You sound like you're about to teleport back to the Days of Future Past timeline to fight the Sentinels alongside Wolverine. Which, if you are....Godspeed, my friend.
Been listening 2 him for couple years now and he is my number one entertainment and I look forward to the man's video every week...bottom line the man is a national treasure and he is 100% right now everything as I'm 42 and was there for all this stuff, great sharing a time line with him am yourself sir
@@JeremyParish hi jeremy parish you make good video nice to see about sega games . i have question can you make youtube video about atari st games , commodore 64 games, amiga games
@@pedrogabriel3158 Did you ever play the games? PStar blew away every DW/DQ game in the 8 bit era. It wasn’t until the SNES did Nintendo have anything that even remotely compared.
Best is a hard thing to define. But Phantasy Star did not pack maps along with the cartridge: you had to make your own. That was unique from anything released for the NES. I never got the sense of claustrophobia with NES games that I got from Phantasy Star while trying to navigate from memory.
@@dhaddine5472 Graphically, yes, but DQ3 has way more interesting RPG mechanics and story. I love Phantasy Star too don't get me wrong it's just hard to compete with a towering achievement like DQ3
I think it's worth mentioning we here in Brazil only got this game in 1991. Why? Because Tectoy, seeing the potential of this game, put on themselves to translate it to Portuguese, and took 3 years to do so, making it the first game to ever be in Portuguese, so yes, this game holds special place in our hearts. PS: I wouldn't recommend SMS Power "retranslation", despite its improvements. While it claims to be more faithful to the original script, in truth it changes plenty to make the characters act way more melodramatic, since this is an improvement on their minds.
One of the cool things not immediately noticeable is that when fighting a battle, the landscape of the tile Alis stands on when the enemy is encountered determines the background you see when fighting the enemy. If you’re standing on the shore, you see a beach with waves coming in. Equip the hovercraft to traverse water, and the shore goes away so all you see is the waves. Step onto a field and you see grass. Step onto a forest and you are in a forest clearing. Very cool stuff for such an early game.
@@pedrogabriel3158DQ didn't have animated backgrounds, so yes. It was something new. Also, since this is NES/SMS Works this from the US perspective and PS came out a year BEFORE Dragon Warrior, so it was absolutely some new hotness never before seen... Unlike asinine comments like yours.
@@pedrogabriel3158 Really? DQ for NES has two backgrounds, a generic overworld background and a black background. That’s not even remotely close to what I’m talking about.
Hope it gets better bud. I lost my dad last new years day... We were dirt poor and dad always helped us. This year, due to his passing and inheritance we spent Xmas in a house we now own with a very healthy bank balance... I guess im trying to say last year was very sad but this year things are obviously better... Look- I don't know your situation but i am hoping next xmas it is better for you.
It's a Christmas miracle! Jeremy not only delivering every Wednesday, but getting one out for Christmas even? Just proves why this is one of my favorite series on YT
I've been concocting a theory that the Phantasy Star games map to Rush songs conceptually, though obviously not intentionally. The first is Farewell To Kings, the second 2112, more or less, and 4 is Clockwork Angels. 3 I'm trying to find a good match to, but it's my least fave and least revisited.
Even as a Nintendo kid, I've always had a deep love for this game. It has a great presentation, and is a solid RPG to boot. Plus sci-fi RPGs were a real treat back in the day when everyone was doing Fantasy instead of Phantasy.
Phantasy Star is probably my favorite 8 bit game, ever. I even bought the Genesis/SMS converter to play it on my Genesis. I wish we'd get 3D pixel remakes of the first 4 Phantasy Star games.
Definitely one of the most important SMS games, and to us here in Europe even more so, since Phantasy Star was one of 'very' few major JRPGs available before Final Fantasy 7 here. I'd argue that this is probably the series most older players associate JRPGs with, due to SMS's relative success in Western Europe. Shame it was not nearly as successful as FF, but the same can be said about most Sega consoles in Japan - and it was the main market for these kinds of games back then, so no wonder things went the way they did. Still, Sega's supposedly on a revival streak, maybe they'll consider this series too.
I just finished playing through this game through the Sega ages release earlier this year which thankfully does have a built in map that fills in as you explore the dungeons and i really enjoyed that game a lot. That one ice dungeon that you fall into an inescapable pit in is really cruel though
Truly a Christmas miracle! This is one of my favorite titles of all time so to have the coverage of it hit on one of my favorite days of the year only doubles that opinion. I didn't grow up with Phantasy Star, at least early on, but my best friend from middle school had spent his childhood with it as the centerpiece of his family activities complete with a notebook filled with their own hints and maps. The year we graduated high school the GBA Phantasy Star Collection hit and I forewent things like romance and a career to play full time. My peers might have been doing things like forming lifelong memories while I was furiously using graph paper to make some sense out of the small digital world I had grown obsessed with. It's been over twenty years since those days and I still look back fondly knowing there was some kind of emotional salivation in those astonishing 8-bit graphics.
Man Phantasy Star... I don't know how I knew about it since I didn't get my first video game magazine until August 89, don't remember any commercials, and of all the Master System owners I knew I was the most enthusiastic. But somehow I **knew** I wanted this game for my birthday in June 89. We certainly weren't well off, so the ~$100 Canadian price tag was stiff (ROM/RAM was $$$ back then), but I convinced my mom that was what I wanted and all that I wanted. And what a game. Such a journey. I remember freaking out and crying when the Nigttmare battle killed me. Guess I hadn't saved in a bit. Took me a year and 2 long distance calls to the US to the Sega tip line to beat it haha. (First to find the Learma nut tree and second for a strategy to beat Dark Falz). What a game. There's just nothing like that experience anymore. Not as an adult.
I put your NES Works books on my Christmas list. My daughter bought me both of them. I look forward to sitting down and reading them. Thank you for your continued work on our childhood past times.
