Phantasy Star Online

"I'm happier than a pig in it's own excrement"

Phantasy Star, two words that should be familiar to any true console RPG fan. Way back in the day when the NES had this cool little game called Final Fantasy, it seemed like 8-bit RPGs couldn't get any better, WRONG! lucky Master System owners (the few that existed) had the honor of playing the true king of the 8-bit RPG, Phantasy Star. Beautiful graphics, incredible animation (wow! look at that full screen 3D dungeon!) solid gameplay and lots of neat little ideas, for instance, in combat you could actually talk to some (not all) of your enemies and resolve things peacefully instead of mindlessly killing everything, and when you met a new party member there was a mini cinematic (a couple of well drawn stills, this was the days of 8-bit remember)to go along with the event. Now I know little things like that aren't that important to a game, but lots of little details like that are what seperate good games from great. The game did well enough to spawn a sequel on the Genesis, and the Genesis actually became the home for parts 3 and 4 as well, now after skiping the Saturn (ggrrr...) we have the next chapter in Sega's brilliant series on the Dreamcast Phantasy Star On-line, an RPG with some pedigre.

Graphics: 10/10

Lush, beautiful, and rich perfectly describe the graphics in this game, the models look excellent, the backgrounds have a very full feel with lots of life and animation to them, and the texture art is also very nice. One little gripe is that some of the enemy animation is a little stiff and could have been done better. Your character model also looks great with the player getting to give his or her creation a very unique look via the character creation segment. I was very pleased with the character creation bit because you're given quite a lot of control on how your character looks. Face, hair, clothes and even their proportions (height weight and so on) you're the one given the final say on all of these things.

Sound: 7/10

The sound effects fit nicely, and the sound track has it's moments, ranging from broad sounding orchestral peieces (standard issue for any big RPG) To laid back ''new age'' background stuff which is what you hear most of the time playing the game. Though some of the music is forgetable there are one or two stand out tracks (like the intro song).

Story: 7/10

Nothing revoloutionary here but it's interesting enough, you're a hunter (mercenary) on a ship called Pioneer 2, this ship is on it's way to meet up with Pioneer 1 which has already set up camp on a new planet, but when Pioneer 2 finally arrives at the new planet communication suddenly ceases between the two, this is where you come in, a brave and bold hunter who's going to find out what exactly happened to Pioneer 1 and make a few bucks while you're at it. The story is slowly fed to you by info capsules left by a member of Pioneer 1.

Control: 8/10

A very well laid out plan, in the menus you can customize the controls to your liking with 6 commands you can get at real quick (3 with the normal buttons and three more with the R-button held down). Why only 6 commands you ask? well there's to many spell, item, and attack commands to have a button for each one so you have to set up whatever you think you need to survive in the wild (gets ya usin' that noodle of yours)Your player character is very responsive with attack combos easy to pull off and menus which are a breeze to sift through.

Gameplay: 9/10

Its simplistc but addictive, building your character up is actually quite enjoyable in this game, hours just seem to fly by. I've been told its very ''Diablo 2-esqe'' in terms of gameplay but seeing as how I haven't really played Diablo 2 for a long enough time I really wouldn't know for sure, it's just that so many people have told me this I thought it might be worth mentioning for those who have.
The actual game is in 3rd person view with 2 sections of play, in town and ''in dungeon''. In town you can go to the local guild to get some odd jobs for cash, go to the hospital in case of boo boos and of course the store to buy and sell your gear (you'll be doing a lot of this trust me) it's also where you can chat and trade items with fellow players. ''In dungeon'' refers to when you go down to the planet fo a little action. At your disposal you have offensive and augmenitive spells (all of which are from previous Phantasy Stars), healing items and of course physical attacks of which there are 3 types of
weak:fast connects a lot but not to much damage strong: mucho damage but bad acurracy and lastly special: some weapons have special magic powers that give you a third type of attack for example a heat sword gives you a flame based attack for your third option. Also included is something call a Mag, he's a little helper guy who follows you around kind of like a familiar (AD&D yah!), you feed him items to make him stronger and in return he boosts some of your stats and gives you a ''rage gage'' type attack. Gettin' your butt whooped? no problem press the R-trigger (when the gage is full the R-trigger goes from your secondary triad of commands to your mag attack commands) and let er rip! A couple of minor gripes are that the player camera can get a little wacky at times (yes I like staring at the back of my NPC's head but I'd really like to see the game again) and the lock on system. When you get near an enemy or an item you ''lock on'' and when you get near a group of enemies you'd much rather get away from you're character has the bad habbit walking away instead of running because he or she is locked onto something, thus giving the baddies a chance for a few free hits. Aside's from this and a few mentally retarded computer chrarcters(a big scary monster that'll kill me if I get to close? I think I'll walk right up to him) it's all good.Inside the game there's always something to do, with lots of little mini-quests at the Hunters Guild to keep you busy (and make you a little dough while you're at it). If you get tired of those you can just teleport down to the planet and start playing though the main story of the game, fed to you through short messages left behind by one of the voyagers on Pioneer 1, and go toe to toe with some snazzy boss chraracters. If you get tired of that well just hop on-line and have a game with people around the world for a while, trade weapons, talk, or go down to the planet and start killing things together (cue ''Come together'' by the Beatles here) and maybe download some new mini-quests while you're at it. After all this, if you're still bored well then... don't buy this game, maybe a nice game of ''go fish'' is more your thing.

Fun: 10/10

So much to do and all the time in the world to do it. For anyone who owns a Dreamcast this is a must buy, Graphics game play and style all in one CD and if even this game weren't enough (and it is) there's a demo of Sonic Adventure 2 with it as well, just a little icing on the already heavily sugared cake. On a final note a good point has been made by Neomaxim, PLEASE don't pirate this game not only is it sooo worth your money i'd hate to see the chances for a sequel to this great game go up in smoke. So be good kiddies and show Sega that we appreciate thier hard efforts and give this tittle the sales that it deserves. A game that actually lives up to the hype (did hell just freeze?)

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 02/05/01, Updated 02/05/01