Sega Ages Phantasy Star shows the perfect way to bring a game up without compromising the actual game itself with just the right amount of quality of life changes.
First, let's look at the original Phantasy Star. Within its own manual, you were told about every item, the world, and all the mechanics, and at the end, you were given two very important tips: Note everything down and draw out maps for the dungeons. Luckily enough, it came with maps for the overworld to show where dungeons should roughly be. With those two tips and the lack of story, Phantasy Star comes off as a single-player TTRPG experience, with SEGA acting as the dungeon master. Doing those things was not only essential to getting through the game but also added a lot of time to a play-through. When the game was originally released, it cost adjusting for inflation, roughly 180$ so yeah, I'd hope I got my money's worth out of it.
The Sega Ages Remaster comes with a lot of quality of life changes, such as an auto map, increased experience and money per battle, and you're able to take a look at every item in the pause menu, see what they do, who they're for, and how much they cost. Lastly, it comes with a modern manual that even warns the player of potential issues like locking a run that you could run into since they kept this true to the original. These changes make the game more digestible without inherently making it easier, which makes for a quicker and more enjoyable experience. These QOL changes are also purely optional, allowing the player to enjoy the original experience. With the auto map feature, the player has a better understanding of where they are and doesn't have to get graph paper out just to enjoy the game, as it still offers plenty of exploration with the auto-map enabled. The increased experience and money do more than you would think on a surface level. Sure, you have a lot less grind, where essentially, near the beginning, one level would be 10–12 encounters in the original, but now it's only 3–4 encounters. With this cut-down on grind, you don't need to keep notes on what everyone says nearly as much, as interacting with the NPC's and seeing what they say is easier to keep track of in your head because those long gaps of time spent grinding are now miniscule.
On the actual game itself, Phantasy Star has very little story, and that's not why you would play this game at all. Where Phantasy Star shines is figuring out what you need to do and doing it just for the main goal established during the intro of the game. 90% of NPC's have something useful to say, regardless if you know it yet. You're constantly going back and forth, doing new things, and accessing new areas as you slowly make progress in the games world. It's a large puzzle begging to be solved one step at a time, and with SEGA only putting in essentially useful information, you never feel like you weren't told something. If anything, you just can't remember what you were told or didn't note it down and need to look over your notes, items, or maybe even spells. All this brings Phantasy Star together more than any story they could have possibly told on the Master System's 8-bit hardware. Combat is pretty basic and does nothing particularly interesting, but it isn't bad, just not noteworthy.
Phantasy Star is an easy yet very enjoyable game with the right approach, regardless of whether you play the original or the Sega Ages version. Definitely check it out if any of this sounds interesting in the slightest and I hope Sega not only ports but makes more of these remasters.
First, let's look at the original Phantasy Star. Within its own manual, you were told about every item, the world, and all the mechanics, and at the end, you were given two very important tips: Note everything down and draw out maps for the dungeons. Luckily enough, it came with maps for the overworld to show where dungeons should roughly be. With those two tips and the lack of story, Phantasy Star comes off as a single-player TTRPG experience, with SEGA acting as the dungeon master. Doing those things was not only essential to getting through the game but also added a lot of time to a play-through. When the game was originally released, it cost adjusting for inflation, roughly 180$ so yeah, I'd hope I got my money's worth out of it.
The Sega Ages Remaster comes with a lot of quality of life changes, such as an auto map, increased experience and money per battle, and you're able to take a look at every item in the pause menu, see what they do, who they're for, and how much they cost. Lastly, it comes with a modern manual that even warns the player of potential issues like locking a run that you could run into since they kept this true to the original. These changes make the game more digestible without inherently making it easier, which makes for a quicker and more enjoyable experience. These QOL changes are also purely optional, allowing the player to enjoy the original experience. With the auto map feature, the player has a better understanding of where they are and doesn't have to get graph paper out just to enjoy the game, as it still offers plenty of exploration with the auto-map enabled. The increased experience and money do more than you would think on a surface level. Sure, you have a lot less grind, where essentially, near the beginning, one level would be 10–12 encounters in the original, but now it's only 3–4 encounters. With this cut-down on grind, you don't need to keep notes on what everyone says nearly as much, as interacting with the NPC's and seeing what they say is easier to keep track of in your head because those long gaps of time spent grinding are now miniscule.
On the actual game itself, Phantasy Star has very little story, and that's not why you would play this game at all. Where Phantasy Star shines is figuring out what you need to do and doing it just for the main goal established during the intro of the game. 90% of NPC's have something useful to say, regardless if you know it yet. You're constantly going back and forth, doing new things, and accessing new areas as you slowly make progress in the games world. It's a large puzzle begging to be solved one step at a time, and with SEGA only putting in essentially useful information, you never feel like you weren't told something. If anything, you just can't remember what you were told or didn't note it down and need to look over your notes, items, or maybe even spells. All this brings Phantasy Star together more than any story they could have possibly told on the Master System's 8-bit hardware. Combat is pretty basic and does nothing particularly interesting, but it isn't bad, just not noteworthy.
Phantasy Star is an easy yet very enjoyable game with the right approach, regardless of whether you play the original or the Sega Ages version. Definitely check it out if any of this sounds interesting in the slightest and I hope Sega not only ports but makes more of these remasters.