I like the original phantasy star more than the original dragon quest and the original final fantasy. Something about the sci fi setting and multiple planets just hits right. Master system kino
I definitely enjoyed the Sega Ages version of Phantasy Star since the automapping feature is essential for me. It is definitely one of the Master System's best games and that FM soundtrack is definitely good. Looking forward to your take on Phantasy Star II in a few years as that has more of a mixed legacy.
I've played this game through on original hardware, the gba, the saturn, and Sega Ages switch, and Ages is very definitely the definitive version of this game.
One of my favorite Sega games. I'm honored to have my Sega Visions logo in this episode (2:27) :P I thought it looked a little weird at first, with the backwards shadow, but as I was making it to use on a black background webpage it just made more sense. Merry Christmas/HNY -Matt / VGO
Love getting new perspective on classics, didn't think before how much Phantasy Star feels like a modern RPG with established world and characters, that have their own dialogue and backstories. One of the greatest RPG of it's time and easily my favorite game for the console.
@@larryb5677Rolf was into catgirls super early, dude was a pioneer 😂 Alis is still cooler though, she's one down ass chick. Her bro gets capped and she's like "welp time to go all inigo montoya on this lassic mf"
That frog pin with the coffee is so cute! 🐸☕ Also, it's really great to learn more about this franchise. I really only know the Phantasy Star Online games, so it's wonderful to see you explore the original one that started it all. One thing I found especially interesting is the fact that you went off-world, and got to see other planets, with people struggling with their own problems. Not gonna lie: that reminds me a lot of Star Ocean, espeially "The Last Hope," where this is pretty much the entire focus of the plot, only in a much more in-depth storytelling, for obvious reasons. Again, thank you so much for all this attention to detail, and all your hard work to take the time to teach all of us about gaming history. 😊
I remember playing this waaay back in middle school, had a friend who was really into imports, and he loaned me his PS2 and Sega Ages copy for me to try. I had absolutely zero reading comprehension for Japanese, so for a good few hours I was fumbled my way around. Despite that I was hooked. It just felt so... engaging. Found out about the Master System during my emulator binge not long, and then after became a long time fan since. While the Online games are great, I hopes we get another traditional someday.
those enemy sprites are ASTOUNDING, and they animate too! and those in-fight backgrounds, and those smooth first person dungeon crawling transitions. this game really does exemplify just how much more graphical prowess the master system had over the nes, or any other 8 bit console for that matter
its bc sega was more acessible in these places, to this day nintendo refuses to add brazilian portuguese into most of their games, not even supporting the country's game market
17:50 And when someone did attempt a similar first-person dungeon for the MD/Gen - Shining in the Darkness - it wasn't as smooth as what Phantasy Star did, and with a smaller viewfield. Although Shining did have more asset variety. Otherwise, tho, thank the maker for the Switch port and its automapping system.
I'm a purist, I suppose: the _lack_ of automapping distinguishes Phantasy Star from say, The Legend of Zelda. It really forces you to think differently.
Around '88, we had an assignment in English class where you had to write a accommodating letter giving high praise to your favorite company. Couldn't believe it, in return Sega sent me a folder stuffed with hints and tips for the majority of their catalog back then. The Phantasy Star tips had drawn out maps for each of the dungeons - how cool was that! This is how I also found out about the *hidden * snail game.
The Phantasy Star 2 soundtrack was amazing. Especially the boss theme. Really gave you that "oh boy, Neifirst is going to be a bad time, isn't she?" vibe
Phantasy Star 2's OST remained one of my favorites on Genesis, despite being so early in the console's life. It made such creative use of the sound chips in parallel, and really doesn't sound quite like anything else on the system. (It's also great for testing out emulators to see if their sound system is actually accurate.)
It's certainly got a weird synth-y sound that no other game has. It was the first 16 bit game I ever had (well, besides Altered Beast, obviously) and I fell in love with that sound from the title screen on. *bwooowwwwwwww*
I've never played a Phantasy Star game, but this original game looks amazing. I could honestly see myself playing it today and enjoying it. I might have to give it a shot. Keep up the good work and please keep saying "raw dog" in your videos.
It's easily one of the more accessible (and impressive!) RPGs of its time, and quite a pleasant experience. Just keep some graph paper at hand for those dungeons.
playing it on switch with the quality of life improvements make for a rather nice play, many discover the game like this and have a good time with it. I think it is an easy recommandation if you are open for 8 bits graphics
Make sure you write down everything the npcs say unless you want to bust out a guide in the late game lol, this game does not mind making you feel very lost
About time you FINALLY covered this one! Lol. :) I first saw this game in a mall, in a big display by Sega, pushing their Master System. P Star, as well as R Type were on a timed display, that let you try out the games for about a minute before resetting. I made a mental note to buy this game if I ever got a Master System. So, right before it was released, I got a MS and bought and played this game night and day for about a week! An all time classic! 😅
I've long had access to Phantasy Star but never actually played it, assuming its archaic systems made it too much of a bother to enjoy today. Your video not only inspired me to give it a chance, it made me aware of the SEGA Ages port on Switch (for just $8, no less). I freaking love M2's work, so I'll definitely be giving Phantasy Star 1 a try now!
Happy holidays Jeremy! I can say that I have enjoyed your videos since finding your channel in late 2023. Please keep the content going because I know how I always look for the notification!
I remember getting this game when it first came out! The Graphics, music, animation, characters, and story were all AMAZING! This video really took me back! This is my first time here, so you better believe I subscribed! Looking forward to more in the future and diving into you back catalog!
I was surprised at the level cap that prevented you from being able to steamroll the last boss. Even if you knew the strategy, it was always a tense and hard battle.
