Silviana: Ai Ippai no Boukensya

The Famicom Disk System may have famously been the only way to play the first two Zelda games in Japan for many years, but it had few other attempts at open world adventure RPGs to its name; mostly because the lack of space on your average disk largely restricted developers to relatively simple action-adventure or puzzle oriented games.  Silvana was one such attempt, though.  Developed by Pack-in Video (who also brought us games like Rambo, Die Hard and Knight Rider for the NES), you notice right away the similarities to the oft-maligned Hydlide.  The bump combat, having a dual save system (quick saves at any time, hard saves only in town) and the overall visuals and tinny music are quite similar.  It is a little more sophisticated than Hydlide at least - you earn gold by defeating enemies which can be traded for stronger weapons and armor in towns, there is a bit of NPC dialog (minimal, but it's there) and can find hearts to upgrade your maximum health.  At one point you also enter an "evil" version of the overworld, which mirrors the map and changes it to a darker color palette - slightly reminiscent of Link to the Past's dark world, though in a much more primitive form.  Not much about Silviana really stands out otherwise - it's a take on Hydlide, a game that was already dated at the time of its release on the system, and while its improvements are welcome, there's just little reason to play it when the Zelda games (and Castlevania 2) are readily available on the same platform.

Developer: Pack-in Video
Publisher: Pack-in Video
Released: 1988
Platform: Famicom Disk System

Miracle Warriors: Seal of the Dark Lord

Before the term "Japanese RPG" was part of gaming vernacular and hell, even before RPGs on consoles were really much of a thing at all, Sega localized two for the Master System in November of 1988.  One was Phantasy Star and the other was Miracle Warriors: Seal of the Dark Lord, which both boasted detailed sprites and popping colors that really set them apart from their competition on the NES.  Miracle Warriors' gameplay wasn't nearly as refined as its counterpart, though; it's much more of a grind, for one, with enemies dropping a paltry amount of cash and gear being very expensive even at the start of the game, costing thousands of gold pieces.  They attempt to offset this by having monsters also drop Fangs, which can be traded for a bit of money or (later on) for valuable items, but it only helps to a point.  It attempts to copy notes from some other western RPGs like Ultima, though, in that not everything you encounter on the map is evil - sometimes you'll encounter traveling citizens or merchants whom you can Talk to to end the battle without a fight.  You can also slay them (Merchants in particular giving you a ridiculous amount of money when killed), though this will drop your Character Points, which work somewhat like the Karma system in Ultima - if it drops too low you won't be allowed into towns, and then you're basically screwed unless you survive long enough to build it back up.  More annoyingly, your equipment decays in this game, which really sucks - you drop thousands of gold on a shiny new sword, armor or shield, and then you can only use it about 50 or so times before it breaks.  Sure, you can visit a blacksmith in town and shell out gold to have your equipment repaired (or hire a blacksmith to travel with you and repair it for free), but guess what both options cost?  Money!  And guess what that means?  Yep, more grinding!  Add to that the frustration of a lackluster translation, getting only vague hints on your next objective most of the time and the fact that one wrong turn can put you in a dangerous area with enemies far above your current level, and you have a game that's pretty annoying to slog through despite its short length.  Miracle Warriors was one of the very first turn-based JRPGs to be localized, and I can see it being a decent enough experience for its time, but it doesn't hold up particularly well today.  Especially not when compared to Phantasy Star, which is still a very fun and technically impressive experience.

Developer: Kogado Studio
Publisher: ASCII Entertainment, Sega
Platform: PC-8801, FM-7, MSX, Famicom, Sega Master System
Released: 1986, 1987, 1988

The Quest of Ki

The third game in the Babylonian Castle Saga franchise, the first to be made exclusively for a console and a prequel to its initial entry (the Tower of Druaga) that explains exactly how Ki got to the top of that tower; a logical expansion after the first and second games chronicled Gilgamesh's trip up the tower to save her and the second showed their escape.  Quest of Ki also marked another changeup in gameplay for the series - exhuming the RPG elements and, indeed, even disposing of combat entirely, Quest of Ki is a pretty simplistic puzzle-platformer, with the twist that you can continue to gain vertical height indefinitely as long as you hold down the jump button; however, if you hit your head on a ceiling, you'll drop straight down and be left in a vulnerable state until you've touched the ground for about a second, so careful control of your movements is required.  A few nods to the original puzzle-driven game still remain, though - you still have to collect a key to open the door and exit the stage, and you can collect powerups that aid you in various ways.  To name a few, there are candles that make ghosts visible, a sleep spell that temporarily renders some enemy types harmless, and wings that grant temporary flight (allowing you to 'jump' in midair).  Perhaps taking a couple of cues from Mario, you can also find hidden warps that skip you ahead several stages, though once you hit the bonus levels they'll start sending you backwards instead.  Overall, not one of the Famicom's more memorable platformers or puzzle-driven games, and as it's not even really an RPG, it only gets special mention on this site because of its status as a prequel to two of them.  If you're absolutely set on playing all the Babylonian Castle Saga games this is your first stop chronologically, but everyone else should probably pass it up in favor of something more enjoyable.

Developer: Game Studio
Publisher: Namco
Released: 1988
Platform: Famicom

Rambo

Rambo for the NES is another game steeped in notoriety and unmet expectations.  From the title and the cover art one would expect a fairly straightforward run-and-gun action game a la Contra or Ikari Warriors (indeed, the Sega Master System version of Rambo released a year prior plays very much like the latter), but Pack-in Video opted to create a nearly point-for-point copycat of Zelda II instead; though it was released about seven months earlier in North America, Zelda II came out first in Japan.  So, Rambo platforms about, defeating enemies to earn experience points (or "Anger" in the Japanese version), which grant him more health and power up his survival knife once he hits certain plateaus.  As you defeat enemies, you can also earn other weapons to use like throwing knives, arrows and grenades, and toward the end you get explosive arrows and a machine gun, and even temporary powerups that allow you to run faster, jump higher or restore health on the spot.  The problem is, none of this is particularly fun - hit detection is weird, aiming some weapons (like your grenades and bow) requires precise placement, and even your knife has an awkward delay on each swing you have to compensate for.  Navigation is made difficult by the bizarre design of the map -  the game takes place on flat planes you must switch between by standing on an arrow and pressing Up to move north or south, and sometimes paths are one-way, meaning you can't even easily go back if you take a wrong turn.  But the most notorious thing is how cheap and buggy its design is - Some screens constantly bombard you with bombs that are almost impossible to avoid, particularly in swampy areas that slow your movement. Rambo gets kicked backwards after a hit, which causes him to fall through bridges and can get him stuck in scenery (or even to fall out of the bottom of the screen and end up at another part of the game), and the password system is infamously faulty, to the point where some guides recommend writing down not one, but three different passwords before shutting the game off.  The final battle is another infamous element - a frustrating and overly long endurance test pitting you against a constant barrage of soldiers and a helicopter bombarding the screen with missiles that takes a total of fifty grenades to destroy.  An early NES game that's annoying to navigate, frustrating to play and has Rambo fighting far more jungle fauna (and later on, bizarre anomalies like hopping aliens and cyborgs) than enemy soldiers; is it any wonder few look back on this one fondly?

