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Phantasy Star was the first RPG I played, when I was about 7 years old.

The translation was awful, a lot of the things in the game were cryptic, and I got ultimately got stuck at the Blue Dragon in Casba Cave. Only finished the game when I returned to it years later.

But hell if that game didn't have a lasting impact on me. The absolute sense of wonder o exploring an open world. One of the first things I did when I played was an attempt to walk around a mountain range and being obliterated by a group of spiders. I was utterly amazed when I could travel board a starship and trabel to Motavia. Exploring an entirely new world was mind blowing.

To this day when I have to pick between male and female on an RPG, I typically pick female because Alis Landale became in my mind the prototypical main character. At a time where the heroes I was used to were Rambo and Conan the Barbarian, there was something charming about going against an intergalactic dictator as a girl wieldin a sword and wearing a pink skirt. And I am a guy. Maybe that'd partly why I always get puzzled when people want to see themselves represented in videogames. I don't, I want Alis.



Yeah, I don't care to see myself, I want to see Neika (from Neophyte The Spirit Master) who is my video game spirit animal.


The translation was part of the charm.




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