Sega Ages 2500 Vol. 1: Phantasy Star Generation - 1 (2003)

Finally got around to beating this thing. I purchased the Japanese release waaay back in 2004-ish but never got around to playing it. My dad LOVED Phantasy Star, having bought every entry on release. I still have fond memories as a kid of watching him play through 1-3 on our Master System and Genesis. He never managed to beat 1 but I fired the game up sometime around the late 2000's, loaded up his save file (which amazingly, was still intact) and completed the game to his delight. But I digress.

Having grabbed the fan translation of Phantasy Star Generation 1, I figured I'd give it a spin for old time's sake. Initially, the game both looked and sounded pretty good. The dialogue was amusing (especially liked being able to talk to your party) and there's definitely a lot more personality in every NPC conversation. However, the gameplay itself is what I had the biggest issue with.

While it still felt like a traditional JRPG of the 80's, battles and dungeons just weren't very fun. The encounter rate is ridiculously high in nearly all dungeons. A lot of fights feel slow and drawn out for no good reason and fleeing from nearly all battles starts to become the best course of action halfway through the game. Dungeons/caves have little to no variation between one another and a lot of boring grinding is required once you're nearing endgame. Also, the music, sound effects, and enemy designs all looked and sounded very lackluster/low-budget compared to the original once the initial "shine" wore off.

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed the game based purely on nostalgia. The game only takes roughly 20 hours to finish, tops. It doesn't overstay its welcome but it gets PRETTY close to doing so. Part of me feels like I should've just checked out SMSPower's Phantasy Star retranslation but I'm glad I got around to seeing how this remake turned out. Who knew Myau would be such a mouthy jackass?