is a 1987 role-playing video game (RPG) developed and published by Sega for the Master System. One of the earliest Japanese RPGs for consoles, it tells the story of Alis on her journey to defeat the evil ruler of her star system, King Lassic, after her brother dies at his hands. She traverses between planets, gathering a party of fighters and collecting the items she needs to avenge her brother's death and return peace to the star system. The gameplay features traditional Japanese RPG elements including random encounters and experience points. All the characters have predefined personalities and abilities, a unique element compared to the customizable characters of other RPGs of the era.
Sega launched the development of Phantasy Star so their Master System could compete with the burgeoning popularity of console RPGs, particularly Dragon Quest (1986) on the Famicom. Designer Kotaro Hayashida and programmer Yuji Naka formed a team, staffed by a large number of women for the time, including graphic designer Rieko Kodama. The team wanted Phantasy Star to be a unique RPG experience, so they added elements like 3D dungeon crawling, a female protagonist, and ample animation. The game's setting was a fusion between medieval fantasy and science fiction, an idea inspired by Star Wars. The team had to use several techniques to fit all their content on a four megabit cartridge, a large game size for the time.
The game was released for the Master System two days after Final Fantasy arrived for the competing Famicom. It was praised for its grand sense of adventure due to its advanced visual effects and deep gameplay. The battery backup system drew praise but also contributed to the game's notably high retail price which made it difficult for some critics to recommend. The game was re-released on several platforms in the following years, including a series of Phantasy Star compilations. In 2003, a remake titled was released for the PlayStation 2.
Phantasy Star is considered a landmark RPG for its use of predetermined characters and a science fantasy setting. Sega launched a series of sequels, some of which were developed by staff who worked on the original. Kodama directed Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium (1993) and Naka produced Phantasy Star Online (2000).
Gameplay
Phantasy Star is a traditional Japanese role-playing game. It alters between a top-down perspective when the player is exploring the overworld, and changes to a first-person view when engaged in battle or exploring dungeons. The dungeons are long and twisted, and require the player to map most of them on paper. When exploring the overworld, the player can venture into a town to buy items and weapons. Outside the towns, monsters may randomly engage the player in battle. The player controls the main character Alis. As the game progresses, other characters are recruited to her party: a wizard named Noah, a warrior Odin, and a talking cat-like creature named Myau. Each character has different strengths, weaknesses, and abilities. The party has a shared inventory of items and equipment.
When encountering enemies, all party members enter into battle. Battles are handled using a menu system which allows the player to fight or attempt to talk and negotiate with an enemy. When an enemy is defeated, party members gain experience points and are rewarded with a treasure chest that may contain money or a booby trap. As the characters gain experience points, they increase in level, gaining access to new magic spells and raising their offensive and defensive statistics.
Plot Phantasy Star is set in the Algol star system which consists of three planets: the lush and green Palma, the arid and barren Motavia, and the icy and desolate Dezoris. Algol is ruled by King Lassic, who while originally benevolent, becomes a cruel, sociopathic tyrant. After a string of harsh political changes, small pockets of rebellion emerge but are mostly ineffective against Lassic's iron rule. One such rebel named Nero is killed by Lassic's forces, and his sister Alis swears revenge. Alis builds a party of adventurers including a warrior named Odin (), a wizard named Noah (), and a catlike creature named Myau. Together, they embark on an adventure spanning the three planets, meeting with townspeople, battling enemies, and finding special items that will help in the fight against Lassic. Eventually, the party engages and defeats Lassic, after which an ethereal voice tells them to return to Motavia. There, they encounter a more evil force, Dark Falz, and after destroying him, finally return peace to the Algol system.
Development
Background
Role-playing games (RPG) were beginning to gain popularity with console players in Japan in the late 1980s. Many Japanese game designers were inspired by Western RPGs such as Ultima and Wizardry. Chunsoft and Enix's Dragon Quest series was proving to be very popular on the Famicom, (Translation, archived) inspiring other developers to design similar games. Falcom began development on Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished, as Square was doing the same with Final Fantasy. Around the release of Dragon Quest II in January 1987, Sega felt they needed an RPG for their Master System to compete in this emerging market. (Translation, archived) They believed they could not rely on third-party support because Sega's hardware market share was only one-tenth that of Nintendo's. They looked internally and found designer Kotaro Hayashida and programmer Yuji Naka were interested in creating an RPG. They had previously been recognized for their work within Sega — Hayashida for Alex Kidd in Miracle World (1986), and Naka for his 8-bit home console conversions of arcade games like Out Run and Space Harrier. With Sega's approval, Hayashida and Naka began forming a team to develop an RPG.