Despite the name, it's also based on Rambo: First Blood Part II rather than the original movie. I guess a game about a Vietnam veteran suffering from PTSD who gets abused, harassed and stalked by fascist cops would have been just a bit too controversial for Nintendo.

Developer: Pack-In-Video
Publisher: Acclaim
Platform: NES
Released: 1988

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: Heroes of the Lance

Released on computers as part of SSI's "Silver Box" line, Heroes of the Lance is a loose adaptation of the DragonLance series of novels inspired by the eponymous D&D modules, and a relatively unique take on the D&D format, focusing on real time action rather than turn-based strategic combat.  It's decent enough for a 1988 computer game, especially in a period where computers were still generally considered "business machines" and thus side-scrolling action gameplay like this was pretty novel (if not particularly well-suited to the hardware), but its 1991 NES port is a heavily derided game on the platform.  The ugly graphics, irritating music and stiff controls didn't endear it too much to fans of side-scrolling action games like Super Mario Bros, while RPG fans were let down by the absence of narrative and the general lack of depth to the game's combat and dungeon crawling.   Despite being an action game everything is still centered around dice rolls, so it's not a matter of skill-based attacking and evading; instead, you mostly just stand toe-to-toe with your enemies and hold down the A button to swing at each other until one of you dies.  You can attack at range with a bow and arrow or spells, but they're also governed by dice rolls and pretty ineffective besides, so there's little point.  Disarming traps is solely a matter of having the right character in the front of your party (or taking the hit - they rarely do much damage anyway), and the only real variety comes when you have to cast Protection From Evil to defend yourself from particularly spammy enemies.  Oh, and it's also possible to make the game unwinnable - if Goldmoon (or another character carrying her staff) drops into a pit, you're done; that staff is the only thing that can kill the final boss.  But most insulting of all is its length - while it takes place in a fairly large and convoluted maze, once you know the route to go through and how to counter the few curveballs it throws at you, you can beat the whole game in under ten minutes.  Even for masochistic fans of bad games, it's too short, easy and lacking in nuance to even provide any ironic entertainment value.  Hell, it hardly even seems worth the effort to pan it on my nerdy site about RPGs; everyone who knows of the NES port is already aware it's a sucky game that's widely regarded as one of the worst on the platform, and I don't have much to add other than to confirm it really is bad, but not in any interesting way; it's just another very lackluster port of a semi-popular computer game.  Unappealing, lame and entirely forgettable, NES Heroes of the Lance is a lousy experience no matter what angle you come at it from.

Developer: US Gold, Natsume (NES)

Publisher: Strategic Simulations, US Gold, Pony Canyon
Released: 1988, 1991
Platform: Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, FM Towns, MS-DOS, MSX2, NEC PC-8801, PC-9801, NES, Sega Master System, ZX Spectrum

Wonder Boy in Monster Land

Beginning life as an arcade title before being ported to numerous home platforms, the second Wonder Boy game (and first in the Monster World subseries) was a relatively novel blend of elements.  You'd hop through platforming-based stages in a style similar to Mario (complete with a constantly-ticking timer, though you can collect hourglasses to extend it) and earn gold from defeated foes, which you could then spend at shops on a variety of upgrades - better armor, shields to block projectiles, shoes that boost your run speed and jump height, and limited-use spells to attack enemies beyond the range of your sword.  Limited time powerups exist too, such as temporary invincibility, gliding or doubling your strength for a short period.  Sounds fun, but the difficulty it presents errs on the side of "absurd" - your sword has an exceptionally short reach and your stiff movement and relatively large hitbox make it difficult to hit many enemies without being hit yourself.  Not to mention the fact that there's no lives system - running out of health starts the game from the beginning, regardless of how much progress you'd made.  If you fancy yourself a master of platforming games it's one you may want to check out, but I personally think it's one of the weakest Wonder Boy games.

Developer: Westone Bit Entertainment, Sega
Publisher: Sega

Released: 1987

Platform: Arcade*, Sega Master System**, NES***, Commodore 64, PC Engine****, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Amiga, Atari ST, Mobile*****

* This version has been ported to Wii Virtual Console, Playstation Network (on PS3), XBox Live Arcade and the Switch.

** This version has been released on the Wii Virtual Console

*** Released as "Saiyuki World"

**** Released as "Bikkuriman World"

***** Released as "Super Adventure Island"

In addition, the SMS version was released as part of the Sega Ages 2500: Monster World Complete Collection for Playstation 2, and will be part of the upcoming Wonder Boy Collection for Playstation 4 and Switch.

Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom

Wizardry IV was the last game in the series helmed by both of the franchise's original creators and for a time, it appeared that it would be the last in the series due to steadily declining sales (4 in particular doing very poorly owing to its sadistic design).   The fifth entry in the series was headed by David W. Bradley and originally pitched as an unrelated title, but reworked to fit into the Wizardry franchise (and held back from release for over two years while work on Wizardry IV was completed).  Fittingly, the game was marketed as "breaking away from the Wizardry of the past" and featured, for the first time in the series, a substantially overhauled visual style and user interface, as well as a much more intricate dungeon that put equal emphasis on puzzles, storytelling and combat.  At its core, though, it remains very much in the vein of its namesake - punishingly difficult dungeon crawling that requires a lot of persistence, luck and skill to win out and complete.  It is at least more than a glorified paint-job, but if you found the original games too frustrating, well, this one won't do a lot to change your mind.

Developer: Sir-Tech
Publisher: Sir-Tech, Naxat Soft (PC Engine CD), Capcom (SNES)
Released: 1988
Platforms: Apple II, Commodore 64, Commodore 128, FM Towns, PC-88, PC-98, PC Booter, SNES, PC Engine CD

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest

One of the more divisive Castlevania titles, Simon's Quest was the first in the series to take on an RPG format, adapting the action-platformer gameplay of its predecessor into a more open and non-linear experience where solving puzzles and purchasing items was just as important as vanquishing foes.  To this end, the game works in towns, purchasing upgrades to one's equipment, gaining levels for more power, and conversing with NPCs and finding hidden messages to learn hints and uncover useful items.  However, some troubles quickly began to show themselves, with a world that was confusing to navigate (with stairwells up and down leading to new areas on the overworld), unclear puzzles made more obscure by a clumsy translation, and some rather lackluster design at times.  The most prominent example of this being the few bosses in the game, which were laughably easy overall.  Using a clunky password system instead of a battery backup for the NES port probably didn't help its case either (though it is at least only 16 characters long).  Still, the franchise's impeccable standards for atmosphere, music and tight core gameplay remained in place, making this a flawed but enjoyable title.  Just bring a walkthrough along, because you're going to need it, especially if you want to get the best of three possible endings.

