I have always wanted to play this game, from the first time I saw it advertised as a kid. It was the game that made me want a Sega Master System; unfortunately, that is one system that I was unable to obtain mainly due to the fact one could not find a place that sold them in the area I lived in. Besides, I had a Nintendo so I was good. Though, looking back at both systems, it is now rather clear that the Master System was the better of the two systems as far as graphics were concerned. I played this one on an emulator, which is not how I wanted to play it, but it is still hard to snag an actual Sega Master System. What I played, did impress me as far as the graphics were concerned and it was okay as far as game play, but it was also very difficult. I cannot imagine playing this one back in the 80's without the internet and walkthroughs as it at times was very hard to follow.
The story has a young lady whose brother is killed thanks to the evil Lassic. She begins a quest to not only get revenge for her brother, but to also rid the star system of this evil! Well, that is what you have to figure out, because unlike later RPG games, the early ones had very few areas where there were scenes where the story played out so one would have to try to figure out what is going on by the various locales. Though even with a walkthrough, I am still not sure where the final boss came from.
The main problems I had was that the game featured 3D dungeons which often give me trouble in games from this era. Like those mazes in Golgo 13 with their various pits that send you back to one point or another. The graphics though are very good for an 8-bit system and overall I thought it was a good first entry to an often overlooked RPG series from the past as it was often overshadowed by Final Fantasy and the other RPG games of Square.
So I did enjoy it overall, but at times this game felt like a chore. The dungeons often felt more like an ordeal than fun. It did have a variety of towns to visit, but rarely was there any useful information given by the townsfolk. There was also three planets to explore which is kind of cool back in the day. Final Fantasy let you go to the moon and later games did feature two worlds or a totally changed world, but none of them featured three worlds to travel upon. So while not great and probably the weakest of the Fantasy Star games, it is worth a play through.