Happy to see this unexpectedly pop up when it did. I had a sms around the mid later 90s and this was one I grabbed earlier on and finished. Years went by and then when the GBA release appeared I was on that again just for the game it’s that good. Just this year a maker on tindie made a Genesis modifiable game board and I put the MD limited release onto that as well while a few years earlier grabbing that switch version too. The game is brief enough to repeatedly enjoy and not too clunky or slow to get fed up with either. It’s this happy middle ground that just works. This and PS4 are the tops, covers to a series book that are better than the pages in the middle.
Phantasy Star is such an iconic classic. Played the original Sega Master System game on the original Sega Master system this year, and it is the best I played this year. This gem should have a proper remake on todays consoles/PC.
Phantasy Star was absolutely a life-changer for me - I got to swap our NES for a friend's Sega in '89, and Phantasy Star hooked me hard. One of the only games where I actually made graph-paper maps for the dungeons, old-school style. I remember how disappointed I was when I got Dragon Warrior for Christmas of '89 - its generic fantasy plot and short runtime paled in comparison to the solar-system spanning adventures of a sword princess, magic cat, meat shield, and questionably-gendered magician (the original translation decided to use she/her pronouns for Lutz, I guess because he wasn't butch like Odin?) Hardly any video games had recognizably female protagonists at the time. At the time I probably didn't recognize how much this contributed to my appreciation. In retrospect, it stands out to me in an age where gender-affirming experiences were pretty thin on the ground. I know I'm not the only woman to have had this experience with the game!
The visual design really is top notch- I love the colorful sci-fi look, gives it the feel of contemporary anime/manga. Really fine review. Happy Holidays.
I came to the Phantasy Star series "late" (around the time when Phantasy Star Online was announced for Dreamcast). When I got around to playing them, PSIV was the only one that I took to right away and actually finished in short order, but I was definitely far more impressed by PSI than the other two entries in the series or most of the other 8-bit RPGs that I had tried. I too strongly recommend the Switch version. The automap is a nice middle ground between raw-dogging through the original with graph paper or having a full guide on hand that takes away the sense of discovery.
Original FF is a better game but it came out in 1990 in the US. So you may have a point that PS is the best 80s Rpg. But I sure had more fun with Ys1 and miracle warriors. PS1 is kind of a cryptic slog
If anybody's wanting to play a modern port of Phantasy Star, I highly recommend the version on the Switch. The game is pretty easy to go through until the last 10% or so even today, but then you start getting into the dungeons with fake walls and stuff, and the auto map is a godsend.
The SMS could animate its dungeons much more smoothly than the NES because it wasn't hampered by the NES's requirement that background tiles could only be changed during VBLANK. That's the same reason the SMS could use tiles to represent enemies and terrain in Space Harrier, the NES would have to use multiple frames to draw large tile figures. An eye-opener for me was watching a video a while back showing the whole extent of the NES's PPU RAM during gameplay in Super Mario Bros. As Mario progresses forward through the two-screen region of background tiles, the game is setting up the new tiles off-screen during successive VBLANKs. All scrolling NES games have to deal with this in some way. Castlevania, for instance, plops down new tiles in rectangular regions running down the screen's height, a system that produces an obscure bug that, if Simon changes direction at just the right (wrong) pixel, can cause specific areas of the screen to miss their update. Behind the Code did a terrific video on the phenomenon, and how speedrunners take advantage of it, here: ruclips.net/video/wd18YNZB0D4/видео.html
Well that was beautiful and a very welcome part of my Christmas morning. Hope you have an excellent new year Jeremy and I look forward to another year of video games history because honestly it's pretty much the only thing that motivates me these days. Take care!!
A friend of mine's Dad got this when it came out. We were quote "Not allowed to even breathe on it." Let alone play it. But I remember being blown away by the dungeons. I didn't get to play it until that God awful AtGames Genesis came out, which had Phantasy Star on it. It ran great on it... until I got to the last planet and the whole thing stopped functioning entirely. I then got that GBA collection with it, 2 and 3 on it. The game is still really fun to play even today.
Slight tangent: while phaseout began in the mid 70s, the US only completely banned the sale of leaded gasoline in 1996 through the Clean Air Act (with exceptions for aviation and sports racing). I'm sure US SEGA fans could still find enough lead to poison themselves during the SMS heydays. Several European countries had already banned the sale by 1996. Unfortunately the effects linger longer as the soil along heavily used areas can still be toxic.
I haven't played through this game since I originally played it in the late 80's, but at the time, I considered PS a game worth owning the SMS for. I haven't been able to say that about many titles in my 45+ years of gaming, but at the time, that was how I felt. If I played it again today, would I still hold those feelings? Who can say, but I do plan to play the updated version that hit the Switch awhile back for the auto mapping feature alone, as it will at least be an easier run through.
Merry Christmas, Jeremy! It really is incredible what Rieko Kodama and team were able to create on the Master System, blowing away other first person dungeon crawlers even up to the SNES. I’ve started Phantasy Star 1 and got half way through like three times in my life: first on the excellent GBA collection, next on the incredible SMS Power version with Frank Cifaldi’s nicely edited script that made finding where to go next SO much easier, and lastly on the Sega Ages Switch version with the amazing map HUD. I can never get myself to go through the entire game though, I always get tired after the ice planet or so and drop off. I really have to muscle through and finish it off sometime soon. In a perfect world, Sega would make an HD2D remake of Phantasy Star 1 with a redone soundtrack and voice acting and then I’ll finally finish the game lol
I think you did a good job selling as a top tier 8-bit console rpg. Something that can definitely hold it's own against games like dragon quest III & IV, and Final Fantasy III. And I also really like an RPG structure that's several decent sized nonlinear maps that are also cleanly segmented into distinct levels. That said even though I'm an American born in 98 and not a Brit who grew up with the master system under thatcher's deindustrialization, I'll still probably hold Wonder Boy 3 up as the definitive master system game. I've played a lot of the nes rpgs (zelda 2, metroid, blaster master, faxanadu) and wonder boy 3 feels like the first game in the genre to be fully formed with no major compromises. Phantasy star does seem cool though
I would love to see SEGA release the SEGA AGES Phantasy Star currently exclusive to Switch on Steam. This is one of my all time favorite games. Thank you for your insights on it.
