Phantasy Star Online 2

[Isuka]

Full-sized screenshots: http://www.segabits.com/?p=11444







The promotion video, also from the SEGAbits link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxqukE7UfLk

[Senbei]

Hell yeah.

[Xyton]

Well it looks pretty good, at least. Anyone in the beta? How does it play?

[Crisis]

Should I be excited? I want to be excited. I'm desperate for something to liven up my MMO diet of World of Warcraft. This has to be on the PC, right? It's not like they have a console to push any more.

Nobody has ever been able to adequately explain to me what was special about PSO, or even given me a coherent game summary for that matter. Wikipedia describes the series as "simple hack and slash type role-playing games where the player slays monsters, levels up, buys new equipment, etc.," which isn't very helpful. I've always sort of resented it for being an exclusive club (only available on consoles I either didn't own or didn't have a modem for, if they were even released in my country), but it's the kind of sour grapes resentment I'm totally prepared to drop if I were actually given a chance to participate.

[Isuka]

Should I be excited? I want to be excited. I'm desperate for something to liven up my MMO diet of World of Warcraft. This has to be on the PC, right? It's not like they have a console to push any more.

Oops, forgot to post the official site's URL: http://pso2.jp/

Yes, it's on the PC.

[Brazillian Cara]

Good gracious, can't a gorilla lift a boulder in peace anymore?

[G.Silver]

Nobody has ever been able to adequately explain to me what was special about PSO, or even given me a coherent game summary for that matter. Wikipedia describes the series as "simple hack and slash type role-playing games where the player slays monsters, levels up, buys new equipment, etc.," which isn't very helpful. I've always sort of resented it for being an exclusive club (only available on consoles I either didn't own or didn't have a modem for, if they were even released in my country), but it's the kind of sour grapes resentment I'm totally prepared to drop if I were actually given a chance to participate.

Didn't Blue Burst or whatever it was come out for PC as a downloadable or a free thing, or am I just remembering that it was abandoned?

To me the thing that really stands out about it against other MMOs (and even Diablo, the "hack and slash" that comes to mind) is how tactile the attacks are. Although you can still "miss" an attack that should have connected (enemies and the player have a random chance for guarding), the swing of your sword actually determines whether or not you hit, and where you stand determines whether you get hit, so there was a great sense of direct connection with what was going on, it feels like an action game. When I played other MMOs afterward, it felt like a step backwards, that I was just standing in front of enemies holding down "attack" until they (or I) died. Maybe that's changed, and there's probably some good technical reason for it (like how much data is stored locally vs server side, PSO of course works without even being online), but I recall it was pretty much the case for WoW. Even the new Sega one, Spiral Knights, which even seems so Zelda-inspired, feels less tactile than PSO did.

Mostly though, coming from the era when Sonic Team still hadn't disappointed everyone in one way or another, and being on Dreamcast (so in a time when Sega fans could really consider it "their" MMO), and being the first MMO a lot of those people played (and considering what else was available at the time), I figure a lot of why it is special is just because it is PSO, and not for any particular quality that makes it stand out against others, though I'm sure we could make a big list of things we like about it.

[Radrappy]

I'm not sure what to think of all this. The art style is okay, if generic. The enemy designs look bad. Where are the rappies? The environments are unremarkable too. Randomized dungeons is a terrible idea. I just don't see many traces of phantasy star in there. I guess I should wait for some impressions or play throughs before I throw in the towel though. Keep in mind though I'm probably one of the biggest Phantasy Star Online fans. It's one of my more treasured games.

[Senbei]

The juxtaposition of space-age tech and nature is one of the things that always appealed to me about PSO, and I see that here! Also, dungeons were totally randomized in PSO, and it was fine then.

It's annoying that they have to change the setting, though. Can we just go back to Pioneer and Ragol, please?

[Radrappy]

They werent random. There were like 3 or 4 layouts per stage. The game merely picked one of those predesigned stages at random when you entered the field.

[Senbei]

Huh. I always thought a new dungeon layout was crafted by randomly combining static rooms.

[Radrappy]

In the pretty excellent dreamcast strategy guide they have illustrated maps for each variation.

[Crisis]

Thanks for that G. Silver, it's very true that there's a problem in WoW with the way your character connects to the world, not only because you spend most of the game standing still hitting the same buttons, but also because you can walk through every player and NPC. Which is probably the biggest problem I've had with it since launch.

I thought the graphics looked fantastic, although I can't really compare them to the original.

[P.P.A.]

Oh, it’s for PC? That’s disappointing; should SEGA ever release a PS3 version I would even pre-order it though.

On this note, does anyone here still play their Dreamcast, GameCube, or Xbox versions of Phantasy Star Online Episode 1 and 2? I own the GameCube version but have played it little, primarily because almost nobody else I know plays the game (and most who do play Blue Burst on PC) and I’m too shy to team up with strangers. And yet I feel like I am missing out on a great experience, not to mention this was primarily what I bought a huge Sammy GC keyboard controller and the Broadband Adapter for.

[Xyton]

To the best of my knowledge, everything but the PC / '360 versions of PSU have been shut down, at least in the 'States (outside of Japan?). :{

[P.P.A.]

There are a few (free) private servers that still run them, actually. They also allow for cross-platform playing (though the PC seems to use a separate framework).

[Neo]

Guys! It's okay! I think I know what's wrong with the screenshots.

I've always sort of resented it for being an exclusive club (only available on consoles I either didn't own or didn't have a modem for, if they were even released in my country), but it's the kind of sour grapes resentment I'm totally prepared to drop if I were actually given a chance to participate.

BB has been free to play on private servers for hella long now, mate.

[Crisis]

BB has been free to play on private servers for hella long now, mate.

Thanks for the link. I dropped my Mac into Bootcamp to check it out and after searching the forums I found a download that worked. After installing it, my antivirus software flagged it as a trojan and quarantined it.

Sigh. Can't everyone just develop their software to be Linux-compatible, already? People realise it's free, right? And doesn't require expensive/intrusive virus protection?

[Farmer]

Sigh. Can't everyone just develop their software to be Linux-compatible, already?

On that note, whatever happened to Steam for Linux?

[Isuka]

I think Wine is able to run PSO, but not Blue Burst. Then there's VirtualBox for OS X hosts...

And I never had the opportunity to play the games, just offline Universe, but I absolutely love the soundtrack and character design.

[Segaholic2]

I've loved every single PSO/PSU game, so I'm quite excited for this. I'm sure I'll like it even if it's not amazing... Nostalgia is a strong influence, and the series never sank as low as poor ol' Sonic.

I wish I'd screencapped the hours put into my characters in all the various games over the years. I was over 1,000 hours in PSU.

[Arcade]

I got a working dreamcast and a PSO disk, It still worth it? I mean I have no clue how to connect, or got that special moden that came out in Japan, or got the second PSO disk or whatever. What about the DS game? I can now use wi-fi at home, its the online playing worth it?

And yeah, got a working gamecube, just not the PSO for that console-_-

[Radrappy]

As far as playing online today? I'd recommend playing BB with http://www.schtserv.com/. It's easy to get going and has a pretty active community. Usually around 200 players or so at any given time.

[Majestic Joey]

I usually look around these forums and never say anything because most of the time I have nothing good to say.

Until now: Knuckles looks OG in that screenshot.

[Isuka]

I guess that, unlike pretty much everywhere else in this forum, it's not wrong to say here that Tails has a nice ass.