Phantasy Star: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

The victorious party.

         

Phantasy Star

Japan

SEGA Enterprises (developer and publisher)

Released 1987 for SEGA Master System in Japan; 1988 for the SEGA Master System in the United Kingdom and North America; 1994 for the SEGA Genesis in Japan

Date Started: 4 March 2025   

Date Ended: 30 March 2025

Total Hours: 27

Difficulty: Moderate (3.0/5)
Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)    

      

When the final session began, I believed I had no place left to explore except what I didn't previously experience on Dezoris. I followed a rightmost pattern last time, so when I exit the city of Skure, I follow a leftmost pattern. After a lot of random combats, and without finding anything new, I find myself at the cave system that I abandoned the last time I was here.

           

These guys did a lot of damage.

     

A Dezorian greets me as I enter and tells me to go left at the first fork, but that just dumps me a bunch of levels into a dungeon from which I can find no escape (except to cast the EXIT spell). The other way isn't much better. I go up and down about 20 times, fighting endless battles against tough foes, before I finally find a chest at the end of a hallway. In it is the Laconian Shield.

    

As I exit the dungeon, I find myself suspicious that I never found any place to use my Ice Digger, nor did I find this Altiplano Plateau. After much experimentation, I discover that the Ice Digger works on some mountains, but these mountains are not distinguished graphically at all from the rest. I have to search the entire planet to verify which ones I can chop up. It takes a good couple hours to do this. It's stuff like this that makes me suspicious of quick playing times.

    

Chopping through the ice, or at least some of it.

      

The first passage that I find takes me to a large open area with lots of trees, plus one tree conspicuously alone in a clearing. Last session, I was told to use a crystal in front of it. I thought I had a crystal, but I guess I was thinking of the Amber Eye. So I can't do anything here yet.

   

The Ice Digger also lets you chunk up a huge area to the southwest of the map, in the center of which is a single cave. It is fortunately a short, single level, leading to a battle with a titan. The titan leaves a chest with a prism inside.

        

Didn't even get a shot of the titan.

      

Back on the surface, I return to the tree, use the prism, and . . . nothing. Confused, I look at my notes again. There was that whole business about the Twintown east siders being liars, and that's where I learned about using the prism. Lacking any other clues, I try using everything else in my inventory. Something finally happens when I used the Magic Torch. The tree turns green. I am able to pluck a nut from it and drop it into my Laconian Pot. So I guess that's progress. I can't remember why I wanted the nut.

   

At last, I have avenged myself on Laerma.

      

At this point, I have no more clues. I still haven't gotten through that walled dungeon in Palma, though, so I head back there to remind myself what the issue is. A guard kicked me out last time, but maybe he wants a nut. 

  

The guard in question asks me for my roadpass. When I show it, he declares it a counterfeit and throws me in jail. So I try not giving it to him, and this results in a fairly easy combat.

   

We emerge on the inside of the compound, move north, and enter a cave. It disgorges us next to a field of lava, which we cross with the Hovercraft. In the middle of a clearing on the other side is yet another dungeon. This is the Baya Malay tower, although I don't know its name at the time. This becomes important later.

     

I can't decide whether "Baya Malay" sounds more like a casino, a Disney hotel, or a South Pacific number.

    

It's a long dungeon, maybe 10 levels. I lose track with all the ups and downs. I should map it—if I should map any dungeon in the game, it's this one—but my "follow the right wall" approach has worked so far, so I decide to keep using it until it doesn't. The dungeon is full of new and difficult foes, so much that after about 20 minutes, I end up fleeing every battle. I cheat a bit by allowing myself to reload if we fall down a pit trap.

    

I did not get this the first time.

     

We finally emerge into the open air, and there's nothing to do. We can't move. We don't appear on the screen. At first, I think the game has frozen, but it does allow me to use inventory. I try everything. The prism that we found on Dezoris shows us a floating castle in the sky.

   

Now how to get there? Fortunately, I've been reviewing my notes, so I know this one. I feed Myau the Nuts of Laerma. They transform him into a winged beast, who flies us to the castle.

      

Myau's big moment.

      

Halfway there, we're attacked by a gold dragon. He has a powerful fireball attack, and he keeps healing himself, but we're eventually able to kill him.

