The original Phantasy Star for the SEGA Master System gets my vote as the greatest 8-bit game of all time. I was filled with great anticipation when I finally got my hands on the sequel Phantasy Star II when it was released in the US on the infant SEGA Genesis console. I can still remember how shocked I was at just how heavy the casing was for the game. It came wrapped in cellophane bundling a one-hundred and ten page hintbook because they thought the game too tough for the average player. It was also the first cartridge with 6 megs of memory. The hintbook, instruction manual, world map fold-out poster, the save battery, and the extra memory chip all combine to make the whole package considerably heavier than anything I had ever seen. It added literal weight to the game I was already anticipating beyond anything I had ever played before. Combined with the burgeoning 16-bit era it gave me the sense that I was stepping into a much larger world. A real sense of a true shift in gaming. Phantasy Star II remains the clearest sense of generation shifting that I've ever felt to this day. The game itself did not disappoint. The first thing I did was put the hintbook away in a drawer someplace and forgot about it. The original Phantasy Star was a graphically and aurally impressive blend of science fiction and fantasy. It was a true technical achievement. It was also easily one of the hardest games ever made. It was innovative in its use of a female lead character. It was a seemingly simple tale of revenge that expands out into a sprawling sci-fantasy tale that spans multiple planets in a struggle of light and dark. Phantasy Star II picks up the story a thousand years later with Rolf. An agent in the city of Paseo on the planet Motavia. In the thousand years of peace since the original game the world has become nearly ideal as technology has advanced to the point that the people no longer have any worries. It seems that there was some sort of accident at the Bioplant and Rolf is charged with retrieving the Data Recorder so they can analyze the data and see what's happened. It's with this seemingly simple task that Rolf is thrust into the life and death struggle for the entire Algo Star System. Phantasy Star II removed the first person dungeon view from Phantasy Star for that of the more traditional overhead view. Other than that, it pretty much retains everything from Phantasy Star. It features amazing levels of animation in the combat for the time, in both the player characters and the enemies. Every type of attack has its own animation. Every single creature animates. Every single creature has a couple of types of attacks each with their own animations. The level of detail is amazing. The story plays out wonderfully and it has sort of a detective vibe to it as you unravel the mystery. And the game is decidedly dark in tone. As you follow the trail and begin to put the pieces together you begin to see the darkness beneath the surface of the seemingly ideal world. The further you go the more it connects to the first game and the more it gets darker culminating in what's easily one of the most depressing endings ever seen in gaming. It's also my favorite ending of all time. The game is notoriously considered hard. It's a difficult game. Both in the combat, and in the dungeon design. Phantasy Star II somehow managed to make its dungeons feel harder than the first person view of the original Phantasy Star's dungeons. They are massive multi-floor sprawling nightmares filled with creatures you never seem to get the better of. You never feel secure, the creatures seem to always be capable of taking you out if you're not paying attention. The graphics are amazing for what amounts to a first wave RPG. The sound and music are especially great. Just as in the original Phantasy Star the music isn't traditionally fitting. It's bold and original and it works wonderfully. The story is smart. It's very ahead of its time. Its themes are still being used today. I consider Phantasy Star II to be a perfect game.
Considering how Phantasy Star is my favorite 8-bit game of all time and how Phantasy Star 2 considerably improved upon just about every aspect you could say I was greatly anticipating Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom. I can clearly remember loading the game up for the first time and getting chills from the opening sequence before the title screen. Starting the game you're put into the role of role of Rhys on his wedding day. Rhys is getting married to a woman named Maia who happened to wash up on the shore of the Kingdom of Landen without her memory some months previous. Okay. Strange start. It's seemingly all fantasy. What's this Landen thing? Where am I? I head off to where I'm supposed to be married. The ceremony starts and is soon interrupted by a dragon that swoops in and makes off with Maia. Okay. What? Where's my Phantasy Star 1 and 2? What is this? So begins what is generally considered the black sheep of the Phantasy Star family. As you play the game it begins to reveal its true Phantasy Star self. The further you go the more you reveal that it is indeed a proper Phantasy Star. Not only is it a proper Phantasy Star, it's as great as its brethren. The story leads you up to one of the coolest twists that I've ever seen in video games. It's clearly designed with twist in mind as everything builds to it. And it's in this twist that the game is clearly linked with the others in the series. To help pull this off, they changed the graphic style of the game. They altered the initial setting. They went with new music. Everything is designed to facilitate the big reveal of the twist. They also added a cool gimmick having the story of the game take place over a hundred years or so. You play through three generations of characters. The story leads to four different endings depending on your actions in previous generations. I think people who consider Phantasy Star III to be the black sheep of the series never actually completed the game. The deliberate change to the setting was too much for them to handle. I know it initially threw me for a loop back in 1993. Those who stick with it will find an amazing game and a true Phantasy Star that introduces and plays with themes that would be of great importance in future titles of the series. The story is amazing. The graphics are a mixed bag. The dungeons and overworld graphics are amazing. The dungeon and town graphics leave a little to be desired. The battle graphics added background but sacrificed most of the amazing battle animation. You don't even see your characters at all in battle and the enemies barely animate. The character art is good. The music is dark and even scary and intense. The main theme is easily one of the greatest tracks ever composed in gaming. The story is a great lead up to a great twist. It's cleverly designed so that it packs the biggest punch possible. The challenge of the combat is tougher than most of the games of the era, but is easier than Phantasy Star or Phantasy Star II. The dungeon difficulty was toned down. They're about on par with the rest of the genre at the time, but greatly pale to the dungeon designs and challenge of the previous games. The game has good replay value with the four endings.
