Phantasy Star

[Cromwell]

I want to play one of these games, or more if they are good. Since I cant count on the opinions outside of the safe walls of the codex I ask you which of these is the best or the best to start with and why.

 

[Hobo Elf]

If you have to play one then I guess go with PS4, simply because it's the most refined entry in the series. I'd try to play them all, however.

 

[abnaxus]

2 > 1 > 4 > 3

 

[Cromwell]

2 > 1 > 4 > 3

elaborate please.

 

[abnaxus]

1 is the least linear game in the series, main quest parts can be completed in any order.

2 & 1 have almost no story but elaborate dungeons, sometimes extremely so; plus some grinding in the beginning (and extreme grinding at the end of 2 if you want Megid).

4 has zero grinding, a rich storyline but very simple dungeons; aside from main quest there are some short sidequests; combat is highly improved from previous games.

3 is basically a spin-off, some interesting C&C but extremely ugly enemy design made me dislike it overall.

If you play main series in order you also pick up some references in later games.

 

[Jason Liang]

IV is the crowning masterpiece of the series.

III is super grindy and difficult.

I is a RPG classic but not terribly outstanding by today's standards. Still playable - probably more playable than DQ I and DQ II.

IV > II > III > I

 

[A user named cat]

It's not a particularly great series but when you had a Sega system, there wasn't much to choose from in the RPG department. As mentioned, IV is the pinnacle of the series. II and III are shit. I is great for a nostalgia trip but not worth bothering with now if you didn't play it during your childhood. So just play IV, forget the rest and ignore the PSO mmo crap.

 

[flyingjohn]

If you are interested in playing 1 and 2 you are gonna need to play with a speedup option,else the grind is unbearable.
But i guess that applies to most old school jrpg.

 

[MRY]

Here are my two cents.

Background: PSIII was one of the first 16-bit jRPGs I played, so I have a soft spot for it. Given the lavish praise PSII received, I went back and tried many times to play it. Later, I played PSIV. I've never played PSI.

One of the cool thinks about the series is that, like Might & Magic, the games all take place in the same universe and interconnect in various ways. (Less so than with Ultima.) PSIII is the most separated from the others, but they're all a coherent whole with specific plot points, themes, mythology, and visuals arching over the whole series. I imagine that if one played the series start to finish, it would have been a particularly special experience -- each game was a significant technological and narrative achievement at its time, so in "real time," the bright spots would've burned brighter and the dark swaths would've been much harder to detect. For instance, while PSIII gets a lot of hate, I really enjoyed it at the time.

As others have said, PSIV is the best by a country mile. It has a cool use of manga cutscenes, the characters are the best developed (within the real of anime cheese), the visuals are the best overall (though each game has aspects that outshine the others), the music is catchy, and the battle system is complicated and clever. There's a neat bounty hunting mechanic, IIRC, which adds a gameplay layer that makes the grinding less annoying.

PSII's grinding and encounter rate is appalling. I could never finish it as a kid. Even played on an emulator with quicksave and speed-up functions, I'm not sure I ever made it all the way through. The aspect of the game that is most praised is its use of characters and plot twists; in 1989, these were groundbreaking simply because jRPGs had such thin plots and characterization. 28 years later, they are worn out cliches and very thin and unconvincing in comparison to even games around the same era. The combat system is attractive, but boring. The large roster of companions, whom you can freely swap in and out of the party, is a neat concept but ultimately tedious because inactive characters don't level, grinding takes forever, and to swap characters you have to schlep back and forth to your home.

PSIII has several cool ideas -- it spans three generations, and at the end of the first and second generation you pick which of two brides to marry, meaning that there are four paths through the game. While there is considerable overlap in content, there are also some unique elements to each such that if you play them all, you learn more about the overall plot and characters. There are some nice touches like characters who are young men in one generation showing up as old men in the next. The general magic vs. tech theme is pretty lame, but when I played it it seemed novel enough. It has a quasi-Metroidvania exploration system (not uncommon to jRPGs of the era) where you see areas but can't get to them until you have some new vehicle or power later. Overall it's not a great game though.