 

Stand down, everyone. He's a good dragon!

      

The party lands in a new town with houses. The NPCs:

   

• A series of ellipses
• "Don't believe your own eyes in the depth of the dungeons." I don't know what this means, but please can I be done with dungeons? 
• "Don't go against Lassic!" Too late for that.
• The final house has a serpent in it.

   

At last, we enter what I guess is Lassic's palace, which is another goddamned dungeon. Again, it's huge. Note that there was no place to heal in Lassic's little village. The developers really expected the player to gird up for this expedition. It would have been nice if the developers had offered some high-level potions or something, as for the last 10 hours, I've been gaining money with nothing to spend it on.

   

Again, I continue to flee most battles—my spell points are distressingly low—though I can't avoid one with "Shadow." He's not too hard. "But I'm only Lassic's Shadow," he says as he dies.

     

If he's Lassic's shadow, why does he look like Dr. Mad?

      

My "follow the right wall" approach gets me in trouble a few times, as some of the levels loop around on themselves, but they're otherwise not very complicated, and I'm able to identify when it happens and put up imaginary walls so I can continue the pattern. 

    

We finally find Lassic behind a magically locked door; opening it is damn near the last spell Noah could possibly cast. He's wearing his special armor. "Ah, my children. You have done very well to come this far. You are very lucky indeed. Do you really wish to kill an old man?" YES, we agree, and the battle begins. Lassic has 238 hit points. The first round, he casts a lightning bolt spell that kills all of us instantly. What. The. Hell.

     

The party is wiped out by a pickle.

      

Searching my notes, the only thing I can find is that "Lassic lives in fear of a crystal possessed by the soothsayer named Damor." I never found such a crystal. 

     

I let myself look at a spoiler site long enough to see that I was supposed to find it in the Baya Malay tower, which I can't get into from this side. Shaking my fist at the screen, I EXIT the dungeon, FLY back down to Palma, and prepare to start all over again. (I verify that I still have some nuts first.) I still resist mapping. I'm not really sure why, except that it just doesn't feel like a game for which you should have to map.

     

This time, I follow the left walls. For some reason, I find myself fighting Dr. Mad again at a random place. But the system otherwise works. I eventually reach "The Great Damor." He has a number of questions that don't make any sense ("You are searching for Alex Ossale?"), and he kicks us out if we answer "wrong," but after a few tries, I get through them, and he gives us a magic crystal.

     

I think the correct answer to this, counterintuitively, was "yes."

    

I return to town for healing and then go through the whole sequence again: the prison tunnels to Baya Malay, the overland walk, the cave, the lava field, Baya Malay tower and its dozen or so levels, the prism, feeding Myau the nuts, flying to castle, the gold dragon, the useless town, and the half dozen or so levels of Lassic's castle. Finally, we're in front of Lassic again.

   

The crystal protects us some, but he's still a bastard, capable of massive damage (up to 100 or so hit points) to every party member with a single blast of his staff. Alis takes the least damage, probably because of the Laconian Armor. Odin misses so often with his Laconian Axe, which is supposed to be the best weapon in the game, that I switch him back to his laser rifle (which does less damage but never misses). 

   

Lassic's blast spell hits everyone.

       

My protection spells don't seem to be of any use; they always disappear just before Lassic attacks. HELP (which increases strength) is a little useful. In three attempts, I can't do any better than Alis alive, Lassic and everyone else dead.

    

Instead of a victory screen, I get: "Lassic has died. Alis accomplished her wish. Nero is satisfied now in heaven. Hurry to the governor!" 

    

I should have just taken this as the winning screen.

        

Fortunately, our magic flute gets us out of the dungeon, and Alis's FLY spell takes us back to a town for healing and resurrection.

       

Something about a goat sword?

       

We take the ship to Motavia and the Landrover to Paseo and the tunnel to the governor's mansion. When we get there, it's empty. "It has something strange. Where is the governor, I wonder?" Then we fall down a hole to another goddamned dungeon. Let me assure you that every single one of you, even those who never encouraged me to play Phantasy Star at all, not to mention various members of your family, are mentioned in the tirade that follows. 

       

Specifically, its use of English.

     

Fortunately, it's a short dungeon—a few encounters, a few locked doors, not much else. It ends in a room where at last we confront the evil Darkfalz.

