Phantasie

Phantasie is a role-playing game designed by Winston Douglas Wood and published by Strategic Simulations Inc. It was released initially in 1985 for Apple II and other 8-bit platforms.

Andromeda Software curated the conversions to Amiga and Atari ST and published them in 1987. An MS-DOS version was also released in 1988. The game was the first chapter of a popular series that ended with Phantasie III: The Wrath of Nikademus (if we exclude the fourth title that was released in Japan only).

Phantasie resembles the first chapters of Ultima, at least in graphics. Its main features include managing a party of up to 6 characters, with several classes to choose from ranger, monk, thief, fighter, priest, and wizard. Races include the classic human, halfling, dwarf, elf, gnome, ogre, pixie, lizard man, minotaur, and more. Explorations of dungeons and wilderness use a top-down view. In towns, you can find shops and also banks, where you can store money. The view switches to a separate screen during encounters with enemies, where you can control each character in a turn-based combat mode.

Phantasie was a very advanced RPG, penalized only by graphics that were a bit outdated—or, at least, not improved when ported from 8 to 16-bit. Despite this, fans still love it, and every RPG aficionado should try it at least once.