Phantasy Star Universe

"While the game is addictive at first, you'll find yourself yawning once you realize there are only a handfule of quests at launch."

Phantasy Star Online launched back in 2001 for the Dreamcast, and was touted as being the first console MMO, regardless of it's small scope and lack of content. It was also the first game in Sega's classic RPG series to be released in a good amount of years. Players came back for more and more, and PSO soon became a hit. The gameplay was simple and easy to understand, and for the first few months, the community was great and warm to newer players. It was easy to play, hard to master. Sega continued to port PSO to other consoles as the months went by, and players continued to buy them regardless of their unjustified monthly fees.

Sega is once again trying to bring back PSO fans for more with Phantasy Star Universe. PSU is the first game in the series built on an entirely new engine since PSO (not including remakes of the classic titles or Episode III), and built from the ground up for the Playstation 2. Phantasy Star Universe tries it's hardest to capture the best of classic Phantasy Star and the addicting online portion of today's Phantasy Star, but fails to reach quality on both fronts.

Phantasy Star Universe is the first online game in the Phantasy Star series to feature a full story mode. No longer are you reading little messages found on the ground, as you are presented with a variety of cutscenes acted with very little effort. You play as Ethan Waber, a teenager who has lost everything. The only thing left is his younger sister, Lumia. Ethan gets caught up in a global battle with an alien life force called the Seed, and finds himself in the ranks of the group he hates dearly, The Guardians. The dialog is over the top, and the voice acting is merely dub quality. You'll find yourself laughing at a few key lines ( "Is that a DE RAH-GAUN'S nest?!?!") and jerking in pain at the rest.

The story progresses through twelve chapters, which are all very linear. You start each chapter viewing an opening, just like a Japanese cartoon. Everything, from the camera angles to the cheesy music, is captured in this opening. You then begin in whichever spot Ethan was in last, and from here you proceed to a base, get a mission, and complete said mission. This mission unlocks more free missions, which can be completed with the aide of the various characters found throughout the story. You'll really be too busy doing the missions required by the story to progress to even care for the lame side missions.

One thing to keep in mind however, is that everytime you are on the field you are doing the same thing; killing monsters. After killing a set amount, a key will drop or a door will open, and you continue to do the same thing. While this sounds similar to what you've come to expect from the recent Phantasy Star titles, the backgrounds in Universe are nowhere near as detailed and varied as the ones seen back in the Dreamcast days. The music, while fairly good, is always loud (unlike the score build up in PSO). You'll never feel too immersed in the current surroundings because of the loud techno-like orchestra blaring through your speakers.

While Universe was obviously built from the ground up as an online game, the offline mode does not serve the developers intention of combining the best of RPG genres. After a certain point in Story Mode, you'll unlock Extra Mode. It's the same deal as Story, letting you play through the same missions and such. The only real change is that you get to make your own character and take them through unlocked missions. Extra Mode is rather embarassing, as PSO did the whole custom offline thing a lot better. It provided offline multiplayer and the freedom to do whatever. Extra mode does not allow any of that.

Online mode is the real meat of the game. Or, that is what it's suppose to be. The online mode and both offline modes are similar. You pick a mission, and venture out. The difference with online is the addition of 5 other players with you. The other difference, is that online mode is amazingly bare. As of writing, there is only a handful of missions to take part in, and access to maybe six worlds. There are a couple of boss fights, but these are hilariously easy to beat. Sega has also opened some difficulty modes which take the enemies up to about level 30-40, but these really do nothing in the sense of raising the difficulty as they all act the same, regardless of level.

During my time with the game, I found it rather hard to get into a party with players my level. Newer players won't have a problem, but for another couple of months, higher level players will need to make a lot of friends. I was able to make a full list of friends within a couple of days after launch, but to depend on a few people to level up in the game is rather weak. The game is also hard to get into at first. The tutorial is rather awful, barely detailing the more important parts of the lobby and mission structure. Sega promises content down the road, but right now, the 10 dollar fee is not justifiable. There is hardly anything massive about this game, and until more content is added, there is really no reason to rush out and pick this game up.

Until Sega does add more content, there are some extras to explore. Both online and offline allows you to dress and customize your character's room. Online allows the player to use decor tickets which change the color and theme of their room, and players on both fronts can place trophies or miscallaneous items on specified spots within their house. The clothing element of the game is interesting, but not something worth devoting a wide amount of money into. With the little amount of money you're given at the start of the game, and the challenge of actually making money itself, you'll be better off ignoring these extras until higher levels. Player's can add and open shops to attempt to increase their money flow, but the shop system isn't as deep as it could be, and finding shops is a boring process.

There are also some rather horrendous technical issues with the game. The frame rate is downright awful. When there is anything more then 10 characters on screen attacking, the game bogs down to a slide show. The Ps2 is streaming all the data from the disc, so there will be times when the game will force you to stop attacking and wait for something to load. I found my character spazzing out when other players went to change weapons, and I have heard from others that they suffered this problem, too. Loading times are short, which is a good thing considering the large amount of them. One minor downside to this, is that all the people inside the lobbies do not load up. You have to be right next to them in order to get them to load. Otherwise, you'll find grey characters running around in about five different colors as placeholders for the not-yet-loaded characters.

As it stands, Phantasy Star Universe just doesn't deliver on it's promises. Offline lacks anything interesting, and outside of previewing areas that aren't avaible on the online mode, you can really ignore it and head straight to network mode. Wait a couple of months, and check to GameFaqs forums to see if any new content has been added.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/06/06