"Does the Phantasy Star series stand the test of time?"

Does the Phantasy Star series stand the test of time?

Phantasy Star is an RPG series produced by Sega and developed by Sega's in house dev team, Sonic Team (yes...these are the guys that make the Sonic games.) Phantasy Star's origin is an traditional based RPG, the original series span four parts and two gaidens that were never released outside of Japan. Part four was said to be the last in its lineage.

Later, during the Dreamcast era, Sega had created a spin off to the saga: Phantasy Star Online, which spanned three parts. Now they have current plans for another Phantasy Star game, Phantasy Star Universe.

However, you didn't click this for a history lesson on Phantasy Star, so on with the review.

Phantasy Star Collection (co-developed by THQ for the GBA) is composed of three out of the four titles, which are parts one, two and three. I shall review each accordingly.

Phantasy Star 1

Story: 5/10

This starts out in a typical fashion, a young girl's life is ruined by the big powerful evil empire and swears vengeance. She is later joined by people willing to fight for the same cause. Unfortunate that is about as much story as you can muster at face value. You will gain some more insight by talking to various NPCs in the game but not much, just barely enough info to be lead in the right direction. The modern gamer of today may be a bit lost due to the sheer lack of direction that is given.

Graphics: 7/10
Keep in mind that this game was made in 1988 and has 3-D dungeons, that was a quite a feat for an 8-bit system. The character spites aren't that bad as well and the overall world maps are vivid and grand in size.

Gameplay: 6/10
The ability to travel between planets to is great thing to do in any RPG, let alone this one. Multiple vehicles to traverse the planets landscape help adds variety to this game. The battle system is turn-based with four party members, meaning the one with the highest speed rating will go first than the second and so forth. Long time RPGers know what to expect from the this type of system. The difficulty of the game doesn't lie in the battles you will face (until the end anyway...) but rather the lack of info given to drive you quest forward, it's not fun when you are stuck for days because you don't know what to do and you've talked to every NPC on each planet.

The lack of a map in the later 3-D dungeons might throw off the causal player from finishing the game.

Sound: 6/10 (For Phantasy Star Collection in general)*
The sound is something to be desired on the GBA, you can hardly hear the game at times which is a shame because they all have some good musical scores.

Overall: 6/10

Phantasy Star II

Story 7/10

A step up from PS I, PS II pits you in the role of an government agent. It's your duty to investigate the current state of the planet and report back to the government. However, things aren't as they seem as you get tangled in a web of conspiracy and discover your connection to the girl of your dreams.

Graphics: 6/10

Not stellar for an 16-bit game, the map sprites are generic and bland. The walking animation is horrid. However, the battle animation is great as you get to see your character perform attacks and spells, something you don't get in PSI or PSII. The world map uses a darker color tone than it's former, but it fits well for the story's theme (it's not exactly happy...)

Gameplay: 7/10

You get to do the same things on the world map as you did in PSI, (sans the fact that you get to travel to two planets instead of three this time.) The battle system is turn based with a four party team, but the command actions aren't your standard fare. You are given two options, fight and strategy. Choosing fight prompts a chain command that tells you characters to fight until you hit “b” which cancels it. Choosing strategy allows the player to select from the available options, command and run. Run let's you...er...run while command gives the player a selection of options: fight, magic, items and defend.

The dungeon layout is punishing because it requires players to backtrack...a lot and the fact that it does it as early as the first dungeon is a bit of a turn off (especially with no map). The enemies in this game are hard, this may are may not be a good thing depending on the player.

Sound: Already covered*

Overall: 6.5 (let's round that to a 7)

Phantasy Star III

Story: 6/10

The only thing that gives PSIII a boost over PSI is the fact that it's story is told over a time period of three generations, which is a unique concept for any RPG. Other than that, it's your usual suspects (at least for the first generation, the story gets better later on.)

Graphics: 7/10

The walking animation is done the best in this game, world map here sports the darkest color tones out of the three yet they are done in a realistic fashion. The world isn't overly bright, the grass has just the right hue of green, it's really a great job. The town and dungeon layout is something to be desired, both bland and unimaginative, unlike the others. The only battle animation you have is from your enemies and tis' horrid (the most you can expect is a wiggle.)

Gameplay: 5/10

No vehicles to mention and no planetary travel makes me very sad. The battle system is turn-based with five party members, the menu is hard to decipher with any manual help. Your commands consist of four options represented by icons, a wind up key (attack), a wind up key with a bar along side it (chain command), an image composed of four smaller images: a sword, a cane, a chest and a shield (this is your command option) and the last one is a man running (this should be obvious, it's the run feature.) This is only the PS game with a world map, it does its job but does little to actually help you.

Sound: Already covered*

Overall: 6

Phantasy Star Collection Rating: 6.33333333333333...etc (Round that off to 6)

Rent or Buy:

I don't suggest renting this game because each of them have too vast an amount of content, so vast that it isn't possible to explore in the limited time span you are given in the average length of a rental. I don't suggest buying this game if you are impatient, the Phantasy Stars below IV don't other much in the way of character development or even character interaction (something that is common place in RPGs nowadays) and you won't get the majority of the story if you simply try to skip through it (which you will have a hard time doing so.) I suggest a buy only to those who are patient and no rental under any means whatsoever.

There are other RPGs for the GBA that are better, but for those who have the patience to stay with the games will find a collection of challenging RPGs that will keep you busy for a long time.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/09/05