How did you meet with Phantasy Star?

Xander wrote:

Well H-Man, it's not like you go online one day and decide to look for a fan community. I've always found that any time I've joined a forum it's usually because I happened to stumble upon it while looking for something else.

I'd recommend having another go at PS III at some point and finish the other generations. While they do end with the same fight, the endings are unique and while you have to do the same tasks in the final generation, with the exception of finding Laya, the amount of ground work you have to do varies.

I actually did go back and beat it with Sean, but that was back in 2004.

When I moved to Brazil, I was determined to keep up my friendships back in the USA, so my friend Jacob and I played through the first Phantasy Star with an emulator sending the save states back and forth. Nice way to keep to friends together.

Awesome stories everyone, thanks for contributing to this cool topic

Makes me wanna do my 2nd PS3 playthrough of the year!

I loved reading these stories! It seems like a lot of phans (like myself) picked up PSI as kids. I find it interesting that others started out with the later games. I am sure the first PS experience is the best for the person playing it regardless of the game.

Well lets see, I'll try to do this without sounding too old.

My first encounter with Phantasy Star was many moons ago some time around 1990 not long after I bought my brand spanking new Sega Master System with my paper round money from a catalogue that my mother used frequently. Now at this point I had been raised on the all powerful ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC 464, this meant if you wanted to play good games you either spent your weeks pocket money on a cassette tape that may or may not work or you spent hours typing in the code yourself. The only console previous to this had been my Dads Atari 2600!

Well here I was with this big black brick, no keyboard no joystick no cartridges all I had to play was Alex Kid built into the system. (and the snail game you had to do weird button presses while resetting). On with the tale, while out shopping for some new shoes for school I stumbled on a rack of console games that the shop keeper had just set up mostly for NES and many tape cassettes for various other systems I was used to seeing but there was one cartridge that stood out from the others one that would work on my SMS. On the cover was an image of a blonde wielding a sword fighting an eyeball with wings and a very heavy price tag of £90GBP I had to beg and crawl to get my Mum to lend me the money promising to pay back every penny! That night I was glued to my little black and white portable TV with snowy picture hacking away. I am embarrassed to say I didn't actually complete the game for almost a year.

Well the years went by and the Megadrive was released, and was added to my collection of stuff I was impressed with the graphics and speed but all the shops in my area only stocked action games. A small video rental shop one day started to rent console games and I would spend my meager money trying all sorts out on the Megadrive nothing satisfying my needs and at this time I had started pen and paper gaming. Until one day while browsing the shelves a new game had appeared Phantasy Star III I rented it and was addicted, week after week I would renew the rental playing through every possible generation drawing out the maps on graph paper occasionally using them in my pen and paper games. No one else ever requested the game and the shop keeper one day turned to me and said "Keep it"

A long time went by before Phantasy Star IV came into my sights in a bargain bin at the same video rental place £20GBP used, it was mine and I was at it again the cut scenes had me hooked and the story was being read word for word. Well eventually I finally laid my hands on a copy of Phantasy Star II and the collection was complete and I still haven't gotten around to completing II strange but something in my adult life always seems to crop up when I start playing it (Starting to think it's jinxed)

Well there it is I don't mention PSO as I have always felt that is when the game lost its Phantasy Starness tried playing it and just could never get into it Oh Well.

A good friend of mine recommended me to try it a few years ago over MSN, so I did. With an emulator. I obviously enjoyed the games and played 1, 2 and 4 through rather quickly. Yeah, nothing too fancy about my story. ^^

And that good friend just so happens to be me. ^^

As for myself, I first got into contact with PS2, but was too young to understand the game (I can actually recall having thought that Rolf was a female and called him "MIA" xD). Later on I tried PS2 again, but was appalled by its difficulty, so I went to the prequel and then worked my way from there.

Nothing too exciting about my story, either.

mk1995 wrote:

(I can actually recall having thought that Rolf was a female and called him "MIA" xD).

So... the opening sequence of Rolf waking up shirtless in his bed didn't solidify his gender well enough? Wow, that's not saying much for Rolf and his man-breasts.

Well that's a first for sure. As if Rolf wasn't enough, yes, as Tanith said, the opening scene would have been enough. But hey, we all make mistakes.

Tanith wrote:

So... the opening sequence of Rolf waking up shirtless in his bed didn't solidify his gender well enough?

I don't think I paid a lot of attention to those cinematics. But I think the thing that triggered my thought of Rolf being female was because of the blue hair... I've been a weird toddler. ^^;;

Aeroprism wrote:

So how did you first encounter PS? When was it? What did you feel back then? Are you a new player on a journey of discovery or an old veteran on a journey of nostalgia?

In comparison to some, it was not so long ago... I did not have the good fortune of owning a Genesis as a child, I had to content myself with all that was good on its 8-bit rival. I did read of glories like Phantasy Star and, later, Lunar in gaming magazines. While I was quite fond of Ultima Exodus, Star Tropics, and Final Fantasy I admit that I longed deeply for such clearly wonderful games.

Nearing the end of the century, I finally did acquire a Genesis and then another in short order, but I decided to play the series in order, a choice I have never regretted, and, through nefarious means, did partake in the glory that was the original Phantasy Star. It remains my favorite game in the series, not necessarily for it itself but for how, subtly, Phantasy Star II and Phantasy Star IV build on it. The original made the sequels much grander in my eyes, in a way that only Ultima and the second Dragon Warrior trilogy have matched.