Another game that has been a long time coming. In this case, however, the control of that time was not exactly in my hands. About eight and a half years ago, Phantasy Star Online 2 launched in Japan. Originally for PC, Sega promised it's Western audience the game was coming our way as well. We waited as it made its way to the Sony Playstation systems and even the Nintendo Switch, but only in Japan.
Some grew impatient and hacked their way in. In fact there is a fan-made launcher which will download, patch the translations in, and let English players play the Eastern version of the game that was made out of this need to play. But I held off. After all, I had plenty of other games to play that didn't require such measures. Still, that did not mean I had given up all hope, at least at first. But I couldn't have been happier when the game finally showed up at E3 in 2019. Now what was once just a pipe dream was finally making it's way over, and when it became available in May of 2020 on PC, I was playing literally day 1.
Now almost a year later and with just shy of 200 hours under my belt, Im hanging up my mouse on this game. And while I am annoyed with Microsoft for milking the end of the game's story (it's been done for a few years already in Japan, so releasing maybe an hour of content a month is kinda dumb), I also walked away happy with the game in total. I had a great time in general, playing tons of general content, all the story available at the time I started writing, and having seen the absolute end of the game. It's just a good time to move on.
Story: Congratulations, Cadet! You are graduating into the regular ranks of ARKS. Your last exercise under the program will help find your place in the ranks. But what starts as a test of skill turns deadly as Falspawn attack. As things get more and more dicey, you get rescued by the two members named Zeno and Echo who escort you and your fellow cadet Afin back to one of the fleet ships. And at this point the game is going to let you loose to do whatever you want. But that doesn't mean the story is over, just that you can continue it at your leisure (and in some points, once you've earned the right).
So this makes a great starting point to explain just what is going on. You are now a full-fledged recruit of ARKS, a military organization protecting Oracle, the space fleet civilization you are a part of. Your roll as a member of ARKS is to protect Oracle and other races/civilizations you encounter from the alien race mentioned before known as Falspawn. These creatures are a parasitic race that moves from planet to planet across the universe devouring and corrupting the life forms they come across. Those that fail to fight back get devoured. Those who succeed are also still in danger as contact with Falspawn risks infection and ultimately mutation into new forms of the species. This simple "us vs evil" scenario will mutate itself as the story progresses over 6 episodes and 3 story arcs, but I will leave that to you to discover.
For now, your real story begins when you meet Xion, a mysterious woman who talks about your roll in things to come in the most confusing way I have ever seen, before handing you something called a "divergence matrix" and sends you to Nevarius, one of the planets under the Orcale's protection. There you will take your first mission with your partner Afin. In this case it is merely a certification mission meant to ensure you are qualified for the duties you have graduated to take on, but once again, fate has played a roll. You hear a cry for help which answering leads to the introduction of two who's fates yours is entwined with: a young woman who's in dire straights and has amnesia and a mysterious man in black who despite never meeting, seems to know you and wants you dead.
The story will build itself from this point to explain the history of the ARKS, Oracle, and those who made both in ancient times. And it will do so for the most part in a very enjoyable way all it's own... and that is just the first story arc in this MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online)/JRPG (Japanese Role Playing Game). There will be a lot here for you to explore and enjoy, and if you are a fan of the franchise, you are absolutely going to love where this game goes in general.
Unfortunately, the game does have weaknesses that seems a bit traditional here. You will find a lot of characters fall into tropes you would see in many previous games of this type, and particularly the first episode of it tends to be a bit scattered as it spends a lot of it's time introducing the main cast, species and worlds you will be involved with, making for a rather slow start to the overall plot. But this is to be expected with this kind of game since most MMO-type games tend to start you with mundane events for the world with hints of bigger things afoot, and PSO2 is no exception. So expect a slow start and a bit of a scattered episode 1 (which is 1/3rd of the first story arc).
You can also expect the game to try to use many of it's side-story pieces for exposition. While some (especially later in the game) can be amusing as hell, a lot of them basically boil down to conversations designed to explain details about the world, characters, or even new options available to you (like new classes you can switch to for example). And while these details can be cool, they are often pretty ham-fisted so that the game telling you about them does so in a way that is very "meh."
7/10
Graphics: Despite only coming out last year in the states, PSO2 is actually a fairly old game, so you can tune your expectations from this perspective. Do not get me wrong, it doesn't look particularly dated in tech. In fact, it has aged fairly well and cranking it up to max settings will show you a level of detail that you would expect from many newer games. But at the same time, the style used is very anime in nature and as such, there are things here which by that nature appear very simple compared to those same modern games.
