*removes rose tinted spectacles*
Phantasy Star came out on the Sega Mark III console (the Japanese version of our Master System) on the 21st of December 1987 - it was predated as the first classic Japanese-style RPG by Dragon Quest, which came out about a month beforehand, if memory serves me correctly. Phantasy Star II was the Mega Drive's first RPG of note, hitting Sega's 16-bit system in 1989 in PAL regions. Then, Phantasy Star III followed three or four years later, complete with a radical overhaul of graphical style, music style, story style, staff and quality. Am I hammering this point into your head hard enough? These games (all three of which are included on this Collection)... are old. And, as many a gamer has commented in their time, retrogaming can be a painful hobby. Try playing Virtua Racing and attempting to rediscover the sense of wonder you had when playing it for the first time; I can more or less guarantee that there'll be a giant hole in the shape of the wonder you previously felt in the cartoon wall of your senses. It's simply not that good, and that holds true for probably well over half of the games that you hold up as being the foremost example of brilliant gaming in the history of the world.
So, I can say this for it. Phantasy Star is still the best-looking 8 bit game ever, and Phantasy Star II is still the best looking first-gen Mega Drive RPG. Unfortunately, they simply haven't aged well, hailing from the time before hardware even really allowed 2D artistic style to give aesthetics longevity. That said, Phantasy Star is arguably the best-looking game on the Collection. What was technologically aesthetically magnificent back at the end of the 1980s appeals in 2003 because of its simplicity - bright, geometric colours make this game beautifully pleasing to the eye. In this game we play the heroine Alis (striking an early blow for women's rights) who is joined eventually on her mission with the likes of Myau the musk-cat, Odin the warrior and Noah the wizard. They fight against the evil villain Lassic - the governor of Palma and a man who turned evil overnight, or so the stringy at best backstory suggests to us. Their journey takes them back and forth to and from the three planets of the Algo Star System, always working towards their final showdown with Lassic and, eventually, the overthrow of a much more profound evil.
Phantasy Star II is a different kettle of fish. The intriguing bio-technological setting is there, although the scenery appears to have changed completely, the reason for this being that it's set a thousand years later, in an Algo which is ruled dictatorially by the mysterious 'Mother Brain'. Unfortunately, this title is not without its problems. It's got a superb story; one of the darkest ever seen and one that's worth playing through until the end, where it boasts the best ending of any RPG ever. It's also very long. VERY long, for all the wrong reasons. See, this game is infamous for its horrifically difficult dungeon crawling. This game is HARD, and you can expect to sit around for hours just trying to raise the cash and experience in order to tackle that next dungeon, and when you get to the dungeon you can expect a couple of attempts before you know it well enough to get CLOSE to the end. Like the rest of the Collection, it won't sell the beauty of old-school turn based battling to you, but fans will be in seventh heaven. Graphics are pretty standard, although very nicely drawn; the focus has been shifted over to a very anime style, and there are some nice aesthetic touches. It's not groundbreaking, but it does the job. And what more can you ask for? Probably also worth pointing out here that Phantasy Star II has what is generally agreed to be one of the best endings to any game... ever - it's worth playing the entire game for.
And then we come to what was always referred to as the bastard son of Rieko Kodama's creation - Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom. The difficulty level is definitely toned down a lot from Phantasy Star II but the third incarnation suffers from a distinct lack of story elements; all too often in Generations of Doom are you left wandering around hoping to trigger the next story element. The graphics are a massive departure too - this game began life as a sequel to the eary Mega Drive game Sword of Vermilion and it shows. Graphical style is very fantasy-esque, and the series' tradmark science fiction additions don't occur until a little bit later in the game. However, out of all of the titles, Phantasy Star III is almost certainly the most ambitious. You start off the game playing as Rhys in a world called Landen. At the end of Rhys' quest, you are given the choice of marrying two women who he meets during his adventure. The one you choose will affect the next stage of the quest, and you are given another choice between brides at the end of each of those. Four separate endings should provide enough replay value for anyone, and the setting of this game is pretty breathtaking. It's pretty in its own right, and conveys a majestic feeling of space and the different worlds you encounter. On the flip side of the coin, the battle system is a little bit dodgy and techniques and magic have been rendered next to useless. But, it serves as a vehicle for this game's pretty decent story - it's a little bit off-beat, but never fails to impress with its imagination. Still, Phantasy Star III is at worst an entertaining side story, at best a very important addition to the Phantasy Star continuum presented to us in Phantasy Star Collection
I've carefully avoided talking about the sound thus far in the review, and this is for a very important reason. Two men are famous in the history of Phantasy Star, specifically for their music. These two are (going by the pseudonyms that were in the credits of all Sega games at the time) Bo and Ippo. In this collection, Bo wrote all the music for Phantasy Star I and Phantasy Star II, and Ippo covered Phantasy Star III. This music is simply breathtaking - from the opening theme of Phantasy Star to the brilliant overworld theme of Phantasy Star III, the Collection seems to do everything right. I personally don't believe that the sound in these titles has been equalled since their release, and the primitive technology of Sega's systems really doesn't harm them, because their real brilliance is in the hummable, memorable melodies that will haunt you for weeks afterwards.
It's difficult to review these games, but I've done as well as I can. It should go without saying that the genre they are a part of is a very acquired taste, and Phantasy Star Collection will only appeal to those people who already love the old-school turn-based RPGs in the Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest ilk. Phantasy Star predated both of these in the English-speaking world by a very long time indeed, and so it and its series should be deserving of the utmost respect. However, as I say, they're not for everyone. These titles are long, and hard, and can get tedious; if you're not a fan of the genre, then they won't turn you into one. But did you expect that? With this collection you get three of the best RPGs ever and over 100 hours of gameplay on one cartridge, and that's nothing to be sneezed at. And, the only things that really still grate with me are the nasty saving bug in PSI (which, as it turns out, is easily avoidable; just don't save at the end of a music loop) and the fact that Phantasy Star IV wasn't included in the collection. Still, most Phantasy Star fans will agree that PSIV is more than capable of holding up as a mid-priced title in its own right, so it could just be round the corner. If you've grown up with Nintendo and Final Fantasy (or want to see where Phantasy Star Online started out), switch over to the dark side for a moment, and enjoy some good old Phantasy Star. You won't be disappointed; after all, they just don't make them like this any more. Forget Virtua Racing for a moment, because retrogaming isn't always that painful.
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