A look back at: Phantasy Star

Sega honestly never was one for RPG games as much as it was more for Alex Kidd and Sonic back in the day. But when they did, it was the Shining series and the Phantasy Star series that shone the most. Here, I look back at how the first Phantasy Star is still the best game in the series and why I actually don't like the series as a whole.

There's no real beating around the bush when looking at a list of best Master System games. Phantasy Star is on pretty much all of them considering it was probably the only RPG that people will even recall from that system. And it did its job rather well. It's as basic as Final Fantasy is, but it's got a more fleshed out story and some actually interesting characters, managing to be less static than the first Final Fantasy. Right off the bat, Alis, our female protagonist, witnesses the murder of his brother who is naturally one of those rebellious dudes against the government, which starts her journey. Now, revenge is often a common motivator for someone to set off for something. But I will say that during the story, it's becomes less about Alis's ultimate revenge against Lassic and more of the goal of liberation. While said goal isn't very well implemented, players can tell that this is what Alis ends up doing with her companions as they journey along.

So yes, the plot actually has quite some meaning for a Master System game. Let's now look at the gameplay. Well, you will always fight certain monster types one at a time, but only one is displayed even though you can fight up to seven enemies. The 3d dungeons are pretty cool overall and I like them, although you'll need a map to really traverse these places. Still though, the immersion of a 3d dungeon is pretty cool, and is explored almost entirely exclusively as the dungeon in the very first Shining game, Shining in the Darkness. As for Phantasy Star, this feature is honestly the one thing that makes it the best in the series.

So why do I not really like this game? It's sort of the same reasons I actually don't like the other games I've played.* There's a ton of grinding here. While this is par for the course for many old-school RPGs, I'd like to point out I grind more for money rather than experience, just because the equipment in this game is very expensive and there are barely any other decent ways to get equipment overall. Other things, well the Talk magic is useless, there is one space in game where an NPC decides to lure you into an inescapable trap, and quite a few plot-required items can be easily forgotten. But all things aside, this is probably the one Phantasy Star game worth playing the most, not just for nostalgia, but because it does well for its system.

*aside from Phantasy Star 4, which actually manages to not be as grindy.