Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II

"PSO on the xbox. How is it? How does it compare?"

Phantasy Star Online EP 1&2 is the newest addition to a long series. The saga dates back to the Genesis days. The first Phantasy Star was released in 1988, and was one of the Genesis’s first RPG’s. With 3D dungeons, sharp graphics, and a great story, it was one of the 8 bit era's greatest games. The game was overshadowed by Zelda and dragon warrior on the NES. A year later we saw a sequel with Phantasy Star 2. This is when Phantasy Star made it to the 16 bit era. Again tough competition in the way of Final Fantasy hurt sale and popularity. Then in 1991 Sega released Phantasy Star 3: Generations of Doom. This one took a bit of a detour and was much different then past Phantasy Star games. It spanned across 3 generations of your characters and had multiple endings. Phantasy 4 was released a little later in 1994 and was the last Phantasy Star released on the Genesis. In fact there was no new Phantasy Star until the Dreamcast days. Phantasy Star 4 was also the last offline game of the series. While all others have offered offline experience as well as online, it was never the same.
Phantasy Star is reborn with Phantasy Star Online for the Dreamcast in January of 2001. This game was a huge hit and helped formed a cult following. Shortly after in September of the same year Phantasy Star Online Version 2 was released. This game included the full version of Phantasy Star Online was well as adding new game modes, levels, quests, and mini-games. With all the new stuff comes a price, this is where the Sega introduces the idea of a fee. They charged players with $5 a month. Phantasy Star Online Version 2 had a few problems. Cheating ran rapid and soon characters where getting the best items and equipment as well as rising through the levels. Some cheaters even hacked into other accounts, deleting and changing data.
Then Phantasy Star Online EP 1&2 and Phantasy Star Collection where released on the GCN and GBA in late 2002. Phantasy Star Online EP 1&2 included both version 1&2 from the Dreamcast as well as a whole new one. This is basically the same game that I am reviewing for the Xbox now. With only a few differences that I will explain. Phantasy Star Collection was a collection of the first 3 Phantasy Stars. The 4th was omitted for lack of space. Now about 6 months later we, here on the Xbox, are given a chance to experience what GCN owners have for months. But, was it worth the wait?

