waspmk's Full Review: Phantasy Star Online: Episode I and II for GameCub...
Phantasy Star Online can be as fun as going on your first roller coaster ride, and just about as repetitive as having to ride it all day. This is just about the only RPG that tremendously lacks a story. There is really no excuse. If you where to ask the many Pso players what their occupation was, I'd bet only fifty percent of them could give you the honest answer.
One of the most enjoyable experiences in Pso is the ability to make your own character. There are three classes. Hunters, Rangers, and lastly, the forces. Within each class are four times of customizable characters. For example if you where to choose the hunters you would be able to customize a male human, female newman, male android, and female android. Each character can be significantly changed. Newmans and humans can have different hairstyles, hair colors, skin types, faces, and costumes. However the androids have less customizable options. In replacement of hair, are different types of heads that you can put on your robot. The most entertaining option is being able to mess with your characters proportion. This can result to lots of laughs and you have a wide area to work with. Here you can make your characters height and weight along with built or flab.
Pso's online mode completely lacks a story. All that you do is enter a lobby and walk up to the counter where a display of all the hosts will be. From there the player would join the game, and would be able to go to any area the host unlocked. In other words, your character could be fresh off the grill, and end up going to the last stage where the boss of the game is.
Because I have played the offline version of Pso, I know what the story is. The offline quests mysteriously don’t work on the online version, so players must go out of the way to see the true story. Basically, you are onboard the ship called the Pioneer 2. The Pioneer 1 was mysteriously lost so a man referred to as the principle, hires you to investigate on the world of Ragol. However as you venture shallow in this story you soon learn that his daughter was onboard the lost ship. For an Rpg, there is very little dialogue and the story missions are very off topic from your purpose of boarding the ship! After all, there is a mission where you are supposed to help a women lose weight by protecting her so she doesn't get fat from eating recovering items.
Both episodes are very short. There are very little areas to go to. All there is in episode one is a the forest, caves, mines, and ruins each with a cool looking boss to fight. This can be beaten within six hours. I beat the game within the level twenty region. But how do some people reach level two hundred? Instead of making more levels, they replaced it with higher difficulty settings. Which means you have to beat the game once again. The enemies look the same but are worth more experience.
However some things change. For example the creatures you fight will show a form of change. Once you excel farther into higher difficulty settings, the creatures will gradually becoming stronger, swing faster, and ultimately have more agility. By the time you reach the last difficulty setting the game spices up the bit, as the creatures you once fought all take another form. However most of their characteristics are the same. The same bad AI. The closest player near it, it strikes. Same dull swinging/punch action and very few spell-casting enemies.
Like a good RPG, I was hoping the game had a good variety of spells. However I was wrong, The spells are called techs but are very basic and dull looking. The effects could of been improved. Even the magic characters called the forces have only about forty techs to work with. However ,each tech has different levels. For example the basic lightning tech zonde, can vary from lv1 to 30. As can any tech. The higher the level, the stronger the damage. Once you obtain level twenty spells and higher there looks change slightly.
The upside of this game was the amazing amount of weapons and armor. As you venture deeper in the game, you just may be amazed at the wide variety of weaponry. Each class has about two hundred types of useable weapons, each with different looks and creative designs. The weapons themselves are very detailed and about eighty percent of them have special powers. Not only is there a large variety of weapons, there are also items that improve your weapons strength called grinders. Also weapons can do a higher percentage of damage to certain beasts depending on what the percentage is to the class of the enemy.
There’s also a large variety of armors, barriers, and shields. Sadly, your character doesn’t change at all when obtaining sets of armor. Barriers won’t show on the character but only if the character blocks an attack. A virtual shield comes around the arm then disappears once the attack is done. Also, there are parts called addslots, which are like implants. You can find implants after killing animals.
The online mode is good but lacks the story like a stressed earlier. But sonic team didn't quite ruin it. In replacement are new quests for you and your online buddies to defeat. Also, a new quest is made monthly along with new characters. Within some of these missions, they will take you to a different stage that you have never been before, which makes the game feel exciting once more.
If your a Ranger or a Hunter you will soon find that your spells will become useless. They will cost a lot of your mana and do about a forth of the damage as your regular attack. All your magic will be good for is to heal yourself. Soon it just comes down to hack and heal. Androids don’t have spells and in replacement have traps. Sadly there are only three different types. Damage, freeze, and confuse.
The game comes with a mailing system that is very useful. Here you can find your old buddies. Simply press search and then you will have the option to teleport to where they are or send mail. Another thing I found fascinating about Pso, was that you can use the word select menu to interact with others. This is where you create a conversation, without having to type it out. You can interact with people around the world and by using word select, they can understand you as your words translate to there format. Symbol chat is another effective and fun way of communication. Here you can create little faces to express your mood or opinion.
One of the biggest disappointments in pso was that the graphics where equivalent to the dreamcast. The landscapes from episode one looks dull where as the new episode two looks more lively. All that has improved as far as I can tell,from the episode one was the resolution.
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