    

I don't mind that this is my last time doing this.

    

"Who?" you may be wondering. Come on. You know—Darkfalz. That demonic character who has never once been mentioned at all, and who appears here with no dialogue or introduction. That guy.

 

The game won't even tell me how many hit points he has.

          

He's a bit easier than Lassic. He can attack twice per round for very heavy damage, but only one character on each attack. He dodges almost all my attacks, so I have Alis and Noah cast spells while Odin uses his laser rifle and Myau tries to keep up with CURE. I run out of spell points before the end, but he dies a few rounds after that.

    

Darkfalz blasts Odin.

     

After he dies, we find ourselves back in the palace with the governor before us. "I'm sorry; I must have been possessed body and soul by evil," he says. I guess he was Darkfalz? And maybe Darkfalz did the same to Lassic? The game could have been clearer. He continues: "You rescued our world just in the nick of time! If you had come any later, it might have been too late. We all thank you from the bottom of our hearts."

   

Then he surprises us with: "Alis, your father was once king of Algol. The dark castle has been destroyed, Lassic killed. Do you, Alis, wish to ascend your father's throne and become queen of Algol?" How was this not in the backstory?! Anyway, I can say yes or no, and nothing much happens either way. If I say yes: "Then you are the very queen of the entire system. I will assist you in all ways possible." If I say no: "No? That's fine, if you so desire. You will always be welcome here."

        

"I guess I'll just have to rule the galaxy instead. Darn it."

    

Either way, we get the same endgame text, which I offer literally: "The sky gradually clears and the peace is returned to the Algol system. A gentle breeze caresses Baya Malay. But does the breeze knows of the hardships that they endured?"

        

I'm guessing "no," because it's a breeze.

     

Each character gets a captioned portrait.

       

At least there was no forced romance between Alis and Odin.

       

"Even though the memories of evil fade away, their names will be kept in the hearts of the people of the Algol forever!!!" Then there's the group shot at the top of this entry.

   

The game has some fun with the credits. The camera zooms through a dungeon and pauses on walls long enough to offer one or two names, although most of them are pseudonyms. The story is by "April Fool," for instance, and the monster design is by "Chaotic Kaz."

       

This whole time, I thought "Myau" was a lame play on "meow." But he was really named after one of the developers.

    

So there we are: I finished the damned game that people have been pushing me to play since 2012. I suppose I needed to experience it for its impact on the genre, but I did not really like it. Here's a quick GIMLET:

    

• 4 points for the game world. It suffers the way that a lot of late 1980s games suffer in that it deserves some credit for offering more than just "kill the evil wizard" but yet doesn't offer enough to make for a truly interesting game world or plot. Its universe feels too small and artificial to in any way immerse me, and too many of the plot developments are silly or unexplained.

• 3 points for character creation and development. You get no choices in creation or development, and "development" mostly consists of increased health and magic points, plus (for a while) the types of spells you can cast. During the first third of the game, there is some satisfaction to leveling up, but it feels less rewarding in the second third, and you basically stop entirely in the last third.

    

I don't think the game ever specifically mentioned that he returned to his normal size.

     

• 5 points for NPC Interaction. They exist, mostly offering single lines of dialogue with an occasional yes/no option. They are important to understanding the world, and many of their dialogues serve as necessary quest flags. None of them feel like they have anything like personalities, but this is the 1980s.

• 4 points for encounters and foes. Enemies are well-designed graphically but boring otherwise, and the sheer number of battles discourages you from experimenting with different tactics, to the extent that you even have them. There are a number of non-combat encounters that essentially amount to light inventory-based puzzle solving.

     

Why am I fighting this guy again?

     

• 3 points for magic and combat. Again, the sheer number of battles discourages much exploration of the limited tactics that you have. I liked the occasional "boss" battle that forced me to slow down and try different spell combinations, but there aren't that many of those.

     

These guys were all over the place for the last few dungeons.

     

• 4 points for equipment. Each character gets three or four weapons, shields, and armor pieces over the game plus a number of usable items. The manual offers descriptions of everything and helps the player assess their relative value. It all felt a bit too scripted to me, with planned upgrades coming along at just the right moment in fixed locations.

