I finally got my hands on a copy of the original Phantasy Star and it was not cheap!

I was a huge, huge, fan of Phantasy Star Online when I was in high school. I used to play PSO BB well into 2015 on emulated servers and I still listen to the OST today. I can honestly say the game shaped me into who I am today, but I’ve never played any of the original series.

This is my first Sega Mark III game ever and I have to say the graphics are pretty impressive.

Title screen of Phantasy Star. The protagonist, Arisa, is seen holding a sword. You see the title written in a stylized font and the backdrop is space. It's black with some stars.The title

I’ve yet to beat the game, but it looks like this is a type of game where it really helps to talk to every pedestrian and walk into every house to gather as much information as possible.

The battle, so far, is kinda annoying because you can’t pick which enemy to attack. So when it’s clearly advantageous to beat a weakened enemy so that you have one less monster dealing you damage, the game will randomly pick the one that’s nearly at full health.

scorpion looking enemy in the game. The player is fighting it on a green field and you can see mountains in the backdrop

I was also surprised at how smooth the animation was in the 3D dungeon area, but it would really help if there was a map. I scribbled it down as I explored but I must have screwed up somewhere because my map ended up being twice as big when compared to something I found on the internet. Oh and the music in the dungeon is amazing! I recognized it right away because they used it in PSO too!

Dungeon crawling and fighting a green, slimy enemy

a scribble of a map of the dungeon

Again, it’s just such a pretty game!

a space ship flying over some terrain

the spaceship has reached orbit and you can see the blue planet in the distance

And I love how manuals from the era had some much more info on it.

a photo of the game's manual. It contains images and text that complements the story in the game.