(Fans of ROM hacks may also want to check out "Castlevania II Redaction", which addresses several criticized elements of the game - notably speeding up the text and day/night transitions and rewriting much of the dialog to provide useful clues.)

Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Released: 1988

Platform: FDS, NES

Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World

The first Might and Magic proved to be a major success for New World Computing, so naturally, a sequel was inevitable to cash in on its popularity.  But does the second game in the series improve on what its predecessor set forth, or is this just a sequel to be forgotten?

Might and Magic wowed audiences in 1986 with its vast world to explore, a narrative that unfolded more like solving a complex puzzle than following a long story, and of course for its gameplay, taking the formula of Wizardry and several other D&D-likes and making it considerably more accessible without sacrificing the challenge.  It ultimately sold over 100,000 copies across all platforms, prompting Jon Van Canegham to create a sequel.

The two-year gap between games is certainly evident at just a glance.  Might and Magic 2 has seen a drastic visual overhaul, going from 4-color CGA to 16-color EGA visuals and featuring much more animation on the whole - particularly in battle, where enemy sprites are now displayed onscreen throughout and animate, making the game feel much more alive in general.  Environments are varied and beautifully detailed, there is a visible day/night cycle now, and things only portrayed in text before like shopkeepers, NPCs and exit doors are now visible on the game screen too.  Basically, the whole world of Might and Magic 2 feels much more like, well, a world, rather than just a big maze.

Several other gameplay tweaks are included too, seemingly drawing inspiration from games like Bard's Tale and Wasteland.  In addition to the six classes from the first, two new ones are added - the Barbarian, who has more limited equipment choices than a Knight but greater HP growth, and
 the Ninja - a class that requires high stats across the board but can open locks and disarm traps like a thief and Assassinate enemies for high damage.  In addition to the standard six-character party, the player can recruit two more characters along the course of the adventure, bringing their total group size up to 8.  While the game does retain a first-person viewpoint, it does now also contain a mini-map feature of sorts - certain spells and skills will let the player see their surroundings from a top-down perspective, making it easier to navigate without having to draw your own maps or look them up.  Once a player has the Cartography skill, they will also find that that the game does have a full-blown mapping feature as well, visible via a first level Sorcerer spell.  Expanding on ideas from the first, some areas can also be entered only by certain classes, requiring the player to use more than just six characters throughout the game.

Skills are another new addition to the game.  By paying money to certain trainers, characters can learn up to two skills, which will then be improved through subsequent use.  Some just bolster stats, while others factor into the gameplay in a number of ways.  Linguist lets you read messages you wouldn't be able to normally, for example, while Mountaineer allows the party to climb over mountains if at least two people have it.  Similarly, Pathfinder lets the party move through any forest tile if two characters have it.  Interestingly, one must have a skill (Crusader) to undertake quests as well, and each class also has a unique quest to undertake over the course of the game, so the game lets you personalize not just your party, but your overall experience.

Enemy variety is once again vast, with over 200 different types throughout, enemy parties that can number well over a hundred, some enemies dealing thousands of damage a hit, and most having their own special abilities.  Some of these are fairly mundane, like enemies cursing the party to make themselves harder to hit, while others are clever yet very irritating.  One example of this is Jugglers, who randomly rearrange the party, potentially exposing your weaker back-row characters to danger.  Thankfully, the party's repertoire of spells has been upgraded to match, with a lot of the crappy spells from the first game exhumed in favor of more useful ones, as well as moving essential utility spells like Power Cure (cures most negative statuses) and Resist Elements to lower levels to make them available sooner.

Also tweaked upward to match the hordes of enemies are the party's stats, with maximum level now being 255, stats being able to reach 255, hit points up to 65,535 and magic up to 9,999.  Essentially, your starting stats are pretty meaningless in the long run, only really being used to determine which class you begin the game as; the rest will inevitably reach colossal heights before the end as you visit the circus (a yearly event), gain bonuses from dungeon events and earn power boosts by completing quests.  Fitting this, most of your spells will scale up in power (and cost) with your character's level, allowing for some truly absurd damage totals by the end.  Equipment costs and enchantments are equally out there, with some pieces of gear costing literal millions of gold and enchantments being able to reach +63 (boostable by a ninth-level Wizard spell).  Potions and equipment give massive stats too - temporary boosts of 500+ HP, five levels, 50+ points in a given stat, and all of them are stackable as well, allowing you to overcome battles that would otherwise require hours or even days of grinding.  There are even a handful of "Uber-boss" enemies that can only be bested if you have each character 's stats boosted to ridiculous heights, making it feel like a Nippon Ichi title in some respects. he only thing that really remains grounded in anything resembling realism is your characters' age, which will cause your stats to weaken once you reach age 75 and give you a chance to die in your sleep; as in the first game, though, it can be reversed a few years at a time via spells or by finding a "fountain of youth".  This all helps give the game a much greater sense of power progression compared to the first, where your stats remained relatively static throughout the game and thus necessitated much more grinding.

So, does Might and Magic 2 prove to be a worthy sequel?  Well, I'd say so just based on the visuals, as the game now feels more like a properly fleshed out fantasy world and much less like a giant maze full of cardboard-cutout monsters.  Its gameplay goes more than a bit into the absurd with its massive numeric totals, but I do think that adds to the charm; there's a certain primal fun in taking on a horde of 200+ goblins and coming out victorious when, hours back, just a fraction of that number gave you so much trouble; to say nothing of taking on giants, elementals and other beasties who deal damage well into the thousands of points.  The new elements like hirelings, new classes and skills add quite a bit to the experience too, and the fact that you can import your party from the first game and watch them go from mundane D&D-level characters to unstoppable titans is a thrill in itself.   The puzzle-oriented quests remain, though, so this isn't a game you can simply power-level and get through - there is still a significant cerebral element to its design.  A worthy followup to a solid RPG.

Developer: New World Computing
Publisher: New World Computing, Elite Systems Ltd. (SNES), Electronic Arts (Genesis), StarCraft, Inc. (Most Japanese versions)
Platform: MS-DOS, Amiga, Apple II, Mac, Commodore 64, FM-7, MSX, MSX PC-8801, PC-9801, Sharp X1, Sega Genesis, Super Famicom
Released: 1988, 1990, 1991, 1993
Recommended Version: I've only played the DOS version personally, which is available on GOG and similar sites.  The console ports were released a few years after and feature somewhat improved interfaces, though slower gameplay.

Might and Magic Book One: Secret of the Inner Sanctum

A relatively late-comer to the '80s CRPG scene, Might and Magic Book One was the first in a long-running dungeon crawler series that continues to get spinoffs to this day.  But is this first-person dungeon crawling adventure worth playing today, or is it simply overshadowed by other, similar games in an already vast genre?

