Phantasie games are early RPGs that should be credited as among the first to feature excellent combat options (e.g. different styles of attack), "bank" concept where you deposit the loot, and excellent variety of spells and monsters.
These games were a big hit on Commodore 64, but their 4-color IBM port, predictably, didn't do as well. Too bad Phantasie 2 was never ported to the PC.
Review By HOTUD
Comments and reviews
Phantasie was the "other" series that few seem to talk about these days. 2d RPG games were almost always centered around Ultima games. This was a fully featured rpg game series that offered features not found elsewhere. Plus it was made for many computer platforms and played well.
It's finally available on GoG but unfortunately, they used the DOS version that looks like complete ass.
This was my first RPG. I absolutely loved it! Managing an adventuring party, random encounters, monsters of various size and ability, and a real "open world" feel. I wish I had the original C64 version to play today!
If anyone is interested, here is the final battle on the C64 version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SqZl6UlzoI&t=20s
just replayed this game from when i was 12 sooo good .... game played well with only the emulator crashing from time to time
The C64 manual is available at archive.org.
Played this until the wee hours. One of my friends skipped classes and forgot about his gf from start to finish. It was such novel idea back then.
My gripe is with the Atari 8 bit version, there's mulitple problems really. First apparent gripe is that you can't take gold out of the bank, you can put gold in but you can't take it out.
Second, is you can't cast spells in combat or buy spells when you can. I remembered that when I had my Thief Thrust on 2nd row my Thief actually casts Awake.
Now I've played this game many times and If you can't cast spells you can't win this game. In big boss battles you have to cast 8, it's the hardest hitting single foe spell available. You need it against the Black Knights, High Demons, the Minor Diety, Zeus and the last bad guy Nikademus.
This makes the game virtually unplayable for the Atari 8-bit
I loved this game on my C64. Phantasy and Temple of Apshi on my Atari 400 started me down the RPG path forever.
I spent so many days in the 80's playing this game on the PC.
The Phantasie trilogy was the first RPG series I ever played. I first played it on the Commodore 64, and sadly, that version is much better than its PC counterparts (better color and MUCH better sound). That said, the PC version at least plays much more quickly and it has higher-res graphics that didn't appear in the Commodore version until Phantasie III.
Gameplay wise, it has simple turn-based combat like other early RPGs but instead of using text-based descriptions with a single picture of the enemy, you see each enemy you're fighting and which row (or 'rank') they're lined-up in. This is a welcome feature and makes combat just a bit more interesting.
No comment nor review for this game at the moment.