Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II

"An another killer-app for Xbox Live."

As a Dreamcast veteran of Versions 1 and 2 I must do my duty to inform you about the game and the info. The game is great but everytime you see something bad in the game, you see something good two times. PSO Ep.I and II is the 3rd incarnation of the “Phantasy Star Online” Series. Originally released on the Dreamcast before the announcement of Sega becoming a third-party company, PSO was the first online RPG for any gaming console. The game received many rewards for its innovative way to translate messages using its “Word Select” system. The game continues to be an awesome and with the release of this version on the Xbox video game system with Xbox Live it gets better.

Graphics:
The graphics on the Gamecube and Xbox versions are similar to each other so it’s really a non issue. But if you look closely in the game you’ll notice that you’ll see your character’s shadow in the game, the creatures now have realistic shadows and in the later stages of the game (Episode II) you’ll see that the game’s graphics are awesome especially in the Central Control Area.

Gameplay:
If you look closely at the title, you’ll be having like two games in one disc (No I’m not joking, since the whole game is on a proprietary 9 GB Xbox game disc). But here’s a warning for you people getting this game: YOU NEED HAVE XBOX LIVE TO PLAY. But for most of you who already have Xbox Live to play, it’s really a non-issue, and you have to pay a $9 “Hunter’s License” per month to play online also. But don’t worry, the credit card that’s used for your Xbox Live subscription is the one being used for your HL.
Controls:
The controls are actually simple for an Action-RPG. You use an “Action Palette” to customize how you attack. And since there’s voice communication in this version (about that later) you don’t need to type or use a keyboard/software keyboard at all, despite the fact that Microsoft offers a free USB keyboard adapter. Except for the fact that you can still create symbol chat symbols online. =)
The storyline: If you played Episode I before, you already know the storyline. But for Episode II here’s the story line in short: Pioneer 2’s The Lab has discovered a rescue signal from an island in Ragol called Gal Da Val Island. You and your 3 other team members are assigned to the task of finding out what happened in that island. But for around 50% of you players it’s an excuse to slay some monsters.

Gameplay in overall:
The gameplay in overall is this: You kill monsters so you’ll grow stronger and get stronger weapons and over and over again ’till you’re level 200. But what’s different from the level treadmill is about the game is all about teamwork and communication. And with Xbox Live you don’t have to get a keyboard to talk anymore. And you’ll be thankful for it because without it half of the time that you’re using the keyboard you might be dead or worse your team members might be dead, just because they have to stop because of typing. Once you play PSO with the voice communicator, you would never want to play an Online RPG with a keyboard AGAIN.
I won’t give details about the gaming system but you would be presently surprised…

Xbox Live: When you connect to a team, Xbox Live connections go pretty well with little lag. But still, the famous “Character gets stuck on the wall and teleports to a room” that’s in the original version is present and accounted for.

The 9 characters that are in the original are now expanded to 12.The FOmar, RAmarl and the HUcaseal. Each character class has its own strengths and weaknesses. (I won‘t waste my time to explain these new character classes but I’m sure that there are dozens of PSO websites that can explain to you more.) The Hunter class specialize in short range attacks, the Ranger class specialize in ranged-weaponry, and Forces specialize in using Techniques (A PSO term for magic spells) Once you create your character you can hop on online and explore Ragol and this is where the game is at its best, creatures just keep coming at you for more and more. And the replay value is at its max because of there’s 4 difficulty levels (Normal, Hard, Very Hard, and Ultimate) , tons of rare items and weapons you can find, Challenge and Battle modes and no two games are alike because of its random map creator so you’ll be spending a huge time with this game. But as of this writing we only have “Lost Heat Sword”, Gallons Shop”, and Battle modes and Challenge Modes 1-4. So it might take a while to get to the HUGE amount of online Hunter’s Guild Quests we had in the Dreamcast original.

And another big concern is the amount of hacking and duping in this version (That’s duplicating for “Duplicating items and weapons” for short.) Sonic Team has promised that they’ll curb this type of behavior but so far only the recent anti-dupe patch is giving us some hope. Another big downer is for some unknown reason Microsoft decided not to connect the international PSO servers together because of “security reasons”; I don’t see any security problems here. And another big downer is the lack of a REAL game manual, just a short quick start guide and you have to go to the “official” PSO website:www.xbox.com/pso2, to download a PDF version of the game manual. But even with the downsides, you won’t notice them after a while.

Music/Sound:
If you have a Dolby 5.1 Sound System please do me a favor and set this up for this game, the music in this game is near-perfect and if you’re a technology buff you might hear some sound differences between the two versions (Xbox and Gamecube). For me I like the boss battle music and the Pioneer 2 city music. Too bad someone didn’t notice that they need to release he game soundtrack in the US.


In conclusion PSO is a great game that if you are willing to put the time and effort into the game. If you’re only playing PSO offline don’t pick it up. But if you are a PSO veteran like me or just a newcomer to the PSO series, don’t miss out on playing it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/29/03, Updated 07/29/03