Wizardry is undeniably an influential game, providing the template for not just every other CRPG of the time, but even paving the road for prominent Japanese RPG franchises like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.  Visiting its earliest entries today, though, is a bit of a tall ordeal - not only are they notoriously finnicky to get running (being from the day when one would put a disk into their computer and boot-load straight into the game), but they're also notoriously tough games to play.  Not only is the UI dated in a lot of ways (requiring you to type in spell names every time you want to cast one, for example), but the games are punishingly difficult.  Virtually everything in the game relies on random chance (influenceable by stats but otherwise completely out of the player's control), and even one encounter gone wrong can completely wipe one's party, forcing them to create a new party to retrieve and revive them at a very high cost (and even that can go wrong, resulting in them being turned to ash or lost permanently).  The games do keep track of you leaving town too, so the classic trick of resetting the machine to prevent progress loss wasn't a viable one either.

Might and Magic was another game built on its model, though a relatively late-comer to the game (which feels a bit odd to say considering it came out in 1986 - only two years after I was born).  Like Wizardry before it, one rolls up a party of six characters, picks one of six classes for them, which align closely with the four staple classes of Dungeons and Dragons (Knight/Fighter, Robber/Thief, Cleric and Sorcerer/Mage) and a couple hybrid classes (Paladin and Archer), and then they're dropped into the game to try and solve its mysteries by discovering and following in-game clues.

Might and Magic makes a lot of common-sense improvements to the format, however.  One that I found quite welcome was that healing spells have a fixed effect, thereby allowing the player to heal up their party without having to waste numerous spells on bad rolls (that accursed 1 on a 1-8 roll was an all-too-common sight in Wizardry).  Many spells also scale up in power as the character's level increases, keeping even low-level spell slots useful in the long run.  Resting fully heals the party, which is a bit easy to abuse, but is considerably more efficient than Wizardry's cumbersome inn system.  Ranged weapons exist, allowing characters in the back rows to deal damage while still remaining relatively safe.  Race, gender and character alignment (Good, Neutral and Evil) factor into puzzles the player encounters, making them more significant choices overall (though the player can change gender and alignment mid-game via certain events).  While combat is still a major part of the game, one can also undertake a large variety of quests; completing these tends to earn you large amounts of money and gold in one fell swoop, adding some variety and significantly cutting down on sheer grinding.  Finally, retreating from battle is more useful than in most games, as it doesn't simply keep you in the place where you are while making enemies vanish - instead, it places you at the "safest square" on the current map, which is usually an inn or the dungeon entrance; a lot more beneficial for your long-term survival!

Might and Magic also incorporates a few unusual mechanics among CRPGs, especially for the time.  While games like Wizardry and Pool of Radiance tracked a character's age, it effectively had no bearing on the gameplay.  In M&M, aging is implemented as a feature and characters will actively grow older over the course of the game - not just from resting, but traveling the world (which takes much longer without a character versed in navigation) and with some spells causing them to age more rapidly.  Stats weaken as character reach old age and give them a chance to die in their sleep once they are above age 75.  However, there are ways to reverse aging as well, with one of the more prominent ones being the Cleric spell "Rejuvenate" which removes 1-10 years (or, in the event of a failure, adds 1-10).  Enemies will often attack from the side or behind, which can shuffle which characters are in their attacking range; this effectively means that your mages and thieves can't just chill in the back row - their fighting stats should ideally be up to snuff too in case they get caught having to duke it out.  You also have more options before entering battle - in addition to just choosing to fight or flee, you can attempt to bribe an enemy to get them to flee, or surround them first to give yourself an advantage.  Dropping to 0 HP is also not an immediate death; you just get KOed as long as you don't take too big a hit, and can be revived and brought back into the fight by your allies.  One can save the game at an inn and quit, and if their party gets wiped, they can simply restart from the point of their last visit - a stark contrast to Wizardry where dying generally meant redoing the whole game from scratch (at least until such time that you could reach the point in the dungeon where the previous party died and recover their bodies, then shell out a hefty fee to revive them).  Safeguards are put in place to prevent you wasting spell points at times they would be useless; ie using non-combat spells in battle and vice versa.  Enemy variety is surprisingly good, too, with plenty of different types to encounter and nearly all of them having some unique quirks to adapt to in order to maximize your chances of success.

Might and Magic was also notable for the fact that it put the player in a large and contiguous world; towns, the overworld and dungeons are all directly linked in a surprisingly logical way, and while there is a fast travel system, one can easily navigate to almost any area in the game through more conventional means too.  From deserts to caves to dungeons to towns, there is quite a lot of variety in the locations, and with over 50 16x16 maps to explore, there are plenty of secrets to discover throughout.

A few things about the game still do feel a bit dated, though.  There is still a lot of grinding involved, particularly early on when your party is weak and armed out of the gate only with clubs and a small amount of food (but no cash).  Something that took me a bit of to figure out is that you don't automatically collect gold or even get prompted to open a chest after a battle, as in Wizardry; instead you have to Search the area to find the bag/chest the enemy drops, then inspect it for traps or just throw it open.  Visually, the game also leaves some things to be desired - there is an overall lack of animation, and combat is almost entirely handled through a drab text-based UI.   Spells are also not listed anywhere in game; you have to consult the manual to find what spells correspond to each level and number, and how many gems they may cost to use.

Despite those hiccups, though, the first Might and Magic is still a solid game.  It may not be as highly regarded as some of its sequels, but it's still a well-made RPG for its time.  It's considerably less frustrating an experience than most of the other first-person dungeon crawlers of the time, building itself more challenge and problem-solving rather than endless RNG-bashing and, of course, not forcing you to start from scratch when your party gets wiped.  There are quite a few puzzles to figure out and mysteries to solve throughout the world, and while a bit dated visually, the sheer size of the game's world is impressive, particularly for 1986.  It isn't hard to see why the first Might and Magic is still a well-regarded game among long-time RPG fans, as it holds up better than much of its competition from this era.

 

Developer: New World Computing, G-Amusements (NES)
Publisher: New World Computing, Sammy (NES)
Platform: Apple II, MS-DOS, Commodore 64, Mac, FM-7, PC-88, PC-98, MSX, PC Engine CD, X1, Sharp X68000, NES
Released: 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1992
Recommended Version: I've only personally played the MS-DOS and NES versions.  The NES version, being a relatively late release for the system (1992) does have the benefit of nice graphics and music as well as a more polished UI.  However, it's a messy port in other ways, with some prominent bugs (like armor not seeming to actually work), which don't make it a version I recommend.

A useful mod for the game running in DOSBox is WhereAreWe, which features constantly-updated party information and automapping, as well as a number of cheat features that make the experience much less grindy.

Wasteland

Probably best known today as the inspiration for the Fallout franchise, as well as for the huge gap between it and its sequel (26 years - a world record as of this writing), Wasteland was a highly acclaimed RPG in its time as well. But does it still hold up today, or is this simply one CRPG that is best left in the past?