... your comment about playing the game in the original form "on a tight deadline" came just as I was taking a drink and you darn near killed me, good sir. ^^;
Wow! And Christmas Day, no less. Phantasy Star remains my favorite RPG series. Mine started, of all entries with the third entry, Generations of Doom. As rough an intro for the series was for me, and Sega Genesis RPGs overall, it worked well enough. I didn't have a Super NES. I had a Genesis, with the likes of Sword of Vermilion, Sorcerer's Kingdom, and Phantasy Star. I would eventually move on to Phantasy Star 2, one of my absolute favorite endings to a 16-bit video game... not to spoil to much, but... "I wonder what the people will see in the final days..." Then came Phantasy Star 4, an absolute dream of a Sega Genesis technical achievement, which remains my favorite RPG of all time for classic RPGs, anyway. Overall, mine would still be the Knights of the Old Republic duology... not straying TOO far way from the influence tied between KOTOR and Phantasy Star. Storm troopers as Robot Cops, the Espers standing in for Jedi Masters, and the battle of good and evil with Lassic and, lurking in the shadows, the ever-present influence of Dark Force... i still play this one to this day, courtesy of my copy still on an old Wii console with the original Virtual Console library.
I’ve been chipping away at a Phantasy Star save-file using the SMS Power translation for the last two years. This review is pretty great, but it only gives passing lip service to what is the central “gameplay” of PS, which is dungeon map making. Whenever I think of picking PS back up again, I think “better get my grid paper”. Really, this is what the game is. Yes it has all of those other things, like story and turn based combat, but making maps to keep from getting lost in the dungeons will occupy 90% of your attention. I saw the auto mapper in the switch version, and frankly playing with one would completely transform the game. For good or ill, I’ll leave that up to you. But map making IS the game, so removing it turns PS1 into a completely different game.
My thoughts exactly. While we can't force Jeremy to play it, this might be one time where a couple of Cart-ography streams down the road would be really fun. And the raw-dogging puns must continue!
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
Jeremy, I just wanna say thank you I’ve been listening to you since my 20s now in my late 40s, it has been an honor to share a timeline with you
Excellent comment 💚💚
I concur!
Some youtubers are just a comfort to watch. Jeremy is part of that.
You sound like you're about to teleport back to the Days of Future Past timeline to fight the Sentinels alongside Wolverine.
Which, if you are....Godspeed, my friend.
Been listening 2 him for couple years now and he is my number one entertainment and I look forward to the man's video every week...bottom line the man is a national treasure and he is 100% right now everything as I'm 42 and was there for all this stuff, great sharing a time line with him am yourself sir
"Our suggested donation is 100 gold."
"But...we're saving the galaxy?"
"Our suggested donation is 100 gold."
Welcome to capitalism
@@JeremyParish hi jeremy parish you make good video nice to see about sega games . i have question can you make youtube video about atari st games , commodore 64 games, amiga games
Man, fuck capitalism. 🤬
"We're saving the galaxy" is probably a common grift in this type of setting.
"Rawdogging an 8-bit RPG" is not a phrase I expected to hear this holiday season or ever for that matter
Was wondering why Odin had a different and longer name .. 🤔 that's why
it's n-not like i'm trying to rawdog on a tight deadline b-baka
Paused the video JUST to come make this post. Was already top post. Parish gold.
Dare I say, not just the best game on the system but perhaps the best game of the 8-bit era. And that’s a hell of an accomplishment
What do you think of Link's Awakening and Metal Gear 2 on the MSX?
haha never!!!!! dq3 is a masterpiece levels above phantasy star 1
@@pedrogabriel3158
Did you ever play the games?
PStar blew away every DW/DQ game in the 8 bit era. It wasn’t until the SNES did Nintendo have anything that even remotely compared.
Best is a hard thing to define. But Phantasy Star did not pack maps along with the cartridge: you had to make your own. That was unique from anything released for the NES. I never got the sense of claustrophobia with NES games that I got from Phantasy Star while trying to navigate from memory.
@@dhaddine5472 Graphically, yes, but DQ3 has way more interesting RPG mechanics and story. I love Phantasy Star too don't get me wrong it's just hard to compete with a towering achievement like DQ3
I think it's worth mentioning we here in Brazil only got this game in 1991. Why? Because Tectoy, seeing the potential of this game, put on themselves to translate it to Portuguese, and took 3 years to do so, making it the first game to ever be in Portuguese, so yes, this game holds special place in our hearts.
PS: I wouldn't recommend SMS Power "retranslation", despite its improvements. While it claims to be more faithful to the original script, in truth it changes plenty to make the characters act way more melodramatic, since this is an improvement on their minds.
And they are right to think so.
I don't like the retranslation, either. Why change the characters' names? Fixing the overt typos from the original localization would be fine with me.
One of the cool things not immediately noticeable is that when fighting a battle, the landscape of the tile Alis stands on when the enemy is encountered determines the background you see when fighting the enemy.
If you’re standing on the shore, you see a beach with waves coming in. Equip the hovercraft to traverse water, and the shore goes away so all you see is the waves. Step onto a field and you see grass. Step onto a forest and you are in a forest clearing. Very cool stuff for such an early game.
yeah dragon quest did the same, nothing new
@@pedrogabriel3158DQ didn't have animated backgrounds, so yes. It was something new. Also, since this is NES/SMS Works this from the US perspective and PS came out a year BEFORE Dragon Warrior, so it was absolutely some new hotness never before seen... Unlike asinine comments like yours.
