Phantasy Star Online vs Universe

The Dreamcast game Phantasy Star Online v2 (and v1 before it) was the first proper online game I had played and it was one of my favourite Dreamcast games at the time. I played many hours of that game, both online and off-line. It was the first time I experienced an online gaming community and taking the game online brought a hard to describe magic to the game that made it far better than playing off-line.

Remembering PSOv2 always brings back memories of dialup connections, waiting for the server to finally connect to the PSO servers and then working to create a party and go adventuring together. Having a proper DC keyboard was a huge bonus for PSO as it meant it was easy to chat to other players. Using just the controller for chat was very hard.

I have since played PSO a bit on the PC using a private server, but there was always a lack of players online due to it being a private server. Probably 6 people is the most I ever saw logged in. This compares to 1000's on the real PSO servers back in the day.

Sequels have been mentioned for a long time. Blue Burst was a more recent release, but it was basically still PSO, but with a few additions.

Now a true sequel called Phantasy Star Universe is released on the PS2. Has anyone else played Universe yet?

I got hold of this last week and had a quick play through the first couple of hours of the off-line mode and although it contains some elements from the older Phantasy Star Online from the Dreamcast, it is quite different in some respects.

The combat and weapons system is very similar to the DC game, as are some other elements such as the structure of levels being room based and the different races of people inhabiting the universe. But so far I've not experienced the same feel as the original DC game had. I'm hoping as the off-line story is following a more traditional RPG style than the older PSO games, that the more detailed and advanced areas of PSO will unfold as the story progresses and you gain more powers and abilities.

So has anyone else played PSU yet? and what do you think of it?

It is definitely a game I want to play more of to see where it leads, and I'm also tempted to try out the online mode if I can get it to work. :)

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Has anyone else played Universe yet?

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It's listed in my RPG list. I tried it for 45 minutes, fought some battles, and that was it. I cannot play RPGs any longer, whilst I'm already playing another one, thus only testing it (same goes for PSO).

It was quite fun, dialogues were funny, and the environment was quite futuristic and colored, just as the Phantasy Star I had in mind. I only fought 4-5 battles, to see how it works, and I saw that it was real time, I myself am more the turn based freak, but anyway, it played good.

That was when I had to quit playing, and put back my Xenosaga DVD to finally finish that one. Now I'm currently playing FFXII (yes I began yesterday), and will finish that one. So when any new RPG comes out, I only will test it for less than an hour. I saw that Rogue Galaxy got released and scored 87% at Metacritic, which is quite good, because they are really very critic sometimes.

It will be interesting to hear what you think of Phantasy Star Universe once you do have time to play it properly. As I said above the game mechanics are very similar to the Dreamcast original so for me it is quite fun to be able to play a new game based on the same universe and gamestyle.

Did you ever play the Dreamcast version?

Is good to hear that Rogue Galaxy scored so highly. I have been looking at screenshots and preview videos, and reading the preview articles on IGN about it and they have all been very promising. :)

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Did you ever play the Dreamcast version?

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Yep, as stated before. Oz gave me his original to test, as he's also a big fan of the Phantasy Star universe. But as I said, played it for 1-2 hours.

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It will be interesting to hear what you think of Phantasy Star Universe once you do have time to play it properly.

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I have so many others that I want to play first, so when the day comes, and I'll pick up PSU, I will be glad if Classicamiga still exists, and I'm sure, up to that date, they will have released some other PS titles.