• 4 points for the economy. It's useful during the first half of the game, as you're always saving for the next upgrade, and utterly useless during the second half. It would have been nice to be able to buy some potions. (The few hit points healed by burgers and cola aren't worth it the inventory space.)

• 3 points for quests. Any game with a main quest gets two. I'm not sure if the game has anything that's really a "side quest," though I suppose some of the inventory items are technically optional. There are no choices or role-playing decisions except for the final one.

       

The only choice the character gets, too late to matter.

       

• 4 points for graphics, sound, and interface. I'll never like the "cartoon" aesthetic of most console games, but there were some authentically nice graphics here, including the monster animations and the background graphics in towns. The bloopish sound, which cannot be separated from the incessant music, isn't worth any credit in my opinion. The controls work about as well as you can expect from an era console game, which is about 50% more annoying than a keyboard. There are some truly maddening moments with the interface, such as the endless loop you get into when your inventory is full and you're trying to abandon the latest useless item that you found. Having to scroll through message boxes a few words at a time doesn't feel like a necessary restriction.

• 3 points for gameplay. It has a little nonlinearity in a few places, but basically the plot proceeds from one step to another. It's almost what I'm looking for with difficulty, but it's ultimately too long and grindy.

   

That gives us a final score of 37, which is above the average for its year. It's almost impressive how uniformly it scores across the GIMLET, all 3s and 4s, indicating that it didn't completely bungle anything. Then again, neither did Final Fantasy from the same year, and it got mostly 5s and 6s. 

   

I think I liked the game less than the GIMLET score suggests, and that dislike crosses two dimensions. First, it has that quality of many JRPGs in which I get to the end feeling like the game has played me rather than the opposite. With fixed characters, a linear plot, and such limited character development in the final act, it doesn't feel like there's anything unique about my playing experience. I may as well have watched a video.

      

Second, it just feels a bit too . . . "tidy" is the best word I can think of. Everything in the game world exists solely to serve the player and move things to the next plot point, no matter how illogical or silly (the cake in the cave is going to live with me for a while). To me, nothing feels remotely real, interesting, or evocative about the places I visited or the people that I met, and yet the genre has come far enough in graphic detail that it's hard to expand the experience with my own imagination. This is an experience that I have all the way into the modern era, with games like Elden Ring.

    

The graphics are pretty, no doubt, but that's not why I play RPGs.

   

I get why it's supposed to be a landmark game. It was a flagship product for its system, a weapon against the growing popularity of the NES. It took advantage of some superior graphics capabilities of the Master System, which I guess would have made a difference in 1987 but aren't really exciting to me 40 years later, with all the development in between. I mean, it's nice that the zombies drool and the PCs don't look like children, but on the other hand entire paragraphs could appear on the screen at once in Final Fantasy and I could name my characters.

     

I get that Phantasy Star is the ur-example of the JRPG with the fixed character and plot, which (mysteriously, to me) some players prefer, but . . . why does it even make any difference here? After the introductory screens, so little is done with Alis as a character that it would hardly have changed the game if she was replaced with a character that the player could name. The same is true for the other characters, who lose any individuality once they join the party and never even talk to each other (Myau's metamorphosis being the one exception). The game offers all of the drawbacks to having fixed characters with none of the necessity, let alone benefits.

     

            

Nonetheless, numerous JRPGs have apparently cited Phantasy Star as their inspiration. If we define games of its lineage as having . . .

 

• A fixed protagonist
• NPCs who join over the course of the game
• A linear story
• Turn-based combat

    

. . . I've mostly seen its influence (amusingly) in eroge games like Rance (1989), Knights of Xentar (1991), Mad Paradox (1992), and Cobra Mission (1992). But I have seen plenty of sites mention its influence on console games that I have not experienced, including Final Fantasy II (1988), Mother (1989), Lunar: The Silver Star (1992), Lufia & the Fortress of Doom (1993), Chrono Trigger (1995), Suikoden (1995), and Wild Arms (1996). I offer that list entirely in ignorance based on secondary sources, so feel free to correct me or suggest others.

   

Of course, there were sequels. The next six years saw three direct sequels, all set in the Algol system, and a couple of spinoffs. There were several remakes in the 2000s. In 2000, the franchise released its first online game, Phantasy Star Online, and its sequels are still live today.