@@pedrogabriel3158 Really? DQ for NES has two backgrounds, a generic overworld background and a black background. That’s not even remotely close to what I’m talking about.
It was my first RPG and I thought oh okay they're all just like that
Dragon Warrior was a bit of a shock
Yuji Naka: brilliant programmer. Also Yuji Naka: your office's That Guy.
Also Yuji Naka: Convicted Felon
@@LordTeaboBaggins I think we all expected That Guy would get caught eventually.
@ Actually, that tracks 🤣🤣🤣
I could ask for no better Christmas present than a video about Phantasy Star from one of my favorite creators. Thank you, Jeremy! Happy Holidays!
Thanks Jeremy, brightening up not the best Christmas Day for me.
Hope it gets better bud.
I lost my dad last new years day...
We were dirt poor and dad always helped us.
This year, due to his passing and inheritance we spent Xmas in a house we now own with a very healthy bank balance...
I guess im trying to say last year was very sad but this year things are obviously better...
Look-
I don't know your situation but i am hoping next xmas it is better for you.
Those first person dungeons really are in a league of their own. I could sit and watch those smooth animations forever.
Yep - nothing like it before, and nothing after until perhaps Doom or Duke Nukem 3D. Maybe Wolfenstein 3D.
It holds up remarkably well even today. Testament to the idea of art direction over graphic horsepower, as well as properly using the platform
It's a Christmas miracle! Jeremy not only delivering every Wednesday, but getting one out for Christmas even? Just proves why this is one of my favorite series on YT
A JP Christmas miracle!
Merry Phantamas to all, and to all a good Star.
The Sega Ages PS2 version has a great fan translation, and it's beautiful.
In a very proggy future in a distant star system, Alys Landale bids A Farewell To Kings.
No, no…. Xanadu was by a different developer
I've been concocting a theory that the Phantasy Star games map to Rush songs conceptually, though obviously not intentionally. The first is Farewell To Kings, the second 2112, more or less, and 4 is Clockwork Angels.
3 I'm trying to find a good match to, but it's my least fave and least revisited.
Even as a Nintendo kid, I've always had a deep love for this game. It has a great presentation, and is a solid RPG to boot. Plus sci-fi RPGs were a real treat back in the day when everyone was doing Fantasy instead of Phantasy.
Phantasy Star is probably my favorite 8 bit game, ever.
I even bought the Genesis/SMS converter to play it on my Genesis.
I wish we'd get 3D pixel remakes of the first 4 Phantasy Star games.
Me too.
And I also bought the Master Gear to play it on my Game Gear.
Still have it in a box somewhere.
Do yourself a favor and pick up Ys1 and Miracle Warriors since you already have the power base converter.
Definitely one of the most important SMS games, and to us here in Europe even more so, since Phantasy Star was one of 'very' few major JRPGs available before Final Fantasy 7 here. I'd argue that this is probably the series most older players associate JRPGs with, due to SMS's relative success in Western Europe. Shame it was not nearly as successful as FF, but the same can be said about most Sega consoles in Japan - and it was the main market for these kinds of games back then, so no wonder things went the way they did. Still, Sega's supposedly on a revival streak, maybe they'll consider this series too.
It's always interesting and a little sad to see how much we Europeans missed out on and late releases there were..!
But you did have Ultima. The best RPG on computer not named Rogue.
I just finished playing through this game through the Sega ages release earlier this year which thankfully does have a built in map that fills in as you explore the dungeons and i really enjoyed that game a lot. That one ice dungeon that you fall into an inescapable pit in is really cruel though
People these days really under estimate how good Sega was back then.
Man, they really do.
Way better than Nintendo imo
Truly a Christmas miracle! This is one of my favorite titles of all time so to have the coverage of it hit on one of my favorite days of the year only doubles that opinion. I didn't grow up with Phantasy Star, at least early on, but my best friend from middle school had spent his childhood with it as the centerpiece of his family activities complete with a notebook filled with their own hints and maps. The year we graduated high school the GBA Phantasy Star Collection hit and I forewent things like romance and a career to play full time. My peers might have been doing things like forming lifelong memories while I was furiously using graph paper to make some sense out of the small digital world I had grown obsessed with. It's been over twenty years since those days and I still look back fondly knowing there was some kind of emotional salivation in those astonishing 8-bit graphics.
This is like the season finale all the plot threads have been pointing to this year. And it is well worth the wait!
Man Phantasy Star... I don't know how I knew about it since I didn't get my first video game magazine until August 89, don't remember any commercials, and of all the Master System owners I knew I was the most enthusiastic. But somehow I **knew** I wanted this game for my birthday in June 89. We certainly weren't well off, so the ~$100 Canadian price tag was stiff (ROM/RAM was $$$ back then), but I convinced my mom that was what I wanted and all that I wanted.
And what a game. Such a journey. I remember freaking out and crying when the Nigttmare battle killed me. Guess I hadn't saved in a bit. Took me a year and 2 long distance calls to the US to the Sega tip line to beat it haha. (First to find the Learma nut tree and second for a strategy to beat Dark Falz). What a game. There's just nothing like that experience anymore. Not as an adult.
I put your NES Works books on my Christmas list. My daughter bought me both of them. I look forward to sitting down and reading them. Thank you for your continued work on our childhood past times.
I like the original phantasy star more than the original dragon quest and the original final fantasy. Something about the sci fi setting and multiple planets just hits right. Master system kino
Stuck in this game as we speak :0
I bought Phantasy Star for the Master System at Electronic Boutique brand new in 1990 for $13 😄
I bought a used copy of Phantasy Star (while it was still current in the late 80's) for $100 CAD. It was a fortune back then!
