The original Phantasy Star Online was a
groundbreaking game for me. While the offline game was slightly on the mundane
side, online it was a true masterpiece. There was just something so irresistibly
addictive about you and 3 others taking and building up your characters in a
surreal and Phantasy Star setting. Naturally with my love of the first PSO, I
couldn't wait for Version 2 and was very pleased to hear Sega had picked it up
for release in the US.
So what's new here? Unfortunately not as much as a fan like myself would want
out of an expansion. First off though, Sega has now added a slew of new rare
weapons and Mags. This will ensure that nuts who must have every rarity in the
game will have even more to hunt for and trade. Some of the new Mags are pretty
cool. It is now possible to get an ultra cool Mag that's shaped like the classic
Sega Master System. Darn cool stuff.
For characters, unfortunately there's no new classes to choose from. You still
got your same 9 characters and 3 classes to choose from. Kind of a real bummer.
Sega really should have added at least 1 new class and new costumes. The only
real change here comes in the form of the hidden costumes from the first version
are now selectable without inputting a code. Also, mid game you have the option
to go to a changing room and actually create a new outfit for an existing
character. Very cool but unfortunately it cost a small fortune to do.
Sega has also increased the amount of levels a character can go up. In the
previous game, level 100 was your limit and could not gain anymore levels after
that. Now, in Version 2 it is now possible to reach an impressive level 200.
This will be a true blessing with the all new Ultimate Difficulty setting for
those who reach level 80 with their character.
Yes, Ultimate Difficulty. And the name truly does say it all. You'll find it
damn near impossible passing the first area of the game alone even if your
character is at level 100. A great new addition to the game despite being
extremely tough. Also, on the Ultimate setting, you'll notice some pretty
impressive graphical changes throughout the game. Area's will take on an all new
look or take place at a different time of day, some enemies will look different
as well. My favorite being the first dragon boss. Instead of being a fire dragon
like in the last game, it now takes on the form of a nasty ice dragon.
Next up, Sega has added a mini soccer game in the lobby to keep you entertained.
Fun for a little while but you'll most likely tire of this fairly quickly and
stick to your normal adventuring. They also added a decent 4 player battle mode
as well. This, like the soccer game will most likely tire you fairly quickly.
Other additions to the game include new mini quest to take part in and some
changes with the games saving feature. The mini quest are honestly pretty boring
when playing online so I really don't find much excitement in those. However the
new saving feature is quite the blessing. Now, instead of quitting your game to
save, the game now saves when transporting or visiting shops. Now there's no
fear of losing all your hard earned treasures and experience if the game
crashes.
Sega also has really went all out to try to get rid of cheating. Go ahead, try
and transfer your old character over to Version 2 with all your illegal cheat
items. The game now detects the illegal items and deletes them on you. This is
on of the games best new features as cheating was really getting out of hand in
the original.
Now, all these new additions may sound great but unfortunately there's a price
for them all. In order to play Version 2 online, you need a credit card. Yep,
you must pay to play. It's only $5 a month but that is just not right. While the
new additions to the game are cool, this just not enough new to warrant paying
an extra $5 a month to play. Well, not unless your a die-hard PSO nut anyway.
Add this to the fact that Version 2 launched at a full priced $40 retail, its
and insult really. I really hope the upcoming versions of this game on consoles
and PC don't have this pay to play feature.
Users of Sega's broadband adapter will find themselves disappointed yet again by
the fact their costly adapter is useless yet again. Yep, you need to stick to
the systems built in 56k to play online. Honestly though. Despite the game using
a 56k connection, it runs pretty damn near perfectly. Like the first game you'll
mostly encounter minor lag at most. Occasionally you'll notice another player
teleport across the screen but that's about it. I don't know how Sega did this
on a narrowband connection but they did pretty darn good making it playable on
it.
10 = Best 1 = Worst
Graphics 10: Graphically, the game is identical to the original with the
exception of the graphical additions I mentioned. And yes that's a good thing. A
really good thing. Graphics are very lush and colorful. Textures are very sharp
and clean. Character models look superb and animate great. The frame rate also
runs very high but like the first slows down slightly at times. Still its
nothing bad considering all the action that's going on when it happens. Four
players, a room full of enemies and all sorts of spell and attack effects going
on.
My one gripe is pretty much the same as the first game. There's no look button.
A minor gripe and one that doesn't hold back from the games graphical
perfection. Still though. I just wish they added one so I can get a better view
and admire the environments a little more between fights.
Sound 8: Well, there is really nothing new at all here that I've noticed
so I'm going to paste what I said about the first game in that review.
Sound in PSO is also impressive as well. There are a lot of cool sound effects
used here. The music is also very well done and fits the game perfectly. Nothing
that really sticks out (besides the cool LA LA LA song in the intro) but really
sets the mood perfectly.
My only gripe about the sound would be the lack of character voices. It would
have been cool to be able to customize your character with different voices. Oh
well cant have it all I guess
Controls 8: Controls like the sound are pretty much exactly the same so I'm
going to paste the controls portion of my review on the original here as
well. The only real change with the controls is the new quick select system
which helps to equip different weapons easier in the middle of battles. This is
a great new addition and helps raise the controls score some.
The controls in PSO while not bad could use a little work. You can hit an enemy
100 times but it wont do a bit of good unless you have a target lock on it. This
can be rather awkward at times when you want to stay targeted on 1 enemy but the
game switches you to another.
Item use and magic is also a little on the awkward side. Since this is an online
game you cant pause it. Instead you must either go to a safe spot in a hallway
or assign that item or magic to a certain button. There are 6 buttons which you
can assign anything to. This includes different attack types as well as items
and magic. Since this game does support the Dreamcast keyboard I don't see why
they couldn't let you customize items and magic to whatever key you want.
Instead the keyboard is used only for chat. By the way if you do plan on playing
this online you may want to consider buying a keyboard if you don't own one
already. Typing things out on the control can be quite a pain. One cool feature
is that your allowed to store up to 8 different sayings of your choice on the
digital D pad. This comes in very helpful for assigning commonly said things
like requesting a Telepipe or screaming help. And oh another thing. Sega is very
strict on swearing one PSO. I think they go a little too far on some of the
things filtered. This however can be danced around by spacing out parts of the
bad word. Your also allowed to use symbol chat. This is pretty cool and I've seen some very creative faces people have designed online.
Overall PSO V2 is a very impressive piece of software and some of Sega's best.
Like I mentioned in the review. The only real complaints I have here is that I
don't really like the whole pay to play part and the fact that the game is only
a simple expansion yet was sold at full price. Add this to the fact that despite
the additions and tweaks here, there's just really not all that much new here.
No new characters or costumes, no new worlds to explore. I can only really
recommend this title to PSO freaks or people who collect Phantasy Star games. If
your just a casual player then your much better off going with the original PSO
as you most likely won't see or notice many of the new additions anyway. This
was a tough one to rate as on 1 hand they perfected the original, but on the
other it was practically marketing the same game twice with the exception of now
paying to play. Still I've decided to give the game 5 stars. PSO nuts will love
this game and all the new additions. Great job Sega.
9.0
