Post by Dougzen on Oct 17, 2016 17:33:26 GMT -3
Phantasy Star (ファンタシースター Fantashī Sutā?) is the first installment in Sega's renowned series of the same title. It was released for the Sega Mark III/Master System, in Japan on December 20, 1987, and then for the Master System in North America and Europe in 1988. It is considered one of the pioneers amongst role-playing video games, both for its advanced graphics technology, and for being one of the first story-driven games released in the West. It is also notable for being one of the first games featuring a female protagonist after Ms. Pac-Man.
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Phantasy Star is set in Algol, a solar system consisting of three planets. There is the lush and green Palma, the arid and barren Motavia, and finally, the icy and desolate Dezoris. As the story begins, Algol is ruled by King Lassic, who while originally benevolent, becomes a cruel dictator after converting to a new religion. After a string of harsh political changes, small pockets of rebellion emerge, but are mostly ineffective against Lassic's iron rule.
Phantasy Star was one of the pioneers of the traditional console RPG format, featuring fully traversable overworld maps, complete with interactive towns, and sprawling dungeons. The player engages in random enemy encounters, both on the overworld map and in dungeons, which saw a change from the top-down perspective to a first-person view. Unique amongst all games of the time was the faux 3-D graphics of Phantasy Star's dungeons, a widely praised technological feature. Also notable were the animations of the enemy sprites, which featured considerably more frames than were common at the time. Battles featured the now standard turn-based format, with each player using a combination of weapons and magic to destroy enemies. As the game progresses, the weapons and magic get increasingly more impressive. The option to talk, which would be scrapped in later games in the series, was sometimes a useful alternative, but only for the few enemies that were able to communicate with Alis.
Phantasy Star is set in Algol, a solar system consisting of three planets. There is the lush and green Palma, the arid and barren Motavia, and finally, the icy and desolate Dezoris. As the story begins, Algol is ruled by King Lassic, who while originally benevolent, becomes a cruel dictator after converting to a new religion. After a string of harsh political changes, small pockets of rebellion emerge, but are mostly ineffective against Lassic's iron rule.
Phantasy Star was one of the pioneers of the traditional console RPG format, featuring fully traversable overworld maps, complete with interactive towns, and sprawling dungeons. The player engages in random enemy encounters, both on the overworld map and in dungeons, which saw a change from the top-down perspective to a first-person view. Unique amongst all games of the time was the faux 3-D graphics of Phantasy Star's dungeons, a widely praised technological feature. Also notable were the animations of the enemy sprites, which featured considerably more frames than were common at the time. Battles featured the now standard turn-based format, with each player using a combination of weapons and magic to destroy enemies. As the game progresses, the weapons and magic get increasingly more impressive. The option to talk, which would be scrapped in later games in the series, was sometimes a useful alternative, but only for the few enemies that were able to communicate with Alis.