Wasteland, originally released across numerous computer formats in 1988 (though it finished development in 1985) was a game that quickly amassed a cult following.  There were a number of reasons for this, but a large part was that it managed to provide a surprisingly tabletop-esque experience (drawing inspiration from the developers' other games such as Tunnels and Trolls and Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes).  It was among the earliest as well to feature a persistent world - the player's actions are saved to the game disk and retained as they leave towns, and if they wish to start the game completely from scratch, it is necessary to do a fresh install of the game from the master disks included in the box.  This also has an unfortunate side effect, however - if one leaves the current map or radios in whilst in an unwinnable state, they will not be able to continue the game, forcing a restart.  Particularly problematic in some areas, where unseen hazards (ie radiation and random enemies) can easily devastate the party.

As in many games of this type, the player is free to create their own party at the start, generating four players with randomized stats and their choice of skills to face the dangers of the game's world.  There is a slightly odd spread of stats here, though; Strength, IQ and Luck are fairly self-explanatory, but the player is also given Speed, Agility and Dexterity as separate stats, and they all do separate things - Speed determining one's turn order in combat, Agility determining attack evasion and Dexterity determining accuracy with ranged weapons.  IQ is easily the most important one, however, granting the player more points to spend on skills which form the foundation of everything they can do with any degree of incompetence.  Each level the player earns grants them two more stat points to allocate however they wish, and there are a total of 181 levels to earn (though it's nearly impossible to go above 40 or so in a single playthrough).

Skills are another odd lot.  There is a large focus on combat in Wasteland, but most weapons and the skills thereof are not worth bothering with in the least.  Puglism, Pistols and Rifles, for example, are almost completely worthless, doing far less damage than the Brawling skill (which lets one equip virtually any item as a weapon, though obviously things like crowbars and axes are much more effective than, say, books).  Rifles are slightly better, though not by much, while the Combat Shooting skill that appears in some versions of the game (notably the DOS release) is completely useless, having no functionality programmed in.  Other skills may be used in very few or even exactly one place (Metallurgy, Sleight of Hand, Cryptology) while others still are extremely useful throughout the game.  These include Swimming, Climbing, Picklock, Medic and Doctor, which are so vital that you'll be using them almost constantly.  Indeed, most versions of the game even acknowledge this by including a Macro system, allowing the player to assign a sequence of commands to an F key and play them back later by pressing it, saving them the trouble of pressing long sequences of buttons each time they want to make the attempt.

Throughout the adventure, the player can return to base at any time to create a new character if one in their party dies (which is very likely given how dangerous the wasteland can be).  One can also recruit a number of playable characters throughout the game, each with their own skills and stats.  However, there is a bit of personality programmed into them, meaning that they may refuse to use skills or give back equipment you've traded to them, so you can't always rely on them as "mules" or anything of the like.

Combat in Wasteland is frequent and honestly not that great.  The action is largely automated, having the player select a group of enemies in the combat and then the rest playing out on its own through descriptive text, having your characters auotmatically attack as many times as they are able to and everything being handled through invisible dice rolls.  This, plus the incredibly high rate of encounters in some area, as well as limited resources in the game as a whole, quickly turn the entire game into a war of attrition where the player simply wants to get through dungeons as quickly as possible rather than fight through everything in their path.  That said, it is surprisingly hard to actually die, especially in the early levels.  If one's HP drops below a threshold (roughly -10 or so) they are put into "Critical" status, at which point their condition will steadily degrade until they are dead or they get medical treatment.  However, once they drop low enough to be knocked unconscious, enemies will start to ignore them and shift their attacks to other targets instead, which can result in lengthy segments of the entire party being KOed, waking up and restarting the battle until they win or all get dipped below the tipping point.  This becomes less common as enemies start getting highly-damaging attacks, but for the first part of the game it's very hard to actually die.

Being released on floppy disks, storage space for the game was scarce, which resulted in much of the game's story being relegated to the manual in the box.  Frequently throughout the game, one will be prompted to "Read Paragraph ##" in order to know what's going on in the story.  This also serves as a form of copy protection in places, as the paragraphs are laced with many misleading passages that contain bogus passwords that can mess with the party in strange ways or, in worst cases, make the game unwinnable if they put them in.  It also contains a completely unrelated story in out-of-order sequence, which can provide a bit of extra fun once the player finishes the game.

Still, in spite of its dated elements and some not-so-great combat, it isn't hard to see why Wasteland was such a popular game in its time.  Its bleak yet humorous atmosphere was very much copied over to the format of its successor franchise (Fallout), the story told here is quite a good one for the period, and the amount of puzzle-solving within was on par with games like Ultima 4 and 5, released around the same period.  It may not hold up as well as some of its contemporaries, but serious genre fans owe it to themselves to give it a look.  Maybe not finish it owing to its ridiculous difficulty and the sheer tedium and frequency of its combat, but try it out at least.

Developer: Interplay Productions

Publisher: Electronic Arts
Released: 1988
Platform: Apple II, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, Windows, OS X, Linux
Recommended Version: The version released on Steam (playable on OS X, Linux and Windows) is the DOS version, running on a heavily modified version of DOSBox that allows for enhanced graphics (particularly enemy portraits), adds music and even lets the player click on the window to open up the manual paragraphs and even have them read out loud via narration, making it much more accessible than the old floppy disc based versions.  There are even build-in options to allow for multiple player saves and to refresh the world to its original state should one become stuck. That's the one I'd recommend playing, as it provides for a much smoother experience.

Pool of Radiance

The first in SSI's famous "Gold Box" series, a short-lived but prolific franchise of RPGs that ran on a common engine and quickly became famous for their very faithful implementation of Dungeons and Dragons rules.  But is Pool of Radiance still an adventure worth undertaking today, or is it simply too dated to provide fun for D&D fans and RPG gamers in general?

As the company's name implies, Strategic Simulations was known for producing quite a lot of in-depth simulation games spanning any number of topics - wars, presedential elections, pinball games, and a numer of fictional scenarios like a post-apocalyptic battle for territory and, of course, turn-based fantasy adventures.  The last of these are best-known to RPG fans, in particular their "Gold Box" franchise (named as such because of the boxes they came in) and the surprisingly faithful adaptation of Dungeons and Dragons rules it provided.  Despite the franchise's relatively short run (lasting from 1988-1992), it spawned over a dozen games and continues to be highly regarded among fans of both D&D and computer RPGs.

It isn't hard to see why, either.  As Ultimas 4 and 5 were already out and set a staggeringly high bar for design and storytelling, they naturally had a tall order to compete with.  Thankfully they do a surprisingly good job of that, even if many of the plot's elements are relegated to a paper manual owing to disk size restrictions.  The player controls a party of six adventurers as they arrive in the city of New Phlan, which faces all manner of threats and dangers.  Naturally, they are commissioned by the local government to do things like clear slums of monster, find documents from before the fall to find out exactly what they're up against, and even perform a stealth mission or two to discover their enemies' plans.  Through all of this, they slowly unravel the mystery of Phlan and seek out the source of the evil that plagues it.

