Phantasy Star Universe

"Get Ready To Transport To Fancy Dreamland Wow"

Ok heres the pitch, take the past versions of PSO from the Dreamcast and Gamecube and totally tarnish its reputation. Strip it down, taking special care not to forget anything that actually made the game fun to play. Before I begin I'd just like to make it very clear where I stand with this game. I installed this game keeping in my mind that I wanted this to be by new favorite game. Currently, I just hit 150 hours with the online portion and about 3 hours in the offline. Why so little time put in offline? I'll get into that a bit later. By now, you can assume that this review will be primarily with the online mode in focus. In fact, everything discussed will pertain to the online mode unless noted otherwise.

Anyhow, flashback to the year 2000, when things were good still. A game called Phantasy Star Online released for the Sega Dreamcast and it was the best thing ever. Ever ever. An online role playing game for a console, what a concept. The world was supposed to end, but instead we got PSO, a good deal. In total, I have put over 3000 hours into various versions of the game to date. One could say I enjoyed playing this game a great deal. Six years later, lets see what vast improvements have been made to an already amazing series...or maybe not...

STORY: [3/10] The offline story in 'Phantasy Star Universe: Return to Tokyo' is in my opinion subpar compared to PSO. It is like an anime show, something of which I am not a fan. The characters are somewhat uninteresting. Ethan the main character, for instance is a big mouthed feel-strong chump. Ethan is constantly being bothered by two thugs named Lenny and Squiggy. Meanwhile, the "GUARDIANS" just hang out and make like they know what is going on. I'll take the whimsical affairs of KIREEK, MOME, and NOL over these bafoons anyday. PSO's story made me feel like I was right there on Ragol with the characters. Like I was right there ON that raft reviving MOME. Sorry, but the story is a downgrade. PSO had the knack in this area.

CONTROL: [3/10] Controlling 'Phantasy Star Universe: Kill Them All' is great providing you have a controller useable with your pc. You can map the buttons however you want so there really isn't much to say here except that it is nice to be able to do such a thing. Oh there is just one small thing, I do not see an option to configure my light gun. Being one of the greatest rangers ever known to man, I would really enjoy being able to use this. Also, an option to be able to play in first person mode using the keyboard and mouse would have been welcome.

SOUND: [5/10] Sound? Sounds good. Most of the sounds sound like well done sounds. Others, are not quite so good. For example, my twin handguns sound like a broom sweeping up rice. The ambient music in the levels is actually pretty decent. I can recall an area that resembles Tokyo, and if I close my eyes I can walk around my room and pretend that I am actually there. And when sometimes it becomes too much to take, there is an option to turn the sounds and music down or off. Much of the time, I mute the game and level my toon to the soothing melodies of Drowning Pool.

GRAPHICS: [5/10] The visuals in this game 'Phantasy Star Universe: Duck Sauce' are improved, but not much of a leap from the six year old PSO. The textures have been given a very brief once over but it is still jagged block city. There are even people in the towns that disappear when you approach them. This is simply unacceptable. The character models, well that is one thing that is actually done very well here. You can be a very detailed huge clunky robot or maybe even a 6 year old girl.

GAMEPLAY: [4/10] Ok here we go. Much to discuss here. Someone has some explaining to do. The gameplay in 'Phantasy Star Universe: Bamboo Jail Cell' can be summed up in one sentence. Best version of the Phantasy Star series to date, yet unable to survive in today's realm of online RPGs..yet. See, the DVD you buy from the store for fifty dollars only has currently about 1 gigabyte of content available. Thats about 20% of what you paid for. That is a bad way to release a game. Especially considering there is a fee to play it online and that there are better games to spend said fee on. Now, unless most of this content is made available very soon, Sonic Team will be having some problems.

With that said, much of the game is improved from PSO, however many good things were lost in transition. The combat system has been improved especially for rangers, who can now strafe while shooting at targets and inflicting lackluster damage instead of the same boring three hit combos. One of my biggest gripes is how poor of a job they did with the "MAG" system this time. "MAG" used to rock all sorts of rear end, but now its just something that can be ignored entirely. They are called partner machines. There aren't as many variations as mags, there are only about 10 different ones, as opposed to there being 100s in the past versions. They are extremely hard to level up now too and you cannot strap it to your belt until it reaches level 80 out of 100 which can take weeks. You can only feed it every so often, one time I went to feed it and it gave me some message about not being able to feed it again until the next ice age or something. It is a very slow process.

Lets discuss synthing, as well as player shops. Synthing is when you make an item using other items. Synthing is when you spend 20k of in game currency, or meseta rubicon bullions, on materials to make an item that you can sell for........ about 20k. What an ingenious idea. Now, 'Phantasy Star Universe: Doofy Poof' is won and lost in the Player Shop. Any player can pay a small fee in game to set up a shop and rip other players off with their useless wares. Many players seem to become broke by playing around with shops, but any player with an IQ greater than their shoe size will become very rich very quick. A sure way to make money is to buy marselines at 1200m and sell them like hot cakes at 5000m.

REPLAY VALUE: [4/10] The replay value is kind of hard to guage right now as most of the content is still unavailable. Right now the max level is 50, which is low, and it can be reached with between 100-200 hours played. If you plan on getting to level 50, also plan on becoming mind numbingly bored shortly after loading the game. There are only a hand full of missions to do and only one or two of them are good. I played this game to death for a week and thats all I really needed to see and do everything until an update is made. They better make with the updates because it is going to take more than just another planet with four more missions to keep me playing.

I don't see myself leveling another character on this game. I was really thinking more along the lines of something that would keep me amused for a bit longer. No more battle mode (PVP) or challenge mode, which I loved. Maybe bring back lobby soccer, maybe a round of golf after a tough dragon fight. Or maybe we will have to start duping and PK'ing each other again to keep it interesting. What a shame.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Whats left to say... Sonic Team dropped the fortune cookie in front of a train. But hey they don't care, we're all paying ten bucks a month to play it and their gonna release content as slow as they please. Let's see if they can convince me to renew my online subscription because right now they owe me for beta testing this thing. My days in 'Fancy Funland' are numbered.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 11/21/06