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The time: Space Century 3240. The Place: The Algol Star System. It began when King Lassic turned evil and let hordes of hideous, magical creatures run amok on the three planets. When her brother was killed, Alis vowed to avenge his death and put an end to Lassic forever.
Join her in a journey across time and space to worlds where creatures speak... where magic and science combine to take you on the ultimate video quest.
--Text taken from the back of the box
Think back. Way back. Before Final Fantasy. Before Dragon Warrior. Before The Legend of Zelda. Okay, that's a little too far, back up a bit and you're there. In 1988 Sega released its first role-playing adventure, Phantasy Star, and the legacy it spawned changed the way console RPGs would be played for a very long time.
The story is one we've heard before: the king of a peaceful star system falls prey to madness, wrecking everything that is good. It's up to Alis and Company to save the world, or in this case, worlds. The only reason the story is so generic is because in the day this game was made, there was no generic story! This was ground-breaking stuff, and it was up to Phantasy Star and other games of the time to set precendents.
The game was straightforward in play, you knew what needed to be done, but the puzzles that had to be solved leaned towards the hard side on a couple of occassions. Solving one of them warranted several calls to Sega's Tip Hotline, which at the time was free. The music wasn't out of this world, but it certainly didn't annoy you, unlike alot of other games that get stuck with mix-master leftovers. And the graphics, which at the time were jaw-dropping awesome, could probably still hold its own these days.
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I compare playing this game to watching Casablanca for the first time. This is the movie where you hear for the first time catchphrases like "play it again, Sam," and "this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship..." You've heard them before, but you never knew where they came from. That's what this game is like, and it all boils down to one word: influence. You'll see a little bit of Phantasy Star in a lot of games, and I think that says something about what it has to offer. The sequels that followed were also impressive, but once you played Phantasy Star I, a little voice from within yearns for some of that old stuff. Now that's the mark of a classic.
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Review written by: Quique