I definitely enjoyed the Sega Ages version of Phantasy Star since the automapping feature is essential for me. It is definitely one of the Master System's best games and that FM soundtrack is definitely good. Looking forward to your take on Phantasy Star II in a few years as that has more of a mixed legacy.
I've played this game through on original hardware, the gba, the saturn, and Sega Ages switch, and Ages is very definitely the definitive version of this game.
One of my favorite Sega games. I'm honored to have my Sega Visions logo in this episode (2:27) :P I thought it looked a little weird at first, with the backwards shadow, but as I was making it to use on a black background webpage it just made more sense. Merry Christmas/HNY -Matt / VGO
Love getting new perspective on classics, didn't think before how much Phantasy Star feels like a modern RPG with established world and characters, that have their own dialogue and backstories.
One of the greatest RPG of it's time and easily my favorite game for the console.
It blows my mind that Myau's overworld sprite looks a lot like Pikachu - a whole decade earlier!
I love Phantasy Star. Hell, I love Phantasy Star THREE. (Three being the total number of us out there that do)
PS2 is my favorite. My homegirl Dr Amy gets down with some storm gear or dual wielded poison shots 😂
Two's the best, yeah. Nei taught us the perils of learning to rely on the doomed OP character long before Aeris!
@@larryb5677Rolf was into catgirls super early, dude was a pioneer 😂
Alis is still cooler though, she's one down ass chick. Her bro gets capped and she's like "welp time to go all inigo montoya on this lassic mf"
That frog pin with the coffee is so cute! 🐸☕
Also, it's really great to learn more about this franchise. I really only know the Phantasy Star Online games, so it's wonderful to see you explore the original one that started it all. One thing I found especially interesting is the fact that you went off-world, and got to see other planets, with people struggling with their own problems. Not gonna lie: that reminds me a lot of Star Ocean, espeially "The Last Hope," where this is pretty much the entire focus of the plot, only in a much more in-depth storytelling, for obvious reasons.
Again, thank you so much for all this attention to detail, and all your hard work to take the time to teach all of us about gaming history. 😊
I remember playing this waaay back in middle school, had a friend who was really into imports, and he loaned me his PS2 and Sega Ages copy for me to try.
I had absolutely zero reading comprehension for Japanese, so for a good few hours I was fumbled my way around.
Despite that I was hooked. It just felt so... engaging. Found out about the Master System during my emulator binge not long, and then after became a long time fan since.
While the Online games are great, I hopes we get another traditional someday.
The Europe slander is just **chef's kiss**
those enemy sprites are ASTOUNDING, and they animate too! and those in-fight backgrounds, and those smooth first person dungeon crawling transitions. this game really does exemplify just how much more graphical prowess the master system had over the nes, or any other 8 bit console for that matter
Thr success of Sega hardware in brazil and europe feels like I'm peeking into an alternate reality where Sega won the console war instead of Nintendo.
its bc sega was more acessible in these places, to this day nintendo refuses to add brazilian portuguese into most of their games, not even supporting the country's game market
17:50 And when someone did attempt a similar first-person dungeon for the MD/Gen - Shining in the Darkness - it wasn't as smooth as what Phantasy Star did, and with a smaller viewfield. Although Shining did have more asset variety.
Otherwise, tho, thank the maker for the Switch port and its automapping system.
Also, just so it's said, Shining in the Darkness absolutely kicks ass
I'm a purist, I suppose: the _lack_ of automapping distinguishes Phantasy Star from say, The Legend of Zelda. It really forces you to think differently.
Around '88, we had an assignment in English class where you had to write a accommodating letter giving high praise to your favorite company. Couldn't believe it, in return Sega sent me a folder stuffed with hints and tips for the majority of their catalog back then. The Phantasy Star tips had drawn out maps for each of the dungeons - how cool was that!
This is how I also found out about the *hidden * snail game.
I would love to see copies of that stuff!
The Switch version by M2 is really astounding. The dungeon map is a godsend and all the description for items and magic are much appreciated.
What a great Christmas surprise to see Jeremy Parish finally take a look at what is arguably the crown jewel of the Master System library
i'm not a big video game soundtrack person, but i still have parts of the phantasy star I & II soundtracks playing in my head, 30+ years later
The Phantasy Star 2 soundtrack was amazing. Especially the boss theme. Really gave you that "oh boy, Neifirst is going to be a bad time, isn't she?" vibe
Phantasy Star 2's OST remained one of my favorites on Genesis, despite being so early in the console's life. It made such creative use of the sound chips in parallel, and really doesn't sound quite like anything else on the system.
(It's also great for testing out emulators to see if their sound system is actually accurate.)
It's certainly got a weird synth-y sound that no other game has. It was the first 16 bit game I ever had (well, besides Altered Beast, obviously) and I fell in love with that sound from the title screen on. *bwooowwwwwwww*
I've never played a Phantasy Star game, but this original game looks amazing. I could honestly see myself playing it today and enjoying it. I might have to give it a shot. Keep up the good work and please keep saying "raw dog" in your videos.
It's easily one of the more accessible (and impressive!) RPGs of its time, and quite a pleasant experience. Just keep some graph paper at hand for those dungeons.
playing it on switch with the quality of life improvements make for a rather nice play, many discover the game like this and have a good time with it.
I think it is an easy recommandation if you are open for 8 bits graphics
Make sure you write down everything the npcs say unless you want to bust out a guide in the late game lol, this game does not mind making you feel very lost
About time you FINALLY covered this one! Lol. :)
I first saw this game in a mall, in a big display by Sega, pushing their Master System. P Star, as well as R Type were on a timed display, that let you try out the games for about a minute before resetting.
I made a mental note to buy this game if I ever got a Master System.
