I don't really have much to say about this one. It's a pretty basic 8-bit JRPG. The game is heavy on grinding to the point of comedy, but I at least appreciate the efforts at a narrative, even if it wasn't anything particularly special. I hate not being able to choose which enemies I target, since the best strategy I'm essentially every fight would be to focus down enemies one-by-one. The AI opts to attack at what feels random so that leads to some frustrating situations. The dungeons suck but I've never enjoyed first-person Dungeon crawling, so take that opinion with a grain of salt. I wish they would have leaned more heavily into the sci-fiaesthetic too. As is, the world has little physical cohesion, jumping between the futuristic and Medieval aesthetics with reckless abandon. Overall I wouldn't recommend anyone play this beyond curiosity. 2/6

An impressive game for it's time, but it's pretty miserable to play without a guide. The menus are very slow. Chests needing a spell to disarm half the time gets pretty obnoxious with the lower MP amounts you have in this one.

I think it's impressive graphically for 1987 and I like being able to search and get nice views of the areas at any moment. Some of the music is pretty nice.

I just wish it came together a bit better, but I just don't think this has aged well.

Phantasy Star es un JRPG contemporáneo con Final Fantasy, ya que ambos salieron el mismo año con días de diferencia. Sin embargo, Phantasy Star tiene detalles muy positivos respecto al primer FF.

Por ejemplo, el pixelart está mucho más cuidado y tiene cutscenes. La banda sonora tiene algo que engancha y se nota el sonido de la Master System. Además, me parece increíble que consiguieran hacer un efecto pseudo-3D en las mazmorras. Otro detalle que me ha gustado del juego es la mezcla de ciencia ficción y fantasía, algo que por aquel entonces no era común.

En cuanto a lo malo....pues son los típicos gajes de ser un juego antiguo de la época de los 8 bits: es de esos juegos tipo "adónde c0ñ0 voy", y usar una guía es necesario. También recomiendo utilizar un walkthrough para las mazmorras, porque hay algunas que son difíciles (Baya Malay prison es una de las mazmorras más difíciles que he jugado nunca en un JRPG). Otro detalle es que si no quieres sufrir, tienes que jugar la versión de Switch que tiene automapeado o jugar la versión parcheada con x2 EXP + x2 Meseta y que reduce los random encounters, porque no deja de ser un jrpg de los 80, y ya sabemos que todos esos juegos son de grindear un montón (solo he jugado a este y a Mother, pero es common knowledge).

Como conclusión, estoy contenta de haberlo jugado porque no deja de ser historia de los videojuegos, y además es historia de mi género favorito que son los JRPG. Menos mal que ya me lo he quitado de la backlog y por fin podré jugar al II y al IV.

I really like the art and world design, the music, protagonist, and the brisk but weighty feel of the combat.

However, the dungeons make me feel kinda motion sick, the writing is difficult to follow, the story is rather weak, and there's not enough goals and places to visit and explore to in ratio to the amount of battles fought and money to be made to get there, so the pacing is just off. And that's WITH the ages version's lower encounters and higher experience. It generally feels sloppy even though it does so much new and interesting stuff with setting.
Looking forward to the sequel.

Also I think this game predicted the clone trooper design

Released just 2 days after the original Final Fantasy, Phantasy Star was actually one of the more innovative and ambitious projects to emerge from JRPG's early years. Despite the grindy combat, obscure means of progression, and sluggish pace - the standard at the time, it was the first JRPG to blend science fiction and fantasy, and the first to feature a female protagonist. It was also visually effective, with animations and graphics that were impressive for its era. However, the sheer difficulty spikes and confusing map layouts mar the otherwise intense dungeon crawling.

Pretty sure that this is the oldest JRPG, let alone RPG I’ve ever played to the end, and certainly one of the few Sega Master System games I’ve played so extensively. Despite its age, it was surprisingly engaging, though not without the pitfalls inherent in a game so early in its own genre. I also was not alive when it came out, so I have no nostalgia goggles regarding it.

My desire to check out the later games in the series, namely PS4 and PSO, made me want to at least try starting at its rather primitive origin in order to appreciate the evolution of things. I did not expect to play very far into the game, and yet, after its rough initial learning curve, I (to my surprise) found it enjoyable enough to continue!

Pros:
-Battle sprites and backgrounds colorful and well-designed
-3D dungeons, while all visually identical (besides color) are, well, “masterful” for the SMS. Kudos to Yuji Naka, who designed them.
-Exploration is fun, more so after random encounter rate-lowering items are obtained
-Rudimentary and repetitive, but catchy, pleasant and memorable music
-Played the newer Sega Ages version on Switch with dungeon maps (practically mandatory in my opinion)
-Planet-hopping. Unique setting mixes medieval fantasy and sci-fi before similar RPGs ever did

Cons:
-So much grinding. Random encounters seem endless. Speed up button invaluable.
-Sprites (both party and NPCs), when not in first-person, look even older than SMS standards, a system already not known for great graphics, even at the time.
-Dungeons can be very long and frustrating, even with the map
-Obtuse puzzles and barriers to where to go next at times
-Laughable translation

With lots of world to explore and lots of primitive and minimal, but addictive charm, Sega’s flagship FF and DQ competitor outdoes the earliest of both those series, at least. Not without flaws, but most are simply due to its time of release. Otherwise, it aged better than you’d think. If you can handle really old games , give the Sega Ages version on Switch a try!