I think my bottom line would be that you should just play PSIV and skip the rest, unless you have huge helpings of time and a high patience threshold, in which case the experience of playing all four will probably be marginally better.

 

[Jason Liang]

If you are interested in playing 1 and 2 you are gonna need to play with a speedup option,else the grind is unbearable.
But i guess that applies to most old school jrpg.

So this is a cultural difference.

I had a Japanese American roommate in college who was playing through all the Phantasy Stars (I think there was a Phantasy Star collection for th PS1 or something?). When he got through Phantasy Star III I asked him what he thought.
"It wasn't really remarkable," he said.
I asked, "But wasn't it challenging?"
He said, "Nope, actually it was super easy."
I said, "I remember the dungeons were really hard throughout."
He said, "Well, I bought a pair of Royal Needlers in the first town and they killed everything in one hit until I got to the end."
...

 

[flyingjohn]

Here are my two cents.

Background: PSIII was one of the first 16-bit jRPGs I played, so I have a soft spot for it. Given the lavish praise PSII received, I went back and tried many times to play it. Later, I played PSIV. I've never played PSI.

One of the cool thinks about the series is that, like Might & Magic, the games all take place in the same universe and interconnect in various ways. (Less so than with Ultima.) PSIII is the most separated from the others, but they're all a coherent whole with specific plot points, themes, mythology, and visuals arching over the whole series. I imagine that if one played the series start to finish, it would have been a particularly special experience -- each game was a significant technological and narrative achievement at its time, so in "real time," the bright spots would've burned brighter and the dark swaths would've been much harder to detect. For instance, while PSIII gets a lot of hate, I really enjoyed it at the time.

As others have said, PSIV is the best by a country mile. It has a cool use of manga cutscenes, the characters are the best developed (within the real of anime cheese), the visuals are the best overall (though each game has aspects that outshine the others), the music is catchy, and the battle system is complicated and clever. There's a neat bounty hunting mechanic, IIRC, which adds a gameplay layer that makes the grinding less annoying.

PSII's grinding and encounter rate is appalling. I could never finish it as a kid. Even played on an emulator with quicksave and speed-up functions, I'm not sure I ever made it all the way through. The aspect of the game that is most praised is its use of characters and plot twists; in 1989, these were groundbreaking simply because jRPGs had such thin plots and characterization. 28 years later, they are worn out cliches and very thin and unconvincing in comparison to even games around the same era. The combat system is attractive, but boring. The large roster of companions, whom you can freely swap in and out of the party, is a neat concept but ultimately tedious because inactive characters don't level, grinding takes forever, and to swap characters you have to schlep back and forth to your home.

PSIII has several cool ideas -- it spans three generations, and at the end of the first and second generation you pick which of two brides to marry, meaning that there are four paths through the game. While there is considerable overlap in content, there are also some unique elements to each such that if you play them all, you learn more about the overall plot and characters. There are some nice touches like characters who are young men in one generation showing up as old men in the next. The general magic vs. tech theme is pretty lame, but when I played it it seemed novel enough. It has a quasi-Metroidvania exploration system (not uncommon to jRPGs of the era) where you see areas but can't get to them until you have some new vehicle or power later. Overall it's not a great game though.

I think my bottom line would be that you should just play PSIV and skip the rest, unless you have huge helpings of time and a high patience threshold, in which case the experience of playing all four will probably be marginally better.

If you though the second was was grindy,well the first one takes that title with ease.
Have to spend several minutes to hours to get the money to progress in the first town and get the good equipment since enemies will destroy you if you are using the staring equipment.
Oh and you get the first companion way later,so you will be grinding solo for some time.

 

[Cromwell]

PSIII has several cool ideas -- it spans three generations, and at the end of the first and second generation you pick which of two brides to marry, meaning that there are four paths through the game. While there is considerable overlap in content, there are also some unique elements to each such that if you play them all, you learn more about the overall plot and characters. There are some nice touches like characters who are young men in one generation showing up as old men in the next. The general magic vs. tech theme is pretty lame, but when I played it it seemed novel enough. It has a quasi-Metroidvania exploration system (not uncommon to jRPGs of the era) where you see areas but can't get to them until you have some new vehicle or power later. Overall it's not a great game though.

