This is the first time I play a Phantasy Star game and I am pleasantly surprised with how good this was. For a game released in 1987, the same year as Dragon Quest II and Final Fantasy, this game does a lot of things right. There are 3 overworld maps to explore, each with their own style and musical theme, there is no weird impossible-to-guess-cryptic puzzles to solve in order to progress through the story (there's always an NPC somewhere giving you info on what to do), I thought it was really impressive graphically, with how detailed each monster was and how they all had an attack animation (!!!), and there was a ton of tracks for an 8-bit JRPG of the time, with multiple battle, dungeon, village and overworld themes.
Of course the added features of the Sega Ages (what a funny name) remaster drastically improved the experience I could have had if I played the original. I thought the game was a bit easy with the new pacing caused by the better rewards, but the absolute game changer was the dungeon map. My god, I could have NEVER played the original if it wasn't for that. The 1st person view coupled with the fact that every dungeons look the same make it an absolute necessity to draw the map yourself, and I don't really consider that fun. Maybe it was a bit much to spoil traps in advance though.
One thing the remaster couldn't fix though was the battle system. Spells are basically useless, making fights extremely limited and completely stakeless. Also I can't say I'm a big fan of the whole science fantasy setting, I felt like it went too much into the fantasy side of things.
If you've bought TotK on the e-shop, you should have enough gold coins to get this game for free like I did. If you like or if you want to get into old-school JRPGs, this is a really good entry for you, and if not, try it out! It's only a few bucks anyway.
PS. Also out of curiosity I tried opening the web manual included in this and it didn't work? is it just me? why must everything be online nowadays that's ridiculous?
Of course the added features of the Sega Ages (what a funny name) remaster drastically improved the experience I could have had if I played the original. I thought the game was a bit easy with the new pacing caused by the better rewards, but the absolute game changer was the dungeon map. My god, I could have NEVER played the original if it wasn't for that. The 1st person view coupled with the fact that every dungeons look the same make it an absolute necessity to draw the map yourself, and I don't really consider that fun. Maybe it was a bit much to spoil traps in advance though.
One thing the remaster couldn't fix though was the battle system. Spells are basically useless, making fights extremely limited and completely stakeless. Also I can't say I'm a big fan of the whole science fantasy setting, I felt like it went too much into the fantasy side of things.
If you've bought TotK on the e-shop, you should have enough gold coins to get this game for free like I did. If you like or if you want to get into old-school JRPGs, this is a really good entry for you, and if not, try it out! It's only a few bucks anyway.
PS. Also out of curiosity I tried opening the web manual included in this and it didn't work? is it just me? why must everything be online nowadays that's ridiculous?