Thank god for sega ages, I don't think I would've stomached this otherwise. It's an extremely archaic jrpg that at least tried to have a story, varying locales and decent graphics for the time, but maaan it absolutely shows its age. All of the npc dialogue is dry and only serves to tell the player of where they need to next, with very little character, though it's admittedly translated better and more informative than other games of its time. The game's comically grindy too, though the ages release thankfully has a mode that doubles exp gained. Progression is occasionally obtuse, with having to talk to an npc with unchanging dialogue multiple times being a recurring barrier behind progression. I've also never seen the appeal of making your own hand drawn maps - maybe I just didn't grow up in a time where it was necessary, but I'm glad the ages release adds an automap because I do actually like filling out maps in dungeon crawlers, and I'd probably go insane without it in a game like this, I respect the cool pseudo-3d effect they pulled off, though, super impressive for an 8-bit home console.

huge open worlds with secrets and collectables but since its old theres too much grinding, but that's honestly not much of an issue if you emulate the retranslated romhack (which you really should if you are thinking of playing this), or if you buy the game on nintendo switches Sega Ages lineup (which you also should really do if you don't wanna emulate). Exploring the various worlds to find all the items and secrets is a good time, and the dungeon crawling is both technically impressive and fun. Probably the most polished and content-rich 8-bit RPG I've played.

I cut my RPG teeth on Shining Force and FF4 - relatively forgiving entry points into the genre - but I had older schoolmates and relatives who would regale me with tales of the brutally uncompromising RPGs of their day. Phantasy Star is the quintessential high-friction RPG/dungeon crawling experience and is everything I expected from it for better and worse.

The limited inventory space, low MP totals and labyrinthe levels mean that progress was impossible without drawing my own maps, several 'test runs' through a dungeon, plenty of grinding, and a good deal of luck. This made dungeon crawling an extremely tense experience - fumbling around dark corridors and gradually getting my bearings while not knowing when the next encounter will be and whether I have enough resources to get to the end or need to escape to try another day - it adds a layer of decision making that is generally absent from the more forgiving RPGs of later years. But it's the 'luck' part that kind of gets on my nerves here - the heavily-randomized damage and booby-trapped chests can really screw a run over, and the lack of a way to target specific enemies or a rudimentary front/back row system means that there is very little strategy or tactics that goes into battles either. In other words, luck is maximized, tactics is minimized, and the only skill that the game really tests the player in (besides patience) is judgment on when to press on or retreat.

Engaging with it on its own terms though, there are plenty of merits to Phantasy Star, the strong female lead being the most obvious. The quasi-3D dungeons are mighty impressive, and the large enemy sprites (each with their own attack animation!) made me forget I was playing a Master System game! The fact that it didn't have to contend with Nintendo's infamous censors is obvious: some enemy sprites are delightfully horrifying, and the game pulls no punches about what happens when you run out of HP - you're not knocked out, you can't "fight no longer", you're dead.

From a gameplay perspective, Phantasy Star is great with exploration, giving the player a steady supply of hints of where they could go next, and unlike many other games where all but one option will lead you to getting annihilated by the random encounters, PS actually encourages nonlinear exploration by having several dungeons your party can handle at any time! And while I suspect it's more by coincidence than design, the difficulty curve is so much smoother than Phantasy Star 2's.

Perhaps its greatest achievement is its legacy - Phantasy Star is not only the birthplace of a great tetralogy, but from what I can tell it's also the first console RPG to be released in the West. Its success was arguably instrumental in early installments of FF and DQ getting Western releases, and for that I am grateful.

TL;DR - equal parts archaic relic and venerable classic, this is worth playing if you have any interest in games from that era. I'd recommend an updated port though, unless you have the patience of a saint.

Phantasy Star is my favorite of the big three long-running 80s console jRPG franchises, over Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy (and Shin Megami Tensei, if we count it); the first game makes for a great Opening Argument. Lessons have clearly been learned from the first two Dragons Quest - the game has that same basic appeal of iteratively getting strong enough to explore more of a largely-open world, but with a decent hook in the vehicles. They're mostly there to open the overworld map in a Metroidvania sort-of way, but they add fun visual and speed variety to the general gameplay loop.

I love the first person dungeons, too. It's a hallmark of early computer RPGs, but since most console RPGs took their cues from Dragon Quest's simplification of Ultima/Wizardry conventions, it's a comparative novelty among Phantasy Star's contemporaries. There's something satisfying to the smooth animation of walking down a hallway or rounding a corner, only tempered by the hope that THIS step you don't have to deal with a pitfall or White Dragon or too dense a group of Sphinxes or Sorcerers.

Fairly uniquely for this era, I find myself really attached to the cast and world(s). They're mostly simple, archetypal characters, but they're not bad by any means. Alis is a solid heroine, fighting the evil king purely for revenge. The rest of the cast are fairly undeveloped, but Myau is cute, Odin is kind of a big lug, and Noah/Lutz... gets way more interesting in subsequent games. But there are all sorts of little moments - I like the moral choices, I like the NPC chatter, I like the translation weirdness of exchanging intrinsically Japanese foods with intrinsically American Burgers and Colas, I LOVE Dark Force (I partially have to blame Mario Busters for that)... lots to love here moment to moment.