"A great addition to the series."

Introduction As a big fan of the series I must say that I was quite impressed with this game. This is the first game of the series that I've enjoyed so much since PSO1&2 for the GCN, which will always be my favorite game of the series and possibly of all time. I first started playing PSO when I was 12 and I was delighted when PSZ came out and have spent hundreds of hours in the game collecting rare items and having fun with friends.

Story 5/10 As usual the actually story of this game, and basically every other PSO game, is rather boring and in my opinion very poorly made. The conversations aren't very well written at all and go on for very long periods of time, which ended up in me skipping most of them. One of the redeeming qualities of the story was the guild quests, which allowed you to get certain items and a few other things, but other then that, I was not impressed at all with the games story. I guess you could say the main plot of the story is that Dark Faltz is back and causing more trouble and that it is up to you to stop him.

Game Play 10/10 As usual the game play is kept pretty simple with the hack and slash type of game play with the option of using long ranged weps such as rifles, handguns, launchers and the newer weapon called gunblades. A few major differences were added though since the originals, such as being able to dodge roll and photon abilities on weapons. The ability to use techniques is still added into the game, with the typical Foie, Zonde, Barte, Resta, ect... and to use there stronger forms you have to charge them, which also costs more TP. Finally, the choices of classes is still there, which gives you a huge variety of types to choose from depending on how you want to play the game. Almost forgot to mention the multi-player for the game. It has both Download play, but all people playing will have to have the game, and online play. Both parts are great, especially if you can play with friends, but online is a great addition since you will always have someone to play with when your friends aren't around.

Replay Value 10/10 Best part of the game is the Replay value with the constant searching for rares in the many worlds there are to explore. There are 8 worlds and hundreds of rares to collect all of which have there own unique looks and abilities.

Graphics/Music 7/10 Over all the graphics and music were okay. They could have made a few minor changes to the enemies and some to the characters, but other then that I thought it turned out all right.

Overall 8/10 A for sure buy for a fan of the series and just as good of a buy if this is your first time playing a PSO game. Can guarantee you aren't going to find many other games for the DS that are better than this and that will give you so many hours of exciting game play.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/29/11

Game Release: Phantasy Star Zero (US, 11/10/09)