I think my bottom line would be that you should just play PSIV and skip the rest, unless you have huge helpings of time and a high patience threshold, in which case the experience of playing all four will probably be marginally better.

I wish more Games would do something like that, were you not only play your hero but see them age and or die while the story spans generations, that seems like a cool thing to do.

 

[Jason Liang]

It's worth mentioning that all the games have modded versions which make combat more interesting/ difficult (since that's a general "weakness" of the series). So if you aren't hung up on playing through the "original" experience, you might enjoy a mod more (especially PS III).

http://www.pscave.com/

 

[Siveon]

There are also the remakes of Phantasy Star 1 and 2 to consider. I never played them, but I'd assume they would remove the grindy nature of the games, right?

 

[Jason Liang]

PS1 isn't especially grindy (compared to say DQ 1). PS1 is actually rather short except back in the day there wasn't Gamefaqs so people got stuck with the puzzles. You can beat it in 2-3 days if you're using a faq.

 

[eric__s]

PS IV is the best in the series, but it's also Callbacks: The Game, so play a little bit of each, just enough to get an idea of what they are, before you play IV. I played them in reverse order as a kid and as I played, I was blown away by all the crazy callbacks - THAT'S WREN!!! THAT'S LUTZ!!! It's a very good game either way, but it doesn't have the same heft if you don't understand all of its references.

All the games in the series have very good music, IV and II have the best -





This song is a remake of a song from Phantasy Star I. Pretty cool!

 

[Jason Liang]

The tru heroes of PSIII amirite

Wren's aero music...

Yeah, I too was SO HAPPY to see Wren again...

 

[Kruno]

PS 4 > PS 2 > PS1 > PS3

I played all the text adventure PS games as well. I was a huge fan.

PS4: It's an epic adventure following the events of PS2. Loved the characters, especially the hidden planet, as it was a nice touch and even gave some closure.

PS2:
(Big story spoilers)

Spoiler

Earthmen destroyed Earth through manipulation of climate (very forward thinking of the devs), and at humanity's lowest, decide to fuck up the lives of people on another system because they want a new planet/s.

I loved the story, especially the guy who's daughter was kidnapped and he just decides, fuck the world, and blows himself up along with his daughter.

Nei > Aerith!

PS3:
(More big spoilers, also spoils the PS2 and PS1s story)

Spoiler

The events here sort of feed into PS1, but it is a bit of a contradiction.

One of the ships escaping Palma's destruction ends up in the Sol system and mission control gets in contact with the Palm survivors. Dark Force finds the Earthmen and this feeds back into Lasic's corruption from mysterious visitors which is hinted at later in PS1, and discovered in PS2.

There was a fan site heavily dedicated to the PS story and my information comes from the discussions there, but this was over ~10 years ago.

 

[newtmonkey]

Anyone interested in JRPGs should play Phantasy Star 1. There is no "grinding" involved (as in, there is no point where you have no choice but to fight over and over to build up EXP or money). I played it on actual hardware a few years ago, and while the beginning is a bit hard, you need to play it cautiously.
A lot of old JRPGs that are considered to be grindfests really aren't (examples: Final Fantasy 1-3, Dragon Quest 2, Mother). The key is to make use of items and spells all the time, to run from battles that are not worth it (enemies that give debilitating status effects but very little reward), and to retreat back to town when you are in over your head.

Phantasy Star 1 is extremely impressive for its time, and it's also one of the easier classic JRPGs. The only downside is that the dungeons are quite dull (though they look great), and there's a lot of them. Still fun if you like mapping out dungeons on graph paper.

 

[Gragt]

If you go for PS1, grab a Japanese ROM and the new translation patch.

 

[Jason Liang]

I think RPG speed runs have proven that most RPGs aren't grindy. We were just playing them wrong back in the day.