You will play PSO2 from a 3rd person perspective and the first thing that is going to draw your attention are the environments. The forest area you start in looks nice enough, but it is a stark contrast to the gate-way room which will you will find yourself in next. This sci-fi driven world colors itself with neon lights and video screens in contrast to the metallic area from which ARKS soldiers launch to all their missions... or the open space used as the local shopping district... or really any of the areas aboard the ship you will be allowed to explore. They all have their own flavor while fitting together as one solid location (the ship).
Not that this is all you get to see. From those forests to deserts to ruins to even cities onboard the ship and many many more, this game is going to have you traveling to a lot of fantastic looking locations as you play through everything the game has to offer.
Still, it is the characters you will remember far more then the world and with good reason. That anime feel will be strongest here and even more varied then the world itself! This will be proven to you when even making your character before you even begin, but we will get into that when we get to the gameplay. But it will also be proven in the characters you meet. While everyone's look is fairly outlandish and unique, they all fit the world itself well.
But all of this does come with it's own drawbacks too. The look of this game has aged well, but the animation has not. You will not see any issues here in combat as the action is fast and furious, but cut scenes can be that kind of over-dramatic that was used where tech and technique couldn't show what the character is feeling with more subtle and realistic action. Does it ruin things? Absolutely not. In fact for those who grew up with the 90s anime boom, it's going to be nothing short of endearing. But it is very old-fashioned in this regard.
8/10
Sound: If you are a fan of more modern Phantasy Star games, you already have a good idea of what you are going to hear in the background. From the fully orchestrated tunes during the opening animation to the more toned down themes in the opening menus to darker tones when evil is afoot to even some hectic and electric instrament backed combat music for later bosses, and even background tunes to the locals where you are supposed to be able to just relax and hang out the music here almost always sounds full and gorgeous. And really I am hard pressed to think of anything that really sounds bad here... at all. True when the music takes a lyrical tone, there are times I wish they wouldn't since the beauty of the instruments behind singer just outclasses them, but those occasions are fairly few... and even then don't sound bad. They just are outdone by the rest of the soundtrack.
And I can say the same for most of the voice acting as well! Yes, there are going to be characters you hear who are going to get annoying, but even they seem to be made to be like that, so I can not blame the voice acting for bringing the character together. And to be fair, I can think of two characters who hit me like that... one of which her own sister usually reflected my reactions (so again, I think she was supposed to be annoying). The other got introduced near the end of the game and just came off as trying way too hard to be dark and brooding (his animations did not help) and frankly I wanted to put him through a wall whenever he opened his mouth. But I do not want to describe the cast in this game on you since the game will take the time to let you get to know them all... and there are a lot of them. Fitting for an MMO, but you have to appreciate a lot of what is on offer here.
8/10
Gameplay: I have to warn you up front: PSO2 is going to overwhelm you if you let it, and it will do so quickly. Before you can start playing, you will first have to make your character. Starting with a choice of species, gender, and class, you will then be guided to one of the most in-depth character creation systems I have ever seen. Where the original game basically gave you only a handful of choices, here you will be able choose just about everything. From height and color scheme to parts if you are a cast (robot) or costume for everything else to build of individual parts to even things as detailed as eye size, shape, possition and even patterns in the iris. There is simply a ton if you want to get in depth. Of course the game will let you use random or even the default if you desire for any combination, so this is only as complex as you desire it to be.
But this is only a hint of what is to come, but only in a moment. First, since this is an action-based MMO, you will be placed into a mission to teach you how to fight and navigate the actions in your user interface. This may sound redundant to many MMO-fans out there, but you would be surprised. Playing with a keyboard and mouse (as I would honestly recommend), you will find it useful just due to the way the system uses your mouse buttons. But the real benefit here is for those of you who wish to use a controller. You see, PSO2 is a cross-platform game and since the Xbox One defaults to using an Xbox-style controller, the game is also designed to be playable completely from there and will teach you how at this point if you so desire.
But don't expect a lot more lessons then that. The game will guide you with missions designed to teach you how it works, but it will not force you down that trail. Rather you are free to do anything you want from this point, and there is a LOT to do. Like many people should follow the game's advice for a while just to avoid being overwhelmed amounts of stuff to do. From crafting and cooking to the casino, to order requests of NPCs you will run into on the station to missions designed, to even certification missions to increase what you have access to, this game is has plenty to do. You will even have access to story missions and on occasion, urgent missions which will bring the community together for a common threat!
