My latest deep dive into the past of gaming brought me to the Sega Master System for some unfinished business with the classic RPG Phantasy Star. I once owned a used Master System and had this game, but had barely touched it.
My hope was to play this on my Game Gear portable using the Master Gear Converter (Sega loved cranking out hardware) but Phantasy Star was the one cartridge not compatible with it. Which was fine, as there were bigger fish to fry by the mid 1990s.
Phantasy Star was Sega’s answer to Final Fantasy which itself answered Japan’s desire for western RPGs like Ultima and Wizardry. Sega also copied using “Ph” instead of “F” from the Strategic Simulations Inc. RPG series Phantasie and the mix of dungeons and space travel from Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress. Derivative, yes, but with enough brilliant and fresh design of its own to stand out. I’m sure no one cared back in the day when RPGs were few and far between, especially on a system that was dwarfed by the NES in terms of market share.
The Sega Ages re-release for the Nintendo Switch presents a slick, polished package that maintains everything I remembered from the original with a few tweaks. An automap fills in along the right side of the screen as one explores, sparing the need to break out the graph paper. Looking closely at the map reveals the location of hidden doors so the party of adventurers doesn’t have to slam into every wall along the way.
There are also character bars on the right showing health and magic power. The pause button calls up a handy list of most items, weapons, armor, and spells for reference. Finally, my research on the internet confirms what I thought was happening - experience points and money gained from encounters is greatly multiplied from the original.
Purists who want the original experience can set the game to play that way, but fuck that, I have a life. In addition, all those tweaks do not change the classic RPG grind of near-constant enemy encounters and the eternal mystery of every classic RPG where the player hits the “Um, what do I do next” wall.
By mid-campaign I had maxed out my cash, had bought the best gear available in stores, but was stuck to a point where I had to keep sweeping through every town, dungeon, and NPC conversation to figure out what to do next.
Thanks to a good save system allowing for pick-up-and-play sessions, I persevered to the satisfying ending with my maxed out characters. The overall experience was very rewarding by itself and the Sega Ages version of this game is definitely the way to go.
The Switch is seeing a lot of these retro re-makes and collections and is proving itself a great platform for them. I highly recommend Sega Ages Phantasy Star, but would caution that, even with the vast improvements to gameplay, a big commitment of time and endurance is still required to reach its end.