SEGA announced that it was ending the Phantasy Star series with Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium. Needless to say I was rather saddened by this news. Again I was filled with amazing levels of anticipation for Phantasy Star IV. I couldn't wait to get my hands on it no matter the cost. The cost turned out to be $99. It's rather famous that the two divisions of SEGA, SEGA of America and SEGA of Japan, were essentially at war with each other by the end of the Genesis era. SEGA of Japan wasn't doing that well against the Super Entertainment System in Japan. They were a distant second. Meanwhile SEGA of America was more than holding its own against Nintendo's system. They were winning. SEGA of Japan couldn't understand what was going on and how their Western division was being so successful. SEGA of America had to essentially beg for Phantasy Star IV to even be released here. Thankfully they got it out. But not without a little bit of sabotage from SEGA of Japan. The hundred dollar price. SEGA of Japan wanted to bury the game. In spite of it all, Phantasy Star IV sold, and it sold well, even at that price. In all truthfulness Phantasy Star IV turned out to be more than worth the $100 price tag. It turned out to be a truly amazing game. Phantasy Star IV picks up the story of Phantasy Star II a thousand years later with Chaz and Alys. Two hunters from the town of Aiedo on Motavia who happen to accept a job from the Hunter's Guild that sends them to the Motavian Academy located in the town of Piata. Upon arriving at the college town they're thrust into a massive story set to end it all. Phantasy Star IV is a truly perfect game. It takes everything great about all the Phantasy Star games before and improves upon every single aspect. The graphics are gorgeous. The music is amazing and it continues with the now fitting Phantasy Star music strategy of using music that wouldn't normally fit. It also wisely incorporates established themes from the previous games. The battle graphics bring great backgrounds of the original game with the amazing character and enemy animation of the second. It's the best of both worlds so to speak. The dungeon design is also essentially the both of best worlds. The dungeons are larger and more complex than those of Phantasy Star III without being exceedingly tough as those of Phantasy Star I and II. Most important is the downright brilliant story and storytelling style. All the questions raisedby the first three games are addressed and soundly answered. Nothing is ignored or forgotten. The best way to describe it is as complete. The story is smart, excitingly fast paced, and filled with actual character. The characters in Phantasy Star IV are infused with actual character. Their character shines through in their conversations with each other and in the game's comic book panel means of telling the story. Instead of just merely talking to each other with just text, panels of art appear on the screen detailing the emotion and events of the story so they're hammered home. Phantasy Star IV's story uses all of the themes of the first three games and it makes numerous connections to the previous games. It goes beyond merely visiting locations from the first two games. More than just fighting creatures from the first two games. Phantasy Star, Phantasy Star II, and Phantasy Star IV tell one long story. Those players who have played the previous games and are thorough in their searching will find amazing optional scenarios that are there for the fans. It's an amazing level of fan service. The story explains everything. It reveals details that strengthen the previous games. It reveals details you didn't know about at the time of the previous games that are just cool. Phantasy Star is my all-time favorite series, and SEGA couldn't have finished off the Algo saga in a better way. It's truly perfect. Playing through it again reminds my just how much influence it had in creating games like Phantasy Star Online and Phantasy Star Universe. Concepts and themes from Phantasy Star IV are all through the newer games.
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