The Phantasy Star games also had pretty deep plots for their time. Hell Phantasy Star took another giant step in making the lead a female. It was just a very advanced game for its time.
PhS2: I thought it all in Macc’s Head?
BN
Didn’t Maz Help him out?
What’s the big deal?
Well, first of all, some people realize that PS1 and 2 were fucking amazing for their time. Find me five games predating 1987 on a console that had animated enemy attacks and 3D dungeons. Hell, name me two. You won’t be able to 
It’s also the first RPG on a console with characters, as opposed to Fighter and White Mage and shit. This game had it all back in its day, and you really have to think about a game based on the time it was released. Back then, if you compare it to Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior, it’s more than clear that the gameplay, story, and graphics were superior to Dragon Warrior. While FF1 did have the neat ability to be able to choose your entire party from the beginning of the game, it didn’t have cool dungeons or any type of ambience. The music? Debatable. It’s hard to compare the music of PS1 to the music of two other great composers, but that’s not to downplay the quality; it’s still a good soundtrack.
As for your question about difficulty, Phantasy Star starts out a lot more diffucult than either DW or FF…you can make it a lot easier though, because it’s very easy to level up fast in Phantasy Star. In fact, that’s about the ONLY thing I can think of to say bad about Phantasy Star 1.
I can’t say much about Phantasy Star 2 since I didn’t finish it (Save got erased halfway through…ugh). Very solid game, and definitely nothing that could compare in its time. Maybe Final Fantasy 2, but that would be largely debated, since a lot of people think that FF2’s combat system is bad (I think it’s fun, and a LOT easier to swallow than PS2’s fucking doomlord-no-hope-give-up-and-die-and-burn-in-the-flames-of-fucking-HELL dungeons. But, that’s what people liked back in the day, I guess…I wouldn’t really know
Phantasy Star 3 is weird…I guess maybe I like it because it was the first one I played. But, it really isn’t very good. It has really cool concepts, like the ancestral system which predates DQ5 (? I don’t remember which Dragon Warrior had this feature), which would determine they way your main character turned out, and even what you had to do for that 1/3 of the game. But, the game was an aural (meaning to-the-ears) catastrophe, and the gameplay was overall, just…bad. You were only really in danger of getting killed when you were getting your main character off the ground during the first like, hour of the game. After that, it was simple…enemies almost never deal sufficient damage to harm you. I remember I did the last 1/3 of the game and I only had to heal my party like two times, maybe? I remember going through a lot of the last dungeons with my entire party at really low HP (like 10-20 left on all characters) just because I knew I could get away with it. The process of locating where to go next is really a fucking drag, and it doesn’t help that there are only about five different dungeon designs in the entire game; almost EVERY dungeons looks the exact same. I know I say all these things about the game…but for some reason, I still feel happy when I remember this game. I really can’t put my finger on why I liked it.
Phantasy Star 4 isn’t on the PS Collection, but believe me when I say, “It’s good.” It is slightly rehashed from PS1 and 2, but it fixes a lot of minor and major annoyances (Slow, clunky movement/story progression/combat, obnoxious dungeons, too easy to level up, characters somewhat bland and static), to make a ‘perfect’ Phantasy Star game, so to speak. It’s pretty much the Chrono Trigger of the Sega Genesis. As SK points out in his review, it predates Chrono Trigger’s 2x and 3x Tech concept by a year. I’d be shocked if you didn’t like this game, even if it starts out a little slow. But, I suppose no game can be PERFECT, right?
I hope that answers your question about “What the big deal” is.
I understand now. I guess those people are old schoolers. Still, I don’t think it’s as addictive as other games. People seem to think it’s addictive NOW
I’m an old schooler too, but I didn’t play rpgs when NES was around. I’m sure a lot of people didn’t because there wasn’t much availble
Does anyone notice that old games have horrible translations? It’s funny that they say “Well” when you save
And what’s wrong with easy level ups? That’s a lot better than having the game be a grind. What games do you think have easy level ups?
Cless keeps his mouth shut most of the time. Claude just talks way too much for his own good, especially given the lines he’s got. And yeah, you guys forgot Ratix Ferrence, even though he has minor sprite changes like hair colour and a tail 
Sorry, I just happen to like them.
Um … so?
“Incidentally, have you seen the sky? It’s blue.”
Well, largely, the important thing is to have there be a balance between “too fast” and “too slow.”
A lot of that had to do with memory constraints. Developers had to find similar sayings in English without exceeding the memory limitations.
Some games had a English Beginner to Translate… AYB anyone?
BN
But it got better now a days in that respect…
The governor quest in Phantasy Star to get noah had a fucked up translation. I didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to do then
I think you throw around terms like ‘grind’ and ‘translation’ waaaay too much
But anyways, the game is really easy to level, and I mean like, really easy. The max level you can hit is 30, and you can easily get to like level 25-30 before you even bother picking up your fourth character. That’s what I call ‘easy.’
Could you save everywhere in the original Phantasy Star, cause you can in Collection.
I like PS 2 and 4 the best, but I Dont understand why 4 wasnt on teh collection