Once you choose what you want to do, most of the time the game will require you to visit one of the maps and complete a task on the surface of the planet you are visiting. Sometimes this will be to destroy specific monsters or find objects on the map (like minerals Oracle needs), but most of the time it will be facing off with a boss monster at the end. And the game shines when playing these parts as it is fast and can be rather intense.
And it's not like the speed doesn't come with customization. Like most MMOs, you will have a selection of 10 slots that, if you are using a keyboard and mouse, correspond with the 1-0 buttons on your keyboard. But at the same time you will have a selection of 6 commands which can be assigned these commands as well. What makes them special is that they will not only hot-key to your mouse or face buttons of your controller, but when you hot-swap your weapons, each one will have it's own selection. So if, like me, you ran around with a gunblade, a rifle, twin handguns, and a missle launcher, you can flip between them at will and set up each one for it's own set of actions.
And you will learn these abilities and techniques by collecting (or buying) discs that when used will teach you the ability, much like the original game had. Still, you need to use a little more intelligence then simply slapping a new skill into place, since each ability will require you to spend Photon Power to use these abilities. This meter tends to be relatively small, but it recharges on it's own, doing so faster when you use a basic attack, so it's up to you to balance this as well.
But when it comes to buying things, we do have to stop and talk about it a little bit. PSO2 is a Free to Play (F2P) game and as such, there is no price of entry. You just download the game on the Windows Store or Steam and start it up. But it's still an MMO, so it needs to make money to keep the lights on, and as such, you can expect the game to have the dreaded "micro transactions" hidden somewhere under the hood. So how bad is it? Well, not very I am happy to report. The bad news is it can be complex, as the game tehcnically has several currencies. Meseta, for those who have been playing this franchise, is the base one and will be gained as one would expect. Monsters drop it, you can get it selling stuff, and it is the basic currency you will use in your every day gameplay. But this is not the only "currency" you will get when you go on your missions. Things like Ex-cubes and photon drops which will have a specific shop you can trade them for other things you will actually use. But to the best of my knowledge all of these currencies are NOT available to purchase for real cash.
That is it's own currency called Arks Cash (AC) which if you wish to have some, you must buy this way and no other. It might be usable to make things easier but there is very little I have found that works like that. In fact, in my time playing I found one item like this... Scrape Dolls. These items allow you to get up at full health after you die rather then being thrown out of the map and have to try to kill whatever got the better of you again. But that is not as big an edge as it seems. For one, the game gives away a lesser version of this item for free on a regular basis and you will find yourself with tons of them: The Half-scrape doll. Basically these are the same as the full version, except they only give you half-health and you get to use only one in a mission. But again, they are free and they are plentiful. But in addition to this, the game is very adaptable to match your skill and level, so I would be hard pressed to think of many situations where you would need more then a single respawn... if that.
Besides, this game makes most of it's money on the other things it offers for AC: cosmetics. Simply put the game is going to offer a lot of stuff just to change the look of you, your mag (a floating assistant), and your weapons if you are willing to pay some real cash for it. This stuff has literally zero effect on the game, but with how much the game pushes customization, this is it's real cash-cow. This is honestly one of the better payment systems Ive seen in a F2P game, really only second to Path of Exile which, when I played it, literally had NOTHING but cosmetics for sale at all.
8/10
Bugs: While I can not say the game had any bugs I noticed I can't say it didnt have a few bumps on the way... two specifically. In my entire time playing, I had two issues with connections, once kicking me out of the game in the middle of an urgent mission and once where the game just could not log me in. However, these are literally 2 connection issues in almost 200 hours of gameplay. I do not expect you will run into many issues when playing this one.
Overall: PSO2 is a really good action-based MMORPG with the key word of your experience being "customization." It lets you loose to choose how you want to play and what you want to do and even how tough you want to be on yourself. And despite being a F2P game, there is literally no reason you should ever need to drop a dime on your experience. If you are paying, you do so basically to support the game and show off in the process, but for little other reason. All in all, this is one of those games I can recommend most people give a try... provided you have an interest in SciFi, anyway. And if you are a fan of the Phantasy Star series, I don't understand what took you so long. Come on in!
Score:
System Requirements:
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
- 2 GB RAM
- Geforce 7800GT or RADEON DH2900XT graphic cards
- 80 GB hard drive space
- Windows 10 (64 Bit)
- Broadband connection required
- Ryzen 7 (2700) 3.2 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- Nvidia Geforce 1660 (6GB VRAM)
- Windows 10 (64 Bit)
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