"They may look dated alongside today's RPGs, but they're still gems."

The Phantasy Star series is one of Sega's most prominent series ever made- from the cult following it gained while on the Genesis and Master System to the huge popularity of Phantasy Star Online. Yet- a lot of fans had started the series with PSO, a game that came out two-three hardware generations later than any of the others, they'd never experienced the four games that started it all. Sega has now given them that chance. Uh, the first three games anyway. Do they stand up to today's standards, though?

No, they don't. But they were never supposed to, anyway :P.

Graphics:
PS1- Considering this game started out on an 8-bit system, I am absolutely amazed at the graphics. The large, detailed sprites in and out of battle put any other game at the time to shame- and the first person dungeons simply have to be seen to be believed. Keep in mind this came out around the time of Dragon Warrior 2- a game that didn't even give the player characters more than three colors, much less more than two frames of animation total :P. Reminds me, PS1's smooth battle animations only rub it in that much further o_o. For an 8-bit game, this is real good stuff.

PS2- However, as a 16-bit game...the battle animations are really all this sequel has going for it. The maps in both towns and the overworld are extremely bland...and the top-view dungeons just look boring. Add to that an annoying parallax scrolling effect (the pipes in the first dungeon, for example) that does more to OBSCURE your view than look impressive as well as the single 3D-grid battle background that carries you through the whole game...and you just begin to wonder how things went so wrong. The enemies, on the flipside, manage to be even more impressive than PS1's. Large, detailed and very animated. They've got idle stances and multiple attack animations...and then you've got the characters showing up in battle with the same kind of quality! It's such a wonder this kind of attention couldn't be given to the rest of the game O_o.

PS3- Remember what I said about PS2? Play opposites with it and flip it all around. Now you've got PS3. This game boasts beautiful walkabout graphics with large, detailed sprites and fairly good animation on your characters...but the battle graphics...uh...didn't fare nearly as well. While in PS1 and 2 we have fluidly animated enemies, here we get two frames of animation. Max. For just about everything the enemies do. Not only that, but the characters no longer show in battle to perform their attacks and instead- simply show a slash or something to indicate their attack as they would in PS1. There is simply no excuse for this lack of quality after seeing PS1 and 2 >_<.

Sounds:
PS1- Whereas PS1 boasted great graphics for an 8-bit system, the music quality is standard 8-bit stuff. The composition is nice and catchy, but really there's not much more to it. The sound effects, however, are simply atrocious X_x. It is all various forms of static noise- all of it. Turn on your TV and go to a channel your company doesen't provide you. That noise is one PS1 sound effect you'll hear quite often...and it's -grating-.

PS2- PS2 appears to continue this trend. Great graphics, standard music with catchy composition...and atrocious sound effects :P. Thankfully they used actual samples this time instead of just varying forms of static- but the sound effects never, ever seem to equate with what's going on and still manage to be extremely annoying.

PS3- Like the graphics, PS3 seems to reverse the trend in sound entirely. The music ranges from very well-done (the overworld music, the title screen music) to extremely bad (the battle themes) >_<. The sound effects, however, merely get the job done and never get as intrusive and annoying as PS1's or 2's.

Gameplay:
All three games play in a very similar fashion, so I can rate them together in this aspect. They all possess your standard old-school gameplay- IE: they're heavily reliant on the player finding their own way with only clues to guide them. You fight using your basic turn-based battle system against one or more monsters, gain new spells as you level (Except PS3, where spells are character-specific and only grow stronger as you level)...and that's all there really is to it. PS1 is the only deviant due to it's poor (and just weird) balance in battles (I will never understand why leveling increases your attack, but not the damage you do. Nor will I understand why the first enemies consistently hit you for a lot regardless of defense) and it's dungeon exploration aspect and that's only because it's dungeons are in first-person :P. So, compared to the more recent RPGs this collection was released alongside- these three games are quite bland and dated. However, the PS series does still manage to convey it's unique charm- whether it be in the extremely confusing dungeons, exploration-based advancement, challenging monsters or even it's quick pace. In these games, especially PS3- every battle is over with in very little time...letting you get back to snooping around that dungeon in a snap ^_-.

Story:
Like the gameplay, the stories of these three games are also presented in old-school fashion. For PS1, there were almost no cutscenes to advance the plot- you just got your initial goal at the beginning (Lassic is evil...I will overthrow him!) then did a whole bunch of fetch quests to prepare for the eventual final battle, recruiting 3 people along the way. However, the final twist (which I most certainly won't spoil!) shows what makes the PS series unique. It always tried to be more cinematic then the other games at the time- and featured plot twists that were unheard of in any other game of it's time...and then were used and reused by games to come :P. PS2's plot goes a step further by adding monologues to create a first-person story type atmosphere. PS3 goes even further by trying something entirely new- a story spanning three generations that changes depending on who you marry. And even then- each installment is a continuation of the others- continuing the history of the world (or I should say, Solar system) it takes place in, tying most loose threads from previous games and also leaving others for the grand finale...which sadly isn't present in this collection ;_;. Believe me when I say this: if you've the patience to handle the old-school style of storytelling...then you're really in for a treat when it comes to these games.

So, yeah- this collection looks really dated in comparison to other RPGs of today...but for old-school RPG fans, this is a godsend- and it also allows people who started with the later RPGs to see what they were missing. On their own merit, though, they were above average games...and would get an 8 if it weren't for the rather lacking presentation (intrusive pop-up windows, lazily designed menus and no effort to allow Sleep Mode and/or the ability to save anywhere, oh my!)and the crash bug in PS1 which will surely annoy 99.99999% of the people who pick this game up.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/19/03, Updated 01/19/03