Gameplay:
*Warning*Phantasy Star Online is an ONLINE ONLY RPG for the Xbox. While there is offline gameplay, you must own Xbox Live to play it. This is so Microsoft can keep tabs on you and make sure you aren’t cheating. So far it’s worked seeing how I’ve never seen cheating on this game. If you don’t have Xbox Live then don’t buy this game. Also you must purchase a hunter’s license to play online. The hunter’s License is $9/month after the first 2 month free trial. While you must own Xbox Live to play offline, a hunter’s license is not a requirement.*/Warning*
That needed to be said before I continued with the review. When you first start the game, the first thing you must do is create a new character. You can choose between three main classes: hunter, ranger, and force. Then you get 4 choices for each class, usually consisting of a male, female, and 2 android units. After you pick your class type you must custom make his/her appearance. You can choose from things like costume color, hair type/color, skin color, height, and proportion. Then you actually get to choose your voice mask. They actually let you adjust it you your own liking. The game plays back what you say so you can hear what it sounds like before you accept. If you choose you can just turn the voice mask off as well. You can make an unlimited number of characters, but once you finish creating one, you cannot change anything about him/her without deleting the character itself. You can however change your voice mask. You can create an unlimited number of characters so you can try all of them out if you wish. This also gives plenty of room for friends to build characters on your Xbox and play through split screen multiplayer.
The gameplay is pretty basic but still fun as hell. You have your sabors, swords, brands, etc. that you can use as close range weaponry. Then you have a series of handguns, shotguns, rifles, etc. that you can use for long ranged weaponry. Finally you have an array of spells, ranging for ice, fire, lightning, to healing, revival and a host of support magic’s. You learn these techniques through items, which you find or buy. Certain levels are required to learn new spells or use new weapons. As a force you will be able to obtain these spells much fast then a hunter or ranger, but hunters can use close ranged weapons faster and rangers can use ranged weapons faster. The attacking is done in a simple combo system. If you strike at the right time you will start a combo. A combo can get up to 3 moves. You can choose between two types of attacks. There is a weaker one with high accuracy and a stronger one that is more apt to miss. Choosing when you use which one is very important to success.
There is also something called mags. With these you feed them items to power them up. Depending on what item you feed them they will level up on one of four categories, defense, attack, dexterity, and mind. When they get a level up in any one of those, they get an overall level up. At set levels they will evolve into stronger mags. Mags also have intelligence. The higher their I.Q. the higher the chance of them randomly making you stronger, or reviving you. Paying close attention to your mag is extremely important. Mags also become attached to you. You are giving a percent, the higher the percent, the faster your photon meter grows. When your photon meter is full you can do an extremely powerful attack called a photon blast. As you level up your mag you will get more of these to use.
When your not in the levels, you are either in the lobby or on the Pioneer 2. The lobby is online only. When you pick online you must pick between 6 ships. Each ship has 16 blocks. Then each block has 15 lobbies. As you can see there are many places for people to hang out and tons of places to either submerse yourself with the other PSO players, or avoid them all together. Myself, and some people I know both from real live and some forums, have a complete block almost exclusively to ourselves. This is always kind of a cool thing to be able to do. From the lobbies you can chat with others or play with all the cool animations and simile faces the game offers. These vary from back flips to dances to even masturbation. Also from the lobbies you can join teams or create your own. You can have up to 4 people in your team and people can come and go without the need to restart or anything. It’s not uncommon to pick up a new member mid-game. Also a nice thought, when you’re the host and you leave, the game continues. So you don’t have to feel pressured to stay forever if you want to host. When you create game you get to title of the game, a password, difficulty, and mode. This game will last you some time through the difficulties, you get to choose between normal, hard, very hard, and ultimate. They actually require you to be of a certain level to even join a harder difficulty. The jumps in difficulty are enormous as well. The modes offered are challenge, battle, and quest. In quest you just play with people through the level, it’s just the normal mode. In battle you actually challenge other players to battle. Then in challenge, you are put into the middle of a level. If one of your characters dies, you all die. Also characters now do damage to one another. The Pioneer 2 is simply where you start the quests from and where you purchase, sell, and store items and money.
In the offline mode, you must play through the story solo. You just start right on the Pioneer, skipping the lobbies all together. You can also do a large number of quests outside from the normal story mode. There are hours and hours of quest packed into this game. Also Sega promises more downloadable content regularly. On the first day of release their was already a downloadable quest, so lets see if they keep it up. Then in multiplayer you can choose between online and split screen. The online is just playing the story mode with 3 other people. The split screen can have up to 4 players. This works out alright, but is definitely not flawless. This works much like the online where you will run through the story mode together. The problem is that at times the camera can get really funky and completely cut your character off. This can create huge problems on some boss fights. Also all players must be on warps and teleports at the same time. You cannot split your party up. If one person needs to go back to the Pioneer, then everyone has to go. Split screen is still fun, though, and can be a good way to level up several characters a once. Also friends can save their character over to a memory card and then play on your Xbox. The character must be set as a temporary character and can only play split screen multiplayer. This is a bit of a problem if you want to play solo or online at a friends house. Also when you save to a memory card or to another Xbox, the other one says transferring. Basically if you don’t save back from the most recent save, the only way to revive your character is to forfeit all your items and money. Sega made sure to be very strict in this game to reduce cheating.
This game was released on the GCN, in November. Xbox gamers are just now getting this game. Did Sega give us anything for the wait? Yes and no. The GCN version had a very bad chat system. The only way to get a keyboard was to import one. There was no voice communication. That was probably the biggest difference between the two. It is also a huge factor. In this game communication is absolutely necessary, and the Xbox version offers both keyboards and voice chat along with the system the Gamecube version used. Also with Microsoft’s determination to stop cheating on their console, we are much safer playing on this console. Thus far, Phantasy Star Online EP 1&2 on the Xbox has yet to see any cheating. There have been pictures across the internet of a select few people who managed to hack, but there have been no reports that they made it online. Also unlike on the GCN you can leave feedback reporting cheating to Microsoft. Xbox also has downloadable content. In the first 3 days of release we already saw a new quest. Other then these three differences we only see a very minor upgrade in graphics and sound quality. This is hardly noticeable and not a huge deal. Then the Gamecube one cost more money then the Xbox one. It’s not much I believe about 50 cents/month and the purchase price has a $10 difference.
So what version should you buy? I would recommend buying the Gamecube version if: you don’t have broadband, don’t plan to go online, or don’t have/want XBL. I would recommend the Xbox version if: you want to save money (debuted at $39.99 and about 50 cents less/month), have XBL, or want to play online. Other then this it’s simply a question of what controller you like best. Overall the Xbox version is far superior. This game is meant to be online, so I cannot recommend it if you want to play it offline.

