Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II

"Woohoo – a red box!"

‘Oh my god, it's a Psycho Wand! Can you believe it? That's a 1 in 12600 drop chance! Man, that's the best damn wand in the game! Incredible! … Hey, let's go do Addicting Food runs on my Skyly. The drop rate for Chainsawd is 1 in 1050; sounds doable with this kind of luck!'

My friends, welcome to the world of PSO.

I've had Phantasy Star Online: Episode I & II in my collection for a while now, and for some reason my save file states that, on my main character only, I've spent over 250 hours playing. That's more than 10 full days. And why? The gameplay can be called shallow and extremely repetitive and does often not involve more than simple hack and slash. Visually PSO is far from being top-notch and hopelessly inferior to games such as Baten Kaitos and Tales of Symphonia. Also, PSO is supposed to be a (MMO)RPG, but the story is one of the weakest I've ever encountered. Then why-o-why, have so many people, including myself, spent so many hours on this game? But more importantly, how did they manage to have so much fun?

The Phantasy Star series has been around for a while now. To be honest, PSO Ep. I & II is the first game in the series that I've played, so if you're expecting a comparison with any of its predecessors, then I'll have to disappoint you. Not that I intended to give a comparison anyway, since PSO Ep. I & II can perfectly be treated as a standalone game, even if the story does somehow link up with any of the previous games.

Anyway, several hundred years from now, mankind has messed up the earth so badly that there is no other choice but to look for other planets that are able to support human life. In a system far away, a planet much like earth is discovered, and it gets named ‘Ragol'. After years of preparation, two colony ships, Pioneer 1 and Pioneer 2, set out on their long journey. Each carrying tens of thousands of passengers, these ships are to prepare Ragol for further colonization in years to come. However, upon arrival of Pioneer 1, a huge explosion occurs on Ragol's surface. When, several days later, Pioneer 2 arrives, no trace can be found of Pioneer 1 or its inhabitants. You, as an explorer travelling aboard Pioneer 2, get beamed down to Ragol to try and find out what happened. And as you arrive with the character you just created, you'll find yourself in the Forest, stage 1, difficulty level Normal.

Character creation offers plenty of opportunity for customization. PSO has got three major classes to choose from: Hunter, Ranger and Force. Hunters are close-ranged, sword-wielding fighting machines, with a limited array of healing and boosting spells available to them. Rangers are gunmen, who use handguns, shotguns, sniper rifles and generally any type of gun they can find to take their enemies down. They, too, have access to a limited pool of spells. Forces are magic-users, who blast their enemies to oblivion using some of the most powerful magic in the game. They, of course, have access to all the spells the game offers. Each of these three classes is subdivided into four specializations. For the Hunter, for example, we have HUmar, HUnewearl, HUcast and HUcaseal. HUmar is the most balanced of them all, HUnewearl sacrifices some attack power for speed and TP (used to cast spells), HUcast is a powerhouse but unable to heal itself, and so on. After having picked a specialization and name for your character, you get to customize him or her even further by choosing a hairstyle and a colour scheme for his or her outfit. Not one character will look the same, which gives the pleasant feeling of a character truly being your unique own.

Now, back to the Forest. Whatever class you picked, you'll find yourself killing lots of monsters. This is the foremost element of PSO's gameplay. All the way from level 1 to 200, through Normal, Hard, Very Hard and Ultimate, you will be killing monsters. Be it during quests or random strolls through one of the areas, be it with friends, online with a couple of strangers (I'll get back to that later) or just by yourself, monster killing it is. However, this does not mean that PSO is nothing more than mindless slaughtering. Episode I & II's successive stages get progressively harder, so you'll have to upgrade your gear, train your MAG (a little creature that assists you) and work out tactics to defeat certain enemies. Boss fights show creativity on SEGA's part, and they are fun and challenging.

There is something strangely satisfying about cutting down lots of enemies and seeing your experience points increase. Maybe it's the feeling of control you get? The sensation of holding your future in your hands, and being able to see where it will take you? After all, the character select screen shows that I only need 40000 more experience points and I will once again become stronger, faster and harder to kill. Do this and you will achieve that: security, unlike in real life.

In any case, two other factors that will keep you going are the hunt for red boxes and playing with friends. Dead monsters drop items, and if you're lucky you may find a red box amongst them. Red boxes contain rare and often very powerful weapons, shields, pieces of armour and stat enhancers. Seeing a red box sit on the floor always causes a thrill. ‘Red box! What will it be?! … Aw, another H&S25 Justice'. IGN hosts drop charts that show each monster's rare drop, and its drop rate, on every difficulty level. And so the hunt begins. I've seen people spend dozens of hours killing the same monsters over and over again, or doing the same quest over and over again for that purpose, just to try to get, for example, that elusive Sealed J-Sword with a drop rate of 1 in 12000. Also, it is impossible for one character to collect all the rare items in the game. Not just because of the low drop rate, but because most rare items only drop for a specific Section ID. The name you bestow upon your character determines which of the 10 Section ID's he or she gets assigned to. Each of the 10 ID's has got a specific type of equipment that drops a lot for it. For example, Greenill has got a lot of Rifle drops which makes it especially suitable for Rangers. Pinkal on the other hand is a great ID for Forces, because of the many wands and canes the ID offers. Match up your class and ID to achieve the best results.

Playing alone can be fun, but it can't beat playing together. Characters can be imported from another memory card, so everyone can play with his or her own hero. The more players (up to a max of 4), the harder the stages become, and the boss fights can become especially challenging. It's hack and slash combined with some tactics and solid survivalist cooperation: great fun. Should you possess a Broadband Adapter, then you can take your experience online. Hook up with players from all over the world and explore areas, do quests and kill monsters that are not available offline.

The soundtrack is limited, but impressive. Hideaki Kobayashi and Fumie Kumatani have done a very good job at creating music that's dark, chaotic and threatening, and it truly enhances the already-pessimistic mood of the game. Running through the mines actually made me feel down. I felt a wave of hopelessness and loneliness, even despair, come over me when down there. The panicky music, the dark and gloomy visuals, the general feeling of ‘empty space out of control'; it gave me the creeps. PSO deserves all the credit it can get for being able to awaken such strong feelings in players. Ultimately I ended up avoiding the Mines, because I couldn't help feeling down every time I entered them. The Caves and Ruins radiate the same gloomy mood, though fortunately somewhat less overwhelming. Episode II is a whole lot more lighthearted in nature, with more colourful visuals, ground level stages and brighter music. Also, Episode II offers some stunningly beautiful graphics. One of the ‘Central Control' stages takes place in an environment that could've been Paradise if there hadn't been monsters everywhere. I caught myself lining my character up next to a cliff to look at the view, just as I would when high up on a mountain in real life.

Well, it's time to round up this review. PSO is an incredibly addictive game that only gets more fun as you go along. Multiplayer, whether offline or online, will keep you playing for hours on end. Now go kill those Boomas!

Written 05/27/2009.
© 2009 Jeroen Geurtsen (Jerom88).

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/28/09, Updated 06/01/09

Game Release: Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II (EU, 03/07/03)