Not amazing stuff by genre standards, but it certainly gets the job done and keeps the player motivated toward completing the game.  D&D fans also found themselves right at home with its gameplay, as the engine strives to replicate almost every minutiae of the tabletop experience.  Completing quests and finding treasures gives far more experience than simply fighting mundane monsters, which sets it apart from most D&D adaptations (and RPGs in general) and discourages grinding, as there are only so many quests to complete in the game and encounters in most areas are finite.  Additionally, fighting doesn't have to be the solution to every scenario - often one can avoid battle by parleying with enemies, and their tone and spoken words can often cause them to leave peacefully.  When one must fight, combat is honestly very fun, with a top-down view, turn-based combat and surprisingly faithful adaptation of many of D&D's iconic spells, monsters and status effects, for both good and ill. 

Some less savory elements appear too.  D&D's high difficulty is evident from the get-go, with any number of things can instantly kill your characters - missing a roll for poison is immediate death, and being disabled by Hold Person, Sleep, et cetera leaves you completely helpless for an immediate killing blow.  Level Drain quickly becomes a problem too once undead enemies show up, with the only way to cure it being a spell scroll (which are in limited supply throughout the game).  Battles are staggeringly huge in scale at times (with over 50 enemies in some), so even well-equipped parties can be overwhelmed without a significant amount of luck on their side.  Other complications not implemented in many later RPGs apply too - money has weight and comes in five different values (Copper, Silver, Electrum, Gold and Platinum), which quickly makes buying jewelry, gems and so forth a necessity to free up inventory space for other items.  The game operates off of 1st Edition rules, which severely limits the level growth of non-human races in everything but the Thief class, and some iconic D&D classes like Paladins  and Rangers are not implemented in this game but would appear in the sequels (requiring the player to create new characters instead of import them from this game if they wished to use those classes).  The UI can also be somewhat unwieldy, particularly at first (utilizing the numpad, several letters and the Pageup/Pagedown keys to cycle menu choices), but it becomes second nature before long.  Finally, the game does still use a first-person, grid-based perspective for much of its navigation, which may be a turn-off to some; particularly those who dislike drawing their own maps out on graph paper.  However, there is a third-party mod called the Gold Box Companion that adds an external HUD and map to the game for easier use among many other features, so this isn't as much of a problem if playing on a modern system through DOSBox.

In short, it isn't hard to see why Pool of Radiance is a beloved classic and the Gold Box engine remains so highly regarded.  There is a staggering amount of content for discerning D&D fans and RPG players alike, and the fact that it's still quite a lot of fun to play today despite its more frustrating elements speaks to its quality.  And of course, its emphasis on telling a story over endless, brain-dead combat and skill micromanagement makes it hold up much better than most games bearing the D&D license.  Definitely worth a look, especially as you can get almost the entire Gold Box series on GOG now for a token sum.

Developer: Strategic Simulations/Marionette

Publisher: Strategic Simulations, Pony Canyon, FCI
Released: 1988, 1989, 1992)
Platform: Amiga, Apple II, C64, DOS, Mac, NES, PC-9800
Recommended Version: I've only personally played the DOS and NES versions, but most of the computer platform releases seem to be comparable in quality.  The NES version is somewhat simplified in its interface and UI design and lacks some features (like certain character class creation elements), but does a surprisingly good job retaining the feel and challenge of the computer versions.

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny

Ultima returns two years after its groundbreaking fourth entry with a game that puts some interesting moral quandaries into its narrative, polishes up its gameplay and amps up the difficulty.  But does Ultima V once again prove to be a great leap for the series, or were all of these changes just ill-advised ones?

Ultima IV is a tough act to follow; widely regarded as one of the most important RPGs ever made, it was one of the first to contain a fully-featured dialog system that was integral to solving the game's numerous puzzles by cross-referencing NPC dialog to gather clues.  The sheer amount of text in the game could rival a short novel in density while sacrificing surprisingly little in the way of gameplay - Ultima IV was still a very lengthy, involved RPG that could take days, if not weeks, to finish the first time through.  But more than that, it required the player to be a good person - stealing, killing and other evil acts would only lengthen the time required to complete the quest, if not make it outright unwinnable.  All things which, in various ways, made Ultima IV a truly unique and immersive experience.

Ultima V had some big shoes to fill, but Origin proved that they were nothing it not up for a challenge.  The dialog system returns here, though in a somewhat more polished form - NPCs now have more consistent grammar and wording, and there are surprisingly few "generic" NPCs in towns - aside from the respawning guards, virtually every character one speaks to is unique and has their own set of dialog, adding much to the game's atmosphere.

The premise of the game works into this as well, with a much darker tone overall.  Essentially, Britannia's longtime ruler Lord British has disappeared, and in his place the tyrannical Lord Blackthorn has taken the throne, turning the eight virtues into oppressive laws and twisted mockeries of their intended function (for example, the law of Sacrifice reads "Thou shalt give half thy income to charity, or thou shalt have no income" while Compassion reads "Thou shalt help those in need, or thou shalt suffer the same need").  As a result of these, the eight towns - formerly bastions of virtuous people - are now fraught with danger as oppressive guards terrorize the populace and Lord Blackthorn's spies hide among them, making it considerably harder to get clues from townspeople.

Befitting this, Ultima 5 is a much tougher game than its predecessors too.  While the Karma system is somewhat relaxed from Ultima 4 (you'll still get docked for obvious wrongs like stealing and killing, but you are no longer punished for running from battle, for example), it still proves to be important to keep it high - most members of the resistance won't trust you if you have a bad reputation and thus won't give up important clues.  Lost Karma is considerably harder to build back up - though you can free enslaved people or donate money to beggars, these only get you so far as there are a finite number in the game and they won't respawn.  Your absolute last resort is to donate large amounts of gold at the eight shrines to raise your karma back up, which comes at a cost of 100 gold per point.

Combat in the game fits this rule too, with enemies attacking the player in staggeringly large groups, enemy ambushes at camp being more common than in 4, and status-casting enemies becoming much more common.  By far the worst offender are Daemons - they can cast Fear, rendering party members useless, and take tons of damage to bring down - and Dragons, who can charm party members and summon Daemons.  Worse, dying in battle causes party members to lose gained experience points, which, should they drop below a level threshold, they will have to re-level up to get back up to speed - not the easiest task when the level-up event occurs randomly when one rests, which can potentially expose your to even further danger.