The team consisted of around ten people. Hayashida was lead designer and Naka was lead programmer. Other staff members from Miracle World joined the project including lead graphic designer Rieko Kodama, and composer Tokuhiko Uwabo. There were more women on the development team than was typical at the time. Among them were Kodama, who drew most of the artwork, designer Miki Morimoto, who did much of the playtesting and enemy statistics configuration, and Chieko Aoki, who wrote the game's original story and script. Aoki had already been working on an original story with most of the dialogue already completed, and this became the first draft for the RPG project. The game would be character designer Naoto Ohshima's first project at Sega. Although there was no team director, Hayashida believes he had the largest role in shaping the game as lead designer and scenario writer, although Ohshima recalls Naka leading the project. The name "Phantasy Star" was formed after Naka took the word "Fantasy" from a song he enjoyed titled "Nagisa no Fantasy" by Noriko Sakai. The team shared the same room, so they could see each other's work. They were given the freedom to build the game how they wanted without restrictions, which Hayashida believes led to them enjoying themselves more and producing a higher quality game in the end.
Production The team wanted Phantasy Star to be different from other RPGs. They took many new approaches to the design of the game and its art to provide a unique experience. One approach was with the setting. The team was strongly influenced by Star Wars and how it combined Western culture with Japanese touches, such as how clothing resembled judo uniforms, and lightsabers were used like samurai swords. Kodama took this approach and designed the world of Phantasy Star using a science fiction motif mixed with medieval fantasy elements. Rather than use an airship to navigate over mountainous landscape, something common in other games, they added in a vehicle that could mow down impassable terrain. The team also added detailed event scenes, and animated monsters to help set the game apart. Their philosophy was to use extensive animation, so the ocean and walkways on the world map are always moving. Because the Master System could not draw large sprites, some parts of large characters were drawn to the background and only the animated portions were drawn as sprites.
Another unique addition to Phantasy Star was the 3D dungeons. They became a central concept in the game's early planning stages, in part because the Famicom was incapable of handling them. The team drew inspiration from Western dungeon crawling RPGs like Wizardry and wanted to add animated navigation to help the player know their location and orientation more easily. Naka had experimented with creating dungeons inspired by these RPGs. Typically these scenes were rendered in small boxes, so Naka was motivated to engineer a full-screen dungeon that could be used for an action game or an RPG. Originally the artists were drawing full 2D backgrounds using a 3D perspective, but the number of frames necessary to achieve the animated effect used too much space on the cartridge. Naka solved this by programming true wireframe 3D dungeons. The artists then used a program by Naka to superimpose their art on top of the wireframes. They also saved three-quarters of the memory they would normally need by making each quadrant of the screen identical. The new dungeons scrolled faster than expected and needed to be slowed down.
The female heroine, Alis, was a sharp contrast compared with the typical male protagonists of other RPGs. Kodama had designed female characters before but never one in a strong and prominent role. This was an uncommon portrayal when games at the time usually had a damsel in distress. Kodama went through about a dozen designs until she achieved a strong but feminine character, one with whom female gamers could empathize. Noah was also designed by Kodama, as a mysterious and intelligent character. In the original draft, Noah was an androgynous character and would become male or female depending on how the player progressed. Eventually, it was decided the character would be male. Ohshima designed Odin because Kodama did not enjoy drawing muscular men. Kodama envisioned the visual contrast between Noah and Odin as comparable to that between Raistlin Majere and Caramon Majere in the Dragonlance book series. Ohshima was also responsible for a third of the monster designs, at most. The lead monster designer enjoyed classic fantasy monsters such as golems and Medusa, so these types of characters appeared in the final game. Myau was designed by Takako Kawaguchi.
At four megabits (500K), the game's data was large for the time. Phantasy Star was only the second game for the Master System to use a chip this large. It was one of four games where it would be used. In spite of the chip's capacity, the team made many compromises to save space. The original story featured four planets, but this was reduced to three. The artists had to make compromises with the backgrounds and battle animations. Background scenes were mirrored vertically to save space. This created inconsistencies with shadowing. There were plans for a password system to save progress, but this was cut due to memory limitations; batteries were used instead. The team wanted to have a password feature as a failsafe in case saving the data corrupted it as was often the case in playtests. Instead, Naka programmed a backup of the save data that could be used to restore a corrupted save file.
Composer Uwabo noted that the game was developed during the Japanese economic bubble, which fueled his enthusiasm which he believes is reflected in the music. (Translation ) The game was compatible with the Master System FM synthesis expansion unit which housed a Yamaha YM2413 chip that added nine more mono channels to the console's programmable sound generator (PSG), the Texas Instruments SN76489. The expansion gave the soundtrack a wider range and heavier bass. The unit was not released outside Japan.
Release