Graphics:
This game is definitely not up to Xbox standards. It looks like what it is, a Dreamcast game that had a makeover. The textures are very washed out and blurry. When playing the game you get the impression that you are in a forest or cave but it’s not clear and crisp. The characters are alright. With the character creation there is a lot of variety but none of them look all the great. They do look better then the backgrounds and textures but still they are behind the curve. The enemies themselves do look pretty cool and unique.
The animation is bad. It’s not as bad as the animation in Morrowind. The characters have a stiff look to them as the run. The enemies feel out of date here as well. Everything just looks kind of stiff. The attack animations are cool though. You really look pimp as your slashing away. Also the lobby animations like the dance or the kiss look cool. Overall very weak, though.

Sound:
I like the music in this game. The have a fair number of tracks and even after going through the same place repeated times I’ve yet to get sick of it. Most of the music is pretty catchy as well. I still wish they had included a custom soundtrack feature. There is no longer any excuse for excluding this feature. Most new quests have their own music as well to keep variety up.
The sound effects are average. You just have your normal grunts, and groans for damage. You have your scream at enemy’s deaths. You get the usually explosion sound when an explosion happens. You get exactly what you would expect but no extra. Overall the sound is very mediocre. It’s not bad and not a problem with the game, but it’s also not the strength of the game.

Value:
Even through a lot of its technical faults this game is damn fun. This is probably the most fun I’ve had with my Xbox since Morrowind. PSO has an addicting quality to it. You are given full range of creating characters, so you can have fun with creation. You can create unlimited amounts of characters, allowing you to try new classes when you’re sick of older ones. The game has tons of rare items to find out on quests. There are tons of variety in weapons and hundreds of weapons to try out for each class. This is a very well done game.
There are well over 10 levels to explore, each at least 2 hours through on your first time. Then you have about 10 quests per level to play. You have downloadable quests to play. On top of that you have 4 difficulties to try out and 3 different modes. Just getting to a point that you can play the hardest difficulty would take weeks of dedicated play. This game boasts hundreds of hours of play and infinite replay value. Other then the lack lust graphics and average sound its hard to find anything to criticize this game. I don’t know if you’re like me but this game will end up saving money. It starts at $39.99. Then it’s free for 2 months. In that time I usually buy about 5 games equaling about $250.00. Then you pay a little fee of 9/month. That’s a lot less then a new game or two.

Brake Down:
Superior to the GNC and DC is almost everyway, PSO is back. If you haven’t experienced this adventure then I highly recommend trying it out, and this is the best version to date offering that. Hours and hours of addicting gameplay with really cool people. Almost everyone on XBL is very friendly. If you like a Dungeons and Dragons type game then this game was made for you. It’s a deep adventure that should not be overlooked. If your one of the many that loved Morrowind, then I can almost guarantee that this is the game for you.

Gameplay-9.5/10
Graphics-8/10
Sound-8/10
Value-10/10
Overall- 9.5/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/25/03, Updated 04/25/03