceto pelo mapa mundi que pode parecer feio para algumas pessoas, tenho opiniões mistas sobre isso.

Infelizmente o sistema de menus de texto é bastante rudimentar, necessitando muitos cliques se você acabar entrando em um menu errado, pois não salva a posição do cursor.

Um ponto bastante positivo é uma certa liberdade que você tem desde o início do jogo onde algumas áreas são virtualmente inacessíveis, mas que o jogo não te impede explicitamente de andar por elas. Obviamente com o avançar da história, essa liberdade fica cada vez maior. Outro ponto positivo é que pelo menos para mim, não precisei caçar por monstros para aumentar o nível dos personagens, mas poucas vezes atrás de dinheiro para comprar equipamento, o que não levou tanto tempo como alguns jogos que usam do grind para aumentar seu tempo de jogo. Falando em tempo de jogo, não sei quanto tempo joguei Phantasy Star, mas posso dizer que do início ao fim, não tive a sensação de progresso na história. Talvez pela simplicidade da estória e cinemáticas. As conversas com NPCs dão muitas dicas mas não agregam no sentido de contar uma história.

Para quem está acostumado com jogos atuais, talvez pareça enfadonho e muito antiquado mas pra sua época provavelmente foi um ótimo título. Eu pessoalmente gostei da experiência e com certeza irei jogar os próximos da franquia.

Sega's phantasy star in it's original form rivals that of final fantasy and in overall presentation i would say it even exceeds it in many ways, however many elements have aged comparatively poorly to final fantasy, and virtually every element of the game besides its humble star wars source of inspiration has been ironed out over the years into other formats by other franchises.

However, by the same token what in fact makes the game so incredible to me is it's seniority... I've played many games down the road that unknowingly to me came after many of the ideas introduced here. With a little background knowledge/experience of the era, the system it was released on (and other systems out at the time) the game is something one can appreciate from historical perspective and even enjoy while playing. I also found that this is a very good game that in the right mood I found I really could sink into.

I would even say this old master system classic beats many later produced games that are more well known (such as say Dungeon Master, even with it's fancy DSP audio lol)

The SMS Power Retranslated japanese FM version's title screen music really impressed me the moment i pressed start. the game features some really beautiful landscape and scenery in towns, encounters, and shops that remind one of older western rpgs in overall styzlation, the same can be said of the tedium of maze-like dungeon navigation. the game has a really impressive soundtrack and video/animation effects for the system and it is a must play if you are curious about sega master system. Wtih a gamefaq for dungeons are not too bad, without one it would be quite difficult as its very easy to get compleetely lost in a maze that all has walls that look the same. Other than that the game doesnt have too many 'gotchas' or pitfalls. The inventory isnt great but its not awful like the clunky inventory system of SMT. The grinding isnt really bad. There are many gates and items which one must discover that become unlocked at certain points in the game and they tend to show up in specific spots for no real intuitive reason. Also the story is really pretty goofy.

It's tough to rank or judge a game that is indeed this ancient but having played a lot of JRPGS, and a good share of crawlers and really enjoyed playing the significantly more popular Phantasy Star IV there was a lot I found I could appreciate and enjoy about this game. Overall it's worser and more aged bits tend not to be any worse than most JRPGS, while its technical marvels are pretty cool (though somewhat stunted in contemporary times of course). It reminds me a lot of Shenmue in the way it's another Sega brainchild that really marks itself as a capstone for a system and has timeless classic written all over it due to a great design with many parts that are clearly on the next level but at the same time has annoying bits or frustrating bits that age badly.

to anyone who wants to pick this up... I too, would reccomend the version reccomended to me the SMS Power Retranslation patch on a Japanese 1.02 release. You will get a better text interface in addition to the optional FM music (if you set your stuff up right.) I'd also reccomend this fun litlte fan made comic that is a lot like Nester's Adventures... It's a parody but it also doubles as a pseudo-hint book about where you are and maybe what to do next without being real spoilery or as paint by numbers as a walkthrough would be. I played it with a retroachievements account which made a lot of things more fun with the additional layer added to it. (Also with maps FFshrine is the best game in town :) )

It seems everyone and their dog will hunt down and play the old FF's, even if it's well before their time but there's proably few on here who've played Phantasy Star! If you are curious I would reccomend starting out with PSIV, (that too is a pretty good game for the system it was released on) and if you like it alright then consider this one.

In my archaeological journeys I'm only starting to realize (and appreciate) the wonderful things Sega did as they paved the way for the industry at large. Who knew!?!

I think that in playing this game I might appreciate my future playthrough of FF VII just a little bit more.