So, right before it was released, I got a MS and bought and played this game night and day for about a week!
An all time classic! 😅
Its rare for a game to be ahead of it's time in pretty much every facet but this one really pulled that off.
I've long had access to Phantasy Star but never actually played it, assuming its archaic systems made it too much of a bother to enjoy today. Your video not only inspired me to give it a chance, it made me aware of the SEGA Ages port on Switch (for just $8, no less). I freaking love M2's work, so I'll definitely be giving Phantasy Star 1 a try now!
This was my very first RPG I experienced in '88. I still play it today.
"Raw Dogging an 8-bit RPG with a tight deadline" - Chef's kiss
Unrelated to the game, but I am here for the 227 love.
This video is a Christmas wish. I have waited so many years for you to make this. Thank you.
Happy holidays Jeremy! I can say that I have enjoyed your videos since finding your channel in late 2023. Please keep the content going because I know how I always look for the notification!
You're a machine. We really appreciate all that you do.
Definitely
I remember getting this game when it first came out! The Graphics, music, animation, characters, and story were all AMAZING! This video really took me back! This is my first time here, so you better believe I subscribed! Looking forward to more in the future and diving into you back catalog!
I was surprised at the level cap that prevented you from being able to steamroll the last boss. Even if you knew the strategy, it was always a tense and hard battle.
thank you for your time and work on these. You, sir, are a youtube treasure.
I love that I learned new stuff even as a fan from its original release. An unexpected Christmas treat!
Happy to see this unexpectedly pop up when it did. I had a sms around the mid later 90s and this was one I grabbed earlier on and finished. Years went by and then when the GBA release appeared I was on that again just for the game it’s that good. Just this year a maker on tindie made a Genesis modifiable game board and I put the MD limited release onto that as well while a few years earlier grabbing that switch version too. The game is brief enough to repeatedly enjoy and not too clunky or slow to get fed up with either. It’s this happy middle ground that just works. This and PS4 are the tops, covers to a series book that are better than the pages in the middle.
An excellent gift to find in my RUclips Stocking.
This video is a great Christmas present.
Phantasy Star is such an iconic classic. Played the original Sega Master System game on the original Sega Master system this year, and it is the best I played this year. This gem should have a proper remake on todays consoles/PC.
Phantasy Star was absolutely a life-changer for me - I got to swap our NES for a friend's Sega in '89, and Phantasy Star hooked me hard. One of the only games where I actually made graph-paper maps for the dungeons, old-school style. I remember how disappointed I was when I got Dragon Warrior for Christmas of '89 - its generic fantasy plot and short runtime paled in comparison to the solar-system spanning adventures of a sword princess, magic cat, meat shield, and questionably-gendered magician (the original translation decided to use she/her pronouns for Lutz, I guess because he wasn't butch like Odin?) Hardly any video games had recognizably female protagonists at the time. At the time I probably didn't recognize how much this contributed to my appreciation. In retrospect, it stands out to me in an age where gender-affirming experiences were pretty thin on the ground. I know I'm not the only woman to have had this experience with the game!
This game deserves an HD-2D remake.
Finally, the Phantasy Star video. What a Christmas gift this is!
Just in time for the 37th Anniversary of the series
In the summer of 1990, I bought a (used) Master System specifically to play Phantasy Star. Totally worth it.
Thanks for the great video. I played the Switch version and loved it. Keep up the good work. 👍
The visual design really is top notch- I love the colorful sci-fi look, gives it the feel of contemporary anime/manga. Really fine review. Happy Holidays.
What a Christmas gift. My family is still sleeping and I’m playing chrono trigger with the cats.
Did the little girl get reunited with hers?
I came to the Phantasy Star series "late" (around the time when Phantasy Star Online was announced for Dreamcast). When I got around to playing them, PSIV was the only one that I took to right away and actually finished in short order, but I was definitely far more impressed by PSI than the other two entries in the series or most of the other 8-bit RPGs that I had tried. I too strongly recommend the Switch version. The automap is a nice middle ground between raw-dogging through the original with graph paper or having a full guide on hand that takes away the sense of discovery.
Best 8bit rpg
Original FF is a better game but it came out in 1990 in the US. So you may have a point that PS is the best 80s Rpg. But I sure had more fun with Ys1 and miracle warriors. PS1 is kind of a cryptic slog
If anybody's wanting to play a modern port of Phantasy Star, I highly recommend the version on the Switch. The game is pretty easy to go through until the last 10% or so even today, but then you start getting into the dungeons with fake walls and stuff, and the auto map is a godsend.
3:25 It was priced perfectly for homes in the middle of custody battles.
The SMS could animate its dungeons much more smoothly than the NES because it wasn't hampered by the NES's requirement that background tiles could only be changed during VBLANK. That's the same reason the SMS could use tiles to represent enemies and terrain in Space Harrier, the NES would have to use multiple frames to draw large tile figures.
An eye-opener for me was watching a video a while back showing the whole extent of the NES's PPU RAM during gameplay in Super Mario Bros. As Mario progresses forward through the two-screen region of background tiles, the game is setting up the new tiles off-screen during successive VBLANKs. All scrolling NES games have to deal with this in some way. Castlevania, for instance, plops down new tiles in rectangular regions running down the screen's height, a system that produces an obscure bug that, if Simon changes direction at just the right (wrong) pixel, can cause specific areas of the screen to miss their update. Behind the Code did a terrific video on the phenomenon, and how speedrunners take advantage of it, here: ruclips.net/video/wd18YNZB0D4/видео.html
Jeremy completes my xmas-gaiden.
Thank you!!
Never played Phantasy Star but it has always interested me as a huge old school Dragon Warrior fan.
Phinally
Huzzah, at last! Fantastic video, thank you very much!
