Btw, why the title of the thread? I'd say Screen 1, Yes please !
That's because i've never seen a lot of games working in screen 1 (I'm referring to the active MSX era), so in my mind comes the image of the sw houses of that era saying ' Screen 1 ? no thanks'....
(Theseus is screen 2)
Screen 1 isn't that bad, it allows fast updating.. and indeed, many old MSX games graphics aren't that stunning, eg. Zanac could be screen 1 with some small modifications (like "red eye correction")
Actually, Lotus F3 in-game is screen 1 (reduced mode), screen 2 (regular msx1) and screen 4 (msx2). But the default configuration for msx 1 is screen 1. The visual difference is the amount of colours in the status area of the in-game screen.