GuestLog in

Despite the other reviews, it doesn't work well with translations. For some reason, translations revert the very reason to use this patch: buildings.

I can reccomend this patch only to japanese and original translation users. For those who want to use the retranslation, use the author's CSI hack instead.

The first Phantasy Star was groundbreaking in several ways, and the first RPG experience of a great many, for those that grew up on Sega systems like myself;

An engrossing, serious tale that deftly mixed sci-fi and fantasy like few others, it is without a doubt a timeless classic.

However... aside from the very impressive dungeon effects and enemy sprites in battle, it sadly looked rather ugly and flat on the overworld portion, which created something of a quality dissonance in the graphical presentation.

This is where this great hack comes in, beautifying the sprites greatly, be it the party ones or NPCs (NPCs always looked like weird scarecrows to me) to something much closer to the graphical standard of Phantasy Star 2 and 4, and honestly even surpasses that in the amount of detail that was added.

Buildings were also touched up to better resemble those of later entries (Phantasy Star 3 excluded since... that's a whole other can of worms I'd rather not open).

As an added bonus, this beauty here works with both the vanilla game and translation patches, so the player is free to experience this vastly enhanced gem however they see fit.

The redesigned art is just phenomenal and is absolutely worth trying it out. Using this patch along with the brilliant retranslation patch is arguably the definitive PS experience.

One thing to note however, is that this did not work when I patched it over an already translated ROM. I had to use this patch first (Japanese version patch on a Japanese ROM) and then apply the translation patch. After that it worked flawlessly!