Luke Dragon Quest, the battle music in Phantasy Star is a war crime.
Well that was beautiful and a very welcome part of my Christmas morning. Hope you have an excellent new year Jeremy and I look forward to another year of video games history because honestly it's pretty much the only thing that motivates me these days. Take care!!
A friend of mine's Dad got this when it came out. We were quote "Not allowed to even breathe on it." Let alone play it. But I remember being blown away by the dungeons.
I didn't get to play it until that God awful AtGames Genesis came out, which had Phantasy Star on it. It ran great on it... until I got to the last planet and the whole thing stopped functioning entirely. I then got that GBA collection with it, 2 and 3 on it. The game is still really fun to play even today.
Slight tangent: while phaseout began in the mid 70s, the US only completely banned the sale of leaded gasoline in 1996 through the Clean Air Act (with exceptions for aviation and sports racing). I'm sure US SEGA fans could still find enough lead to poison themselves during the SMS heydays. Several European countries had already banned the sale by 1996. Unfortunately the effects linger longer as the soil along heavily used areas can still be toxic.
I haven't played through this game since I originally played it in the late 80's, but at the time, I considered PS a game worth owning the SMS for. I haven't been able to say that about many titles in my 45+ years of gaming, but at the time, that was how I felt. If I played it again today, would I still hold those feelings? Who can say, but I do plan to play the updated version that hit the Switch awhile back for the auto mapping feature alone, as it will at least be an easier run through.
Merry Christmas, Jeremy! It really is incredible what Rieko Kodama and team were able to create on the Master System, blowing away other first person dungeon crawlers even up to the SNES.
I’ve started Phantasy Star 1 and got half way through like three times in my life: first on the excellent GBA collection, next on the incredible SMS Power version with Frank Cifaldi’s nicely edited script that made finding where to go next SO much easier, and lastly on the Sega Ages Switch version with the amazing map HUD. I can never get myself to go through the entire game though, I always get tired after the ice planet or so and drop off. I really have to muscle through and finish it off sometime soon.
In a perfect world, Sega would make an HD2D remake of Phantasy Star 1 with a redone soundtrack and voice acting and then I’ll finally finish the game lol
I think you did a good job selling as a top tier 8-bit console rpg. Something that can definitely hold it's own against games like dragon quest III & IV, and Final Fantasy III. And I also really like an RPG structure that's several decent sized nonlinear maps that are also cleanly segmented into distinct levels. That said even though I'm an American born in 98 and not a Brit who grew up with the master system under thatcher's deindustrialization, I'll still probably hold Wonder Boy 3 up as the definitive master system game. I've played a lot of the nes rpgs (zelda 2, metroid, blaster master, faxanadu) and wonder boy 3 feels like the first game in the genre to be fully formed with no major compromises. Phantasy star does seem cool though
Merry Christmas, Jeremy!
I would love to see SEGA release the SEGA AGES Phantasy Star currently exclusive to Switch on Steam. This is one of my all time favorite games. Thank you for your insights on it.
I thought for certain your intro was going to be, "Life is just a phantasy, can you live this phantasy life?"
Didn't play the original until the Switch release, but even decades after release it was worth the investment.
Yea, I recall it costing around $70 or $80. And that’s in EIGHTIES dollars.
It was the first jrpg translated in Brazil (by TecToy).
Great game.
Merry Christmas!
... your comment about playing the game in the original form "on a tight deadline" came just as I was taking a drink and you darn near killed me, good sir. ^^;
Phantasy Star is brilliant and it's an work of art 🎨. 😀👍🎮
I have a been long waiting this episode I’m so excited. One of the best 8-but dogs of all time if not the very best. Thank you for content
Was that a clip from 227? Keep that childhood nostalgia rolling in!
Great review! Big fan of this game! Masterpiece!
You made me lol at the leaded petroleum joke 😂
The Ken Burns of Video Games
I really loved Dragon Warrior as a kid. I think Phantasy Star would have blown me away if I had a Chance to play it.
Wow! And Christmas Day, no less. Phantasy Star remains my favorite RPG series. Mine started, of all entries with the third entry, Generations of Doom. As rough an intro for the series was for me, and Sega Genesis RPGs overall, it worked well enough. I didn't have a Super NES. I had a Genesis, with the likes of Sword of Vermilion, Sorcerer's Kingdom, and Phantasy Star.
I would eventually move on to Phantasy Star 2, one of my absolute favorite endings to a 16-bit video game... not to spoil to much, but... "I wonder what the people will see in the final days..."
Then came Phantasy Star 4, an absolute dream of a Sega Genesis technical achievement, which remains my favorite RPG of all time for classic RPGs, anyway. Overall, mine would still be the Knights of the Old Republic duology... not straying TOO far way from the influence tied between KOTOR and Phantasy Star. Storm troopers as Robot Cops, the Espers standing in for Jedi Masters, and the battle of good and evil with Lassic and, lurking in the shadows, the ever-present influence of Dark Force... i still play this one to this day, courtesy of my copy still on an old Wii console with the original Virtual Console library.
I’ve been chipping away at a Phantasy Star save-file using the SMS Power translation for the last two years. This review is pretty great, but it only gives passing lip service to what is the central “gameplay” of PS, which is dungeon map making. Whenever I think of picking PS back up again, I think “better get my grid paper”. Really, this is what the game is.
Yes it has all of those other things, like story and turn based combat, but making maps to keep from getting lost in the dungeons will occupy 90% of your attention. I saw the auto mapper in the switch version, and frankly playing with one would completely transform the game. For good or ill, I’ll leave that up to you. But map making IS the game, so removing it turns PS1 into a completely different game.
My thoughts exactly. While we can't force Jeremy to play it, this might be one time where a couple of Cart-ography streams down the road would be really fun. And the raw-dogging puns must continue!