I found this nice website:

https://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=6996

I think, fans of the Phantasy Star Series, 95% have played and beaten PS I, III and IV. And only maybe 30% have beaten PS II. And the fans that rank PS II highly are the ones that have beaten it.

https://howlongtobeat.com/stats.php?s=users 14:1 gender ratio, nice

https://howlongtobeat.com/stats_more.php?s=Longest_Games

https://howlongtobeat.com/stats.php

UPDATE: I watched the speedrun WRs for DQ1, PS1 and FF1. The DQ1 WR (1H 16M) was hilarious and awesome, guy pretty much came when he ran into two metal slimes in a row. The PS1 run (5H 40M) clearly shows that PS1 is the most brutal of all 3 games- the player died several times unintentionally. The FF1 glitchless WR (2H 44M) is held by a woman! She used Fighter - Red Mage - Red Mage - Black Belt. I always thought that 1 Fighter + 3 Red Mages was the best party... wait or was that 3 Fighters + 1 Red Mage? And to do it she beat the bridge puzzle in under 20s like ten times.

 

[RuySan]

The first one isn't grindy and IMO still holds up rather well. I love the bright looks of it (which is a nice contrast to the darker palette of the Megadrive/later installements). Only difficulty I had back then was some puzzles, since they are very object oriented and my english wasn't great.

PS4 is fantastic, and PS3 is also interesting, but is shunned by the fanbase because in many ways it doesn't really feel like a Phantasy Star game.

PS2 is overly grindy and the dungeons are boring and some of the a bit too confusing. I don't mind labirinthic dungeons in 1st person, but for some reason these annoyed the hell out of me.

 

[Falksi]

As far as the original versions are concerned, like most in this thread so far, I'd say IV is the one to play.

I played it through start to finish for around the 10th time around a year ago, and still found it held up exceptionally well.

3 had some great ideas but was a slog.

That said, the remakes & mods may change the other 3 enough to be just as good. But IV is definitely a great RPG in it's original form.

It's worth mentioning that all the games have modded versions which make combat more interesting/ difficult (since that's a general "weakness" of the series). So if you aren't hung up on playing through the "original" experience, you might enjoy a mod more (especially PS III).

http://www.pscave.com/

There are also the remakes of Phantasy Star 1 and 2 to consider. I never played them, but I'd assume they would remove the grindy nature of the games, right?

Thanks for the heads up on these chaps. Didn't realize these existed, so will gve them a try.

 

[MRY]

A lot of old JRPGs that are considered to be grindfests really aren't (examples: Final Fantasy 1-3, Dragon Quest 2, Mother). The key is to make use of items and spells all the time, to run from battles that are not worth it (enemies that give debilitating status effects but very little reward), and to retreat back to town when you are in over your head.

I think RPG speed runs have proven that most RPGs aren't grindy. We were just playing them wrong back in the day.

Maybe, but I'm not persuaded. To some degree it depends what you mean by "grind" -- if you mean walking in a circle leveling up in order to advance I still think this is a major part of those games. But I think what many people mean is just the endless churn of random battles against low-difficulty enemies that operate as a slow attrition of short-term resources balanced against a slow addition of long-term power. You may be right that the battles are less miserable and marginally more tactical if you use your spells and items (though IIRC, many of these games had nothing other than healing items), but that is certainly how I remember playing them at the time -- particularly Dragon Warrior and FFI. It wasn't really until the 16-bit era that it made sense to stockpile spells for bosses because the 8-bit era didn't really have as many bosses. To me, the problem was that the battles were too frequent and too boring. Thus, for instance, the idea of playing Phantasy Star for 12 hours on a speedrun or 18 hours in normal gameplay is hardly appealing...

 

[Jason Liang]

Like you, I have memories of Dragon Warrior 1 being super grindy, but the Dragon Warrior 1 speed run is a testament to how well-designed and balanced the game actually was. These speedruns are relatively glitchless; there are two versions- one uses the Silver Harp to attract Silver Slimes to rocket from level 9 to level 16, and the other uses a slight exploit by failing the Princess Rescue multiple times in order to fight and kill the Green Dragon multiple times for the same purpose (the Dragon Loop). The strategy uses nearly all the spells and shows how each spell dramatically increases the PC's power.

https://www.speedrun.com/run/m3dd7wgz

Phantasy Star 1 still looks better than Grimoire.