Some elements of realism add to the challenge too.  The player must now purchase ammunition for most ranged weapons in the game, which makes relying on them heavily an expensive endeavor.  Mixing spell reagents incorrectly can cause a backfire that damage a single player or even the entire party, and the game now utilizes runic script for various signs and, at one point, even as a copy protection mechanism as necessary passwords are only given in it.  Even towns themselves aren't safe havens as in most RPGs - not only can guards shake you down for money, but the three Shadowlords will frequently visit them, which can cause the townspeople to attack you or refuse to speak to you for any reason until they leave.  The Shadowlords themselves are quite nasty too, being near-indestructible opponents who can only be killed in the course of completing certain puzzles, so it's generally not worth it to even stick around a town if one is present at that time.

A nice addition in this regard is the fact that one can simply purchase ships now instead of having to find ones that randomly spawn (which could take an irritatingly long time in earlier titles).  In addition, two new types of vehicles are added - skiffs, which can sail over shallow waters and up narrow canals (but cause the player to take damage every turn in deep ocean) and the magic carpet, which lets the player float over rivers and rough terrain, but more importantly, lets them move twice as fast as most NPCs, making avoiding guards and such far easier.  The moonstones are now a more useful tool, as the player can now dig them up and bury them somewhere else, causing the moongate to appear at that location instead when it matches the moon phase.  This proves to be quite useful, particularly toward the end of the game where you'll be braving the hazardous underworld beneath Britannia and will frequently have to make trips back and forth to resupply.

In the end, Ultima V is a logical step up from the previous game in many ways, adding more features, realism, challenge and depth while taking the storytelling and atmosphere in a much more dark and moody direction.  While not quite the revolutionary title that Ultima IV was, V upped the ante on an already great game, and it mostly pays off - though the challenging elements can be frustrating to less experienced RPG players, the adventure is once again a very worthwhile one if they are willing to put in the time investment and see it all the way through.  Another highly recommended game in the legendary Ultima series.

Developer: Origin Systems
Publisher: Origin Systems
Platform: Amiga, Apple II, Atari ST, Commodore 64/128, MS-DOS, FM-Towns, NEC PC-9801, Sharp X68000, NES
Released: 1988
Recommended Version: I can't speak for most computer versions, as I'm only really familiar with the DOS port.  However, I can safely say that the NES version should be avoided at all costs; it's a stripped-down, butchered version of the game with a fraction of the dialog in place, a ten second music loop and slow gameplay that is generally unpleasant to endure.

Final Fantasy II

The followup to Square's surprise hit on the MSX2 and Famicom, Final Fantasy II attempted to have more of a running narrative but also made some very unpopular changes to its core gameplay.  But does it nevertheless prove to be an adventure worth undertaking, or is this one Final Fantasy you can safely skip?

The original Final Fantasy is regarded as a classic by many; it effectively took the basic premise and gameplay of Wizardry on various computer formats and put it into a modernized package for a new generation of gamers.  It also took advantage of modern hardware to provide crisp visuals, some surprisingly good music and a sprawling, detailed game world to explore, and its gameplay provided enough content and accessibility to feel challenging without being overbearing.  In short, it struck a solid balance between old-school design and modern sensibilities, and as a result is regarded as one of the most important Japanese RPGs ever created, both in its native Japan and abroad.

With as big of a success as it was, sequels were inevitable.  And while many later games in the Final Fantasy series are regarded as classics in their own right, it was only natural that the franchise would have some missteps as well.  Exactly which games fall into which category is a matter of debate, but it's almost universally agreed that the second game in the mainline series is one of its weakest.

Not for a lack of trying, mind you.  Final Fantasy II definitely shows much improvement over its predecessor from a narrative standpoint, drawing the player into a darker, more personal tale and having a running narrative with plenty of twists throughout.  NPCs throughout the game are now defined with their own motivations and personalities (inasmuch as 1988 technology would allow, at least) , and even the playable cast themselves have unique dialog and portraits, letting the player get more invested in them as characters.  Numerous temporary allies join throughout the story, coming and going as events dictate, and there is even a pretty clever twist concerning a character who appears at the game's start but is absent for much of the main quest.  In short, the writing makes this feel less like a video game playground and more like a world the player can get immersed in, taking the journey along with the story's protagonists.

An underdeveloped element soon shows itself in the form of the "keyword" system, which allows the character to learn certain phrases from NPCs. These words can then be spoken to other NPCs in order to uncover clues or advance past certain story obstacles.  An interesting idea in theory (and probably more than a bit inspired by dialog-driven PC RPGs like Ultima IV), but in practice it doesn't really add a whole lot to the game that simple scripted dialog wouldn't.  I can't help but wonder if the developers initially had more in mind for this system, but had to cut most of it for time constraints or something.

But with that aside, we now come to the game's biggest and most disliked change: its leveling system.  Doing away with the straightforward experience point system of the original Final Fantasy, II instead goes for a more free-form approach.  Each of your character's stats powers up individually - casting spells grants more MP and Intelligence, attacking boosts your Strength and weapon proficiency, while taking damage will boost your maximum HP (assuming you don't die outright, of course).  This sounds fun (and a bit more realistic than the traditional "levels") in theory, but the game's uneven difficulty quickly becomes problematic - enemies from one area to the next take huge steps up in power, meaning that you'll quickly go from steamrolling through enemies to having your party wiped out by the first monsters you run across.  This can even occur within dungeons - you can be strong enough to snowplow through random monsters, but then get to the boss and be unable to damage him at all with any of your attacks because you aren't strong enough.

As a result of this, the best strategy for powering up your characters is not to fight enemies, but rather to have your party fight amongst themselves.  Even the developers seemed to be aware of this fact, as the player now has the ability to cast offensive spells on their own party and even use physical attacks against one another (with characters even being allowed to attack themselves).  Normal enemies and even boss battles in the game are almost a non-factor in your party's growth - the vast majority of the gaming experience is instead spent having your characters attack one another and frivolously burn through their MP in order to build up their stats enough to survive the next challenge, which is just a bit silly and more than a little tedious (particularly as any new temporary characters that join often have to be leveled up from near-scratch).

Another, more irritating aspect of this system is that raising some stats will actually lower others.  Boosting Strength, for example, may lower your Intelligence, making your spells less effective.  Wielding heavy weapons and armor will lower your speed, ensuring that enemies will get turns before you, and casting spells will weaken your proficiency with physical weapons.  HP and MP thankfully do not decay, nor do gained spell levels, but the other stats do, all but forcing each of your characters into a rigid Fighter or Mage archetype with virtually no opportunity for a middle ground.

