"They changed too much"

Let me start off by saying that Phantasy Star 1 will on the Sega Master System will always have that special place in my heart because it popped my RPG cherry back when I was in elementary school. I remember starting out in this game with no idea what HP, MP or leveling up meant, and got so puzzled during battles when I discovered that all you do is issue commands to fight. I must have died 10 times during the first 10 minutes of the game and nearly gave up, until finally things started to click in my head, and it was only a matter of time before I was entranced by the wonderful world of Algol.

Nearly 15 years later, Sega comes out with a remake of PS1, with high-res anime style graphics and a totally re-arranged soundtrack. However, this remake is not just a new facelift, many of the core parts of the game have been changed, mostly for the sake of making the game more accessible to ''modern'' RPG players. While some of the changes are appreciable (eg. the faster walking speed), others really destroy the nostalgic feeling.

First... the music. The composer had way too much artistic freedom, and somehow managed to mangle a few tunes to the point where they sound nothing like the original. I'm all for improved samples, but when you change the peaceful yet melancholy town theme from the original to a super-upbeat new-age tune (which barely carries the original melody line), it just ruins the whole atmosphere. The grandeur and vastness of Palma's theme and the mystique of Motavia's theme are totally lost in these soulless arrangements. Just about the only theme that actually captures the feeling of the original is the Dungeon theme. PS1 had a certain ''dark'' feeling to it, however with these set of tunes, the world has a bright neo-shopping-mall feel to it, and that's just wrong.

Second... the graphics... yeah I'm going to complain here too. While the town and dungeon graphics look nice (although a little bright)...it's the battle graphics that really hurt... for some reason, monsters look nowhere near as menacing as the original 8-bit sprites. Instead, they have more of a bright, cartoony look, and are much smaller on screen. The vampires for instance, are almost half the size of the original. Also, in the original version, dungeon monsters would just instantly ''pop-up'' in front of you, sometimes giving you a scare... but in this remake, you shift into a battle scene just like when you encounter a monster in the overworld. It's a tiny change, but it makes a huge difference in the whole dungeon exploring experience. The new character animations during battle are nice, and the ability to see multiple monsters on screen is another welcome addition, but the terrible monster art simply ruins everything.

Third... the difficulty. It would have been nice if they gave us an option to select the Original difficulty, because this is way too easy. It's obvious that this remake was geared towards the impatient new-generation RPG crowd, and while I have nothing against that, I do have something against not be able to play the game the same way I played it 15 years ago. You start off with 2000 meseta instead of a 100 or so, and it seems party levels up way faster. You also do way more damage, yet monsters seem to have the same HP as before (I can't be sure because you can no longer see the monster's HP during battle). Dungeons are now made super-easy with the addition of the Atlas item which will turn-on an Automap feature for 100 steps. Since it only costs 150 meseta, you can basically buy as many as you need before tackling a dungeon and you will never get lost. This was a huge challenge factor in the original that's completely absent in the remake. Basically, the game is a piece of cake... at least that was my experience during the 1st 5 hours of play. Admittedly, I probably would have appreciated a slight decrease in difficulty, but certainly not this breeze-fest.

The fourth and final complaint are the minor changes to the storyline that just make the game more frustrating to veterans and newcomers alike. You are now required to talk to many people not once, but TWICE in order to advance the storyline. Sometimes these people are located in the most obscure places. For instance, near the beginning of the game, you need to buy a certain from a shop, but originally he wouldn't sell it do you unless you persistently tried. In the remake, in order for him to make it even possible to sell it to you, you have to talk to several people in sequence in order to trigger the event. I can see no reason why the remakers decided to make the storyline advancement more complicated and difficult, other than to frustrate players. (at the same time, they make all other aspects of the game easier)

The thing I find most disappointing about this remake is that it seems to want to please both old fans and new fans alike, but doesn't succeed in either. I really doubt that someone who got into RPG's in the SNES Final Fantasy era would ever want to play this game. What's the point of making the game more accessible to an audience who isn't even interested in a 15 year old RPG in the first place? At the same time, these changes alienate the old fans, not so much that I wouldn't buy it, but enough that I regret that they didn't preserve the purity of game. As it stands, this remake did bring back some nostalgic feelings, but it could have brought back much more if they didn't change things so much.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/07/03