Genre: RPG
Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega

Sometimes it's tough to tell that this original Phantasy Star is even running on 8-bit hardware; the palette management is pure wizardry, the way it is cycled to draw cool bright red dragons against a dark blue three-dimensional looking dungeon corridor. The game is filled with little touches like tree branches drawn into the foreground. Superstar artist Rieko Kodama was responsible for the visual direction, and the monster designs are as evocative as those from the Mega Drive masterpiece sequel. As for this Switch port, the game display-- which can be drawn with a wonderful "Vintage" CRT shader-- is offset to the left side, while tastefully high-resolution party statuses and auto-mapping area is shown on the right-hand side.

"Bo" delivered two soundtracks for this game: a base PSG version, and a special second rendition for Japanese gamers lucky enough to have the FM synth module. The PSG music is well enough, but the FM version is almost on part with the music one would hear on the Mega Drive. Unlike "Phantasy Star II" where "Bo" continues to this day to blow people away with first-class minor key science-fiction themes, his work on this first title is more rooted in metal, with lots of totally bad ass riffs: take the first dungeon song, the Dezo music, the Sky City song-- just listen to those backbeats in the percussion! The FM sound effects are likewise great, and very reminiscent of what is heard in the sequel: the "all bound up!" FM sound effect in this title never ceases to crack this reviewer up.

Similar to the much later "Sword of Vermilion", the original Phantasy Star uses grid-based 3D maps for its dungeons, and three-quarters overhead perspective for town traversal. It plays very much like a standard JRPG, although there are some experimental concepts which aren't fully fleshed out, such as the ability to talk to certain monsters during combat. The game can be saved anywhere, which is interesting. Like its two immediate sequels, the game is almost exclusively gameplay-oriented, which is great. The Switch port has a cool, overlaid menu system with full stat and description tables of the game's various items and pieces of equipment.

Versus its mind-bending sequel, the first Phantasy Star is a game of trade-offs: its almost impossible to believe that the 3D dungeons are running on the Master System, such is the programming skill of Yuji Naka-- but the use of these dungeons means that aside from color, they lack the variety of the three-quarters areas in the sequel. Similarly, needing a road pass or a special vehicle are cool mechanics in theory, but the game feels spread more thin than II as a result. All the same, this original Phantasy Star is a phenomenal JRPG with the trademark implicit world building and atmosphere present in the subsequent games. As for the Switch port, the availability of auto-mapping and the Japanese FM soundtrack make it the definitive way to enjoy this wonderful title, even over PC emulators.