Andrew Fisher (699) on 10/9/2024 9:40 PM · edited · Reply · Permalink · Report

I thought I was fully done with Phantasy Star 1. When I got my first SMS at Xmas '91, I wanted it because of all the arcade ports I saw in games catalogues, an "action/adventure/RPG" like Alex Kidd is not a game I'd have chosen, I thought I was too old for those, but as it was built in and games are expensive, I was going make do with it for a while. Then my best friend who also got an SMS that Xmas, took an interest in the Wonder Boy/Monster World games, he had a younger sister and his mum wanted him to choose a game they could both enjoy, so I found out I wasn't too old for these games after all, underneath the cuteness was some real challenge.

Phantasy Star, as groundbreaking as it was at the time for making RPGing colourful, cute, fun, playable etc., it was for me in the strictly RPG camp, not that I even knew what RPG or D&D was then, but I think I was aware of turn-based combat and wasn't having it, not till a few years later did I open up to turn-based RPGs. My best friend was openminded and rented PStar1, but hated it and took it back on the same day. So my first PStar was PStar4, but not till mid. '97, having just gotten a cut-price MD/Gen at Xmas. Actually it was Shining Force a month earlier that first weakened my defenses, I rented it not knowing it was turn-based combat and considered taking it back, but decided it was probably time to really try this kind of gaming. That led to trying PStar4, but after completing that, my mind was opened right up to RPGs, you could even say the game was life changing.

Of course I was really keen to find out what I'd missed in the first three PStars, how everything built up to PStar4, but I was in for a disappointment, the stories are a bit muddled and inconsistent with PStar4's and the gameplay slow and unbalanced. First to disappoint me was PStar3, but when I learned the game was made by a different team, I could accept it as a gaiden, a spin-off or even non-canon even though there's an acknowledgement of it in PStar4 and it did introduce Dark Force's 1000 year resurrection cycle, adapted and fleshed out in PStar4. The real blow came with PStars 1 and 2 though. So it was clear that PStar4 does follow on from these, PStar1 introduces Algo, the three planet solar system, one a desert, one frozen and the third idealistic with green fields and forests and blue waters. Palma is destroyed in PStar2 before you visit it, but Motavia has been transformed into a green fertile planet like Palma. Lashik (pick your spelling) a mid-game boss in PStar4, is the (false) final boss in PStar1, but then the recurring final boss Dark Force reveals himself as the true ultimate boss. The Mother Brain is the central issue of PStar2 and overall it's more of a world of science than magic, Dark Force being a supposed corrupting influence in the background. However PStar4 doesn't acknowledge all the events of PStar2, Rolf/Yusis, Nei and the others are only referenced as black and white images in a flashback. The Earthian origins of Mother Brain and the Earthling refugees' treacherous purposes aren't bought up, one would think Mother Brain was simply created by a council of Algoians. I think PStar2's move towards science fiction, a mysterious, almost sentient computer controlling everything, they know when it appeared in Algo, but don't know who built it, it just appeared, took control of everything and everyone fell in line and in the end you discover a space station orbiting Dezolis, a kind of space ark fittingly called Noah, the hiding place of Mother Brain and the Earthling refugees who are trying to claim Algo as their new home and Dark Force fits into all this somehow....to me it's a bit of a muddled, hard to swallow concept. PStar1 is almost the opposite for having such a simple plot, so simple that you can at times forget there even is a plot and purpose. With difficulty I first completed PStar1 back in 2000. I managed to do it again in 2007, but was determined to make it the last time, the game, the dungeons especially, get so lengthy, boring and repetitive. I was ready to give up on it as being Phantasy Star before it had matured into something good and playable, but I got the urge to play it again earlier this year. I decided I'd play it one more time and patiently grind for the best equipment before going too far from Camineet and avoid having to buy lots of flashes and transers for the dungeons. I also wanted to play the Japanese language game, doing my best to translate with Google tools, which led me to learn that originally some of the magic had the same names as skills from PStar4 e.g. "flaeli"(fire), "hewn"(wind), "tandle"(thunder), "bindwa"(rope), "telele"(terror), "warla"(wall).