Even with this, though, some annoying game design aspects remain.  If you don't have a solid grasp of the layout of the game map, you can easily get sidetracked when trying to find the next town you're supposed to visit and end up in an area with enemies several degrees of magnitude above your power level, resulting in an immediate game over.  Dungeons are seemingly designed to be as annoying as possible; in addition to the aforementioned problem of traversing them only to get shut down by an overpowered boss (and having to repeat upwards of an hour of work), the encounter rate is irritatingly high, enemies' difficulty is very uneven (they either mop the floor with you or you to them, with very little middle ground).  The game also goes out of its way to provide cheap and irritating traps for the player in the form of "dead end" rooms with extremely high encounter rates and dangerous enemies; these occur numerous times in every dungeon and are generally irritating as you have no way of knowing which doors take you deeper in and which ones are just there to screw you over until you try them all out.  Another rather irritating "beginner's trap" is present as well, with the first major objective leading the player to a town full of enemy soldiers in search of an NPC.  Talking to literally anyone in this town other than the person you're searching for puts you into a battle against massively powerful enemies, ensuring an immediate game over.  While this does make sense from a storyline standpoint, it's still just a bit uncouth that a town - almost always a safe haven in a Japanese RPG - would pull such a cruel trick on the player.

The original Final Fantasy remains an important milestone for console RPGs, but Final Fantasy II is not held in nearly the same esteem.  While it does its best to present a compelling narrative (for 1988) and maintains the high standards for graphics and music that became series trademarks, its gameplay sadly does not match up.  Between the sheer amount of grinding required and the fact that the game seems to actively punish exploration in a genre built on exactly that, it simply isn't much fun to play at all.  I'll give it credit for trying something new, but it's hard to deny that the second Final Fantasy is regarded as one of the franchise's black sheep for very good reason.  There's a good reason it's rarely seen as a standalone release, almost always being packed in with its much better-regarded predecessor.

Developer: Square
Publisher: Square, Square Enix
Platform: Famicom, Wonderswan Color, Playstation, Game Boy Advance, Playstation Portable, iOS, Android
Released: 1988, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2012
Recommended version: Starting with the Origins compilation on the Playstation, many later versions of Final Fantasy II make substantial improvements to the leveling system by having the party level up faster and stats no longer decay.  This substantially cuts down on the time required to power up the party, allows for more balanced characters and ultimately makes the experience much smoother.  The Pixel Remaster (based on the GBA version despite claims that it's a callback to the original release) also allows you to enable boosters to get guaranteed HP gains as well as faster improvements to all stats and more money, which makes it a considerably less grindy and frustrating experience.

Phantasy Star

Sega's Phantasy Star is a beloved classic among long-time genre fans, and it got its start on the Master System in 1988.  But does this title rise above the limitations of its era, or is it simply another generic dungeon crawler, fated to be forgotten?

The Japanese RPG genre was beginning to gain a foothold in the mid-to-late 80s, with Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy becoming big hits in Japan and modestly successful elsewhere.  Sega had their own contender as well in the form of Phantasy Star, a title which incorporated a combination of science fiction and fantasy elements (particularly inspired by Star Wars) rather than the heavy Dungeons and Dragons influence of its competitors.  This certainly lent it a unique flair, as well as allowing them to incorporate elements like spaceships, robotic police and laser guns without feeling terribly out of place.

Of course, a slight change-up in setting would only help it to a point; after all, earlier games like Ultima and Might and Magic had already worked science fiction elements into their otherwise fantastic settings.  So Sega also took advantage of the Master System's capabilities to create a game that was much more colorful and fluidly animated than most RPGs of the era.  Not only do the enemies in the game show several frames of attack animation each (a feature that wouldn't appear prominently in some other big-name franchises until the Playstation 2 era), but even the dungeons themselves show off this feature, featuring smoothly-animated backgrounds as the player walks through the tunnels and even turns directions.  The sound design in the game is equally polished, with some catchy and memorable tunes for the dungeons and towns.  In fact, they were so good that Phantasy Star IV later incorporated remixes of them into some of its own dungeons.

Beyond its presentation, however, Phantasy Star is very emblematic of its era.  The game has a pretty heavy focus on gathering clues by talking to townspeople in order to solve puzzles and bypass obstacles, and they're not always the most intuitive of puzzles.  One example is finding the Compass, which requires the player to talk to a random villager in one town, then backtrack to the first town and enter its mini-dungeon to find a chest containing it.  The chest will not be there when the player visits before talking to that townsperson, which can easily cause some confusion.  Another example is trying to acquire the Passport, which requires asking a shopkeeper about "Secrets" three times; the first two times, he will simply send you away, but the third time he will relent and sell it to you.

The game, as with most others of the era, is also fairly grindy, with the player often having to stop and farm gold from random encounters in order to purchase new equipment and have a fighting chance in the upcoming dungeons.  At other times, they will simply need to purchase a specific item in order to be able to enter new areas at all, such as having to save up a substantial amount of money for an Ice Digger in order to get around Planet Dezolis.  Still, this doesn't end up being too bad in comparison to some RPGs; the brisk pace of combat helps the player get through it faster, and item prices generally aren't too outlandish, meaning that the player can get much of their gold-farming done in a matter of minutes rather than hours.

The game's combat is also fairly straightforward, with most enemies having only one or two types of attack for the player to deal with.  Much of the danger involved therein comes from "beef-gating" - wandering off the path to the intended next area and encountering enemies well above the party's level, which can quickly cause them to be wiped out.  Thankfully, the game also lets the player save at any time, so as long as they remain diligent, this isn't a huge problem.  The encounter rate also generally isn't bad - there are only a few instances I can recall of enemies attacking me every other step or so, and even those were generally in dungeons.  However, enemy groups can sometimes be massive onslaughts of 5-8 enemies, which can be extremely dangerous to an underprepared party and quickly deplete their resources, forcing an early retreat back to town in order to heal up.

As was standard for RPGs of the era, the overall narrative in the game is fairly minimal, without much in the way of defined characters or an ongoing narrative.  The playable characters also neatly fit into the usual RPG archetypes - Alis is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, Myau is more of a support character (being able to boost allies' defense, disarm traps and having the best healing spell), Odin is pure muscle (and the only character who can wield guns) and Noah is the mage character, being relatively weak physically but getting the strongest offensive spells.  Still, its quirky science fantasy setting lends it some charm, and it did provide an important building block for later games in the genre, which had much more of a focus on story and atmosphere as the technology allowed for it.

In the end, Phantasy Star is a game emblematic of its era in many ways, but its strong aesthetics and overall level of polish help it stand out from other contemporary titles.  It provides enough content to give the player a satisfying adventure, but it also proves concise enough that it doesn't wear out its welcome.  The first in a classic RPG series that endures surprisingly well today.

Developer: Sega

Publisher: Sega
Platform: Sega Master System, Game Boy Advance, Wii Virtual Console
Released: 1988
Recommended version: As all of the later versions are direct ports of the same game, you can't really go wrong with most of them.  However, I would avoid the Game Boy Advance port, as it has a rather annoying bug that can cause the game to lock up during the save process, forcing the system to be reset and causing the player to lose all of their progress since their last save.  The Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection compilation for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 also contains ports of all four Phantasy Star games, making it an ideal and affordable choice for modern gamers.  The Switch version by M2 (part of the Sega Ages line) also includes enhancements like a minimap and an enhanced mode that supports FM Synth emulation.