Phantasy Star Universe

"Reviewed for offline only, from a PSO player."

First of all, if you intend to play online, this review doesn't apply to you. I never have and have no idea if it's better or worse than the offline play.

Also, this review will draw many comparisons to PSU. Like it or not, PSO is the next in line on the series and I can't review it as something it isn't. If you disagree, feel free to ignore this review.

So, Phantasy Star Universe. Abandoning the "Online" name apparently doesn't mean it can't be online. Anyway, It's supposed to be the next in line for the Phantasy Star series which I personally greatly enjoy. As such, I expected a degree of quality that this game failed to deliver. Let's see each aspect of the game:

Graphics: I believe graphics have no impact on a game. No result on the score, at least not from me. If you disagree, there are plenty of other reviews for you. Moving right along.

Sound: I don't know why, but nobody liked the PSO soundtrack quite as much as I believed it deserved. I vividly remember many pieces from that game and those songs alone sometimes still drive me to play it. As such, I can't understand what happened here. The PSU soundtrack is awful. There is absolutely nothing going for it. During the last boss fight I could almost swear there was no music at all. On the positive side, the voice acting is pretty good, even if it doesn't exactly leave a long lasting impression.

Story: Oh boy. This is bad. Very bad. Where do I start? Extra mode. Extra mode is where you make your own character to play with. It has no real story to speak of. Understandable, however, as that's why it's called Extra mode and not Story mode. No problem there. Unfortunately Story mode is extremely unenjoyable. There's little way around this, the story's just plain bad. It's like it was pulled straight out of a big bag o' cliches. Yes, the cutscenes are better at presenting it than the message capsules of PSO, but at least PSO's story was interesting. None of the characters will have you drawn in, none of the obnoxious cutscenes will make you want to know what happens next, nothing. It's almost depressing.

Gameplay: I wish this could make up for the story. Remember PSO's gameplay? This is it, made a little worse. Remember having to time your button pressing to attack in combos? Try doing that here and you'll be swinging once at a time. Button mashing is how PSU does it. Remember configuring the interface so your various techniques, spells, items and attacks were easily accessed the way you wanted them to? Gone. On the plus side you can shift weapons on the fly, but that's a necessary addition considering you now have ammunition. Character creation is better as race, class, gender and appearance ar all completely separate. However, this is only accessible in Extra mode. To unlock everything Extra mode has to give you, You must first complete all of the dreaded Story mode. Just watching all the embarassingly awful cutscenes would have been hard enough. Oh, and even Extra mode doesn't let you freely explore the combat areas like you could in PSU, you can only repeat the same few missions endlessly if you want to fight at all. However, extra mode does manage to be quite enjoyable, even if not for as long as PSU did.

Short version: Extra mode is fun and all, too bad you have to clear the borefest that is Story mode to unlock its full potential. Sitting through those cutscenes was anything but fun.

Score: 4 out of 10. You'll probably have lost interest by the time you beat Story mode.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 07/10/08

Game Release: Phantasy Star Universe (US, 10/25/06)