Unlike PStars 2 and 3, you know your ultimate goal at the start...kill Lashik. For a while the game gives you small tasks, preparations for the final battle e.g. find and recruit Odin and Noah(Lutz). After that your decisions on where to go and what to do next are only helped by small hints and fragments of knowledge gained from people or friendly beasts. Reaching a town with more expensive equipment is a sign you're moving forward, though you also progress by collecting pieces of a puzzle of sorts that in the end combine to form the "key" to Lashik's secret castle in the sky. Lashik's presence isn't felt much through the game, except for coming up in dialog and evidenced by ruined or half-ruined villages. It's hard to think of Algo as being ravaged by a tyrant, especially not Palma, which even in old SMS graphics, looks like a wonderful green heaven. The Motavian village Sopia and the surrounding poisonous wasteland is a good depiction of Lashik's tyranny, though there could have been more of this. I think more than anything, the goal of the game seems to be to explore and enjoy more and more of the planets, the more money and experience you earn, the more places you're able to reach. I think you have to canvas most of Algo to find all the items needed to reach Lashik's castle, which isn't very sinister looking, except for maybe his throne room. When Dr. Mad appears on the way to Lashik, he says he's Lashik's "shadow", I suppose that means he's some sort if holographic projection through which Lashik can monitor Algo, so maybe Lashik is more present than he seemed, but he's is still a weak villain no matter how hard he is to beat. However, the revelation of Dark-Force as the master-mind explains Lashik's puppet like non-presence I suppose. Dark-Force does make a mid-game appearance I guess, "Succubus" in your nightmare, I enjoyed that part as it made the game more story-like if briefly, Dark-Force also could've done with more presence though.

When I first discovered "grinding" and that you're forced to do it in some RPGs, I felt it was probably one of the major things that kept RPGs from the mainstream and made them only for special kinds of gamers i.e. ones who actually have the time and patience for that kind of thing. But I think grinding in PStar1 for the first half really pays off, I found I barely needed to retreat from battle, make an emergency exit from a dungeon or a jump back to the last church or even buy food to restore health on the run. Having to use magic to get back to a town when on the verge of death means replacing used equipment then retreading ground to get back to where you were and it can really break your patience limit. And using maps adds to the playability, doesn't take away from it. There's a bit of a steep rise in difficulty near the end though. It seems that the Air Castle is stacked on top of Baya Malay Tower to form one big ascent with no hospital or other means of restoring HP and MP to full, you have to go back to the nearest town to recover and start again from the bottom. I managed to beat Lashik with only Alis left alive at the end. Dark Force is really tough though, even at close to full health, I died many times and was about to give up, I was not going to grind my levels up till I was strong enough to beat him. I forget the exact strategy that won in the end, there was luck involved for sure, but I think I used both Myau's and Lutz's protection walls and cast Myau's defense spells on Alis and Tairon (it was the JP version remember). Is there also a spell that improves your accuracy? So many of my blows missed or were parried by Dark Force it was laughable. I have a feeling I found a spell that made my hit rate improve, that I hadn't used before. I also exhausted Alis' MP with fire spells, which of course don't miss (I like how that advantage was "corrected" in 2). Dark Force's HP score is invisible giving you a lot of trouble, you can't see how close you are to winning, you don't know if it's worth persisting with your strategy or if it's a lost cause. Still it adds to the mystery and excitement, you hit him and then hope like hell it's the killing blow and I think all future Phantasy Stars up to PStar4 hid all opponent HP, though this Dark Force seems to show when it's nearly beaten by attacking only once per round instead of twice.

I go on to discuss my experiences in Phantasy Star 2 here: https://www.mobygames.com/forum/game/7748/thread/267941/disappointing-maybe-even-worse-than-pstar3-except-that-it-did-cl/