Phantasy Star Universe Review
Chaos theory.
Version tested: Xbox 360
For a while, at least, Phantasy Star Online was perfect. Stylistically it was Dungeons and Dragons made over with neon-pink harajuku dyed hair, eyes twice underscored with black pen and a lipsticked mouth blowing cherry gum bubbles in outer space. Ideologically it was an avalanche of firsts: The first console-based MMORPG; the first major genre departure for an ancient and venerable Sega franchise; the first Dreamcast title to show what was really possible with its emergent online service; the first international software to successfully implement a bilingual text mechanism that allowed Americans, Europeans and Japanese to communicate near indistinguishably with one another.
But, above all of this, for those first few months at least, it offered an arresting glimpse of that unique redemptive jewel hidden somewhere deep within the murky definition of online gaming: people working together and helping each other for fun. It was zeros and ones threaded into a warm blanket of community through a winking 56k loom. PSO, that big bang from which this newest Universe has grown, taught console gamers for the first time to think about somebody else; it kept us up to the small hours tending a digital Petri dish in which comradeship, camaraderie and companionship multiplied and evolved with each shared adventure.
Experts helped newbies; items and knowledge were freely shared; Ragol was conquered time after time after exquisite time; Naka-san smiled down from the watching stars as we played in his unfurling dream. It was hard to imagine how the future of gaming lay anywhere else other than in the warm co-operation of millions gaming strangers made inpixellate.
But then, so quickly, Phantasy Star Online taught console gamers another new first: distrust. Player kills, hacks, forged items, a ruined economy, the ‘white screen of death’, remotely erased character files and so many text-based, shouty children tore the world apart cheat by childish cheat. The dream became a nightmare and its Sonic Team visionaries realised that, while they had created a place of beauty and potential and wonder, they forgot to make fences high enough to contain man’s selfishness and crime. And so, having seen what online gaming was really about, we retreated into private rooms, played private quests with private conversations amongst private friends; the jewel of cooperative adventure was sullied, spoiled and sunk to unsalvageable depths. For many, it’s never been seen again.

He's not really fainted. It's just a really sweet view from that angle.
So Phantasy Star Universe arrives, a bright new hope for the series aged and weary lovers - still sporting all those elements in the first two paragraphs that made its predecessor so brilliant - but no longer a game of firsts, rather one scrabbling to catch-up with all the competitors that saw its failings, learned its lessons and built new worlds with higher fences and meaner police. It’s still quintessentially Phantasy Star and its forefather’s fingerprints are all over the online element of the game: you still start by creating a character stretching and configuring your identity to within a pixel of your desired likeness. You still gather parties of mixed adventurers (although headsets and microphones have pushed most back within their linguistic boundaries) to undertake simple adventures. Together you clear the room of monsters, collect the key, clear the next room, pick up the items, defeat the boss and return to the lobby in a dungeon crawling action RPG set in a futuristic world populated by four humanoid races. The gameplay is still MMO-lite, more Guild Wars than World of Warcraft, the emphasis on being able to dip in and out, joining and leaving parties with ease while never feeling like you can’t enjoy the game this side of 100 hours investment.
But there are changes here too and they aren’t all minor or successful. Of most immediate concern is the decision to deliver two games for the price of one. While both online and offline modes were included in the previous title they were essentially the same game: the items, money and experience your character earned in either place contributing to your overall progression. PSU, however is two distinct games. The offline mode has you control a single protagonist, Ethan Waber, in a distinct story arc where, crucially, things you do have no bearing on your online character. The only thing the two modes have in common is that they share the same engine, graphics and mechanics - otherwise they are wholly separate. So, in a sense then, this is three reviews in one: firstly of the framework of the new PS universe, and then of the offline and online RPGs that fill those girders.
On the first two counts, things don’t look good. Presentation is rudimentary, menus awkward to navigate, the graphics outdated to the extent that they look like an HD first-gen Xbox game (understandable as this game was designed primarily for the Japanese PS2 version - but Sonic Team have still clearly been lazy here for 360). Environments are linear, the map system several presentational leagues below Final Fantasy XII’s near identical functionality. Monsters are generic, central characters bland and the invention of a crowd generator - where cities look well-populated until you get near other pedestrians and they fade away like ghosts in a kind of reverse pop-up - utterly ridiculous.
If your first stop is the single player mode then these problems are exaggerated. The blandest of stories, pancake-thin characterisation and levels that are far too easy to get lost in create an overall wash of frustration that tempers any enjoyment the by numbers role-play might engender. The lack of lock-on makes combat a tussle of awkward cameras (despite the new strafe move) and hit-and-miss single button mashing (despite the dual wielding) just like it so often was in the original. The painful loading screen that interrupts every cut scene bursts the balloons of suspended disbelief quicker than you can inflate them and, the most convoluted save system we’ve seen on any system actually makes you think twice before bothering to save your game just because it’s such an ordeal. Knowing that everything you’re doing counts for nothing in terms of the MMORPG you bought the game to play leaves just the achievement points to drag you through the plot; a tragedy when we think back to the Megadrive single player Phantasy Stars that coloured our younger years so brightly. Indeed, if this were a standalone game or, if for some inconceivable reason you bought the game without an internet connection, you will be sorely, 4/10-style, disappointed.

Despite the ropey textures the game sometimes looks pretty - although never as good as the PC version
But play the game as Naka intended and forgiveness for this world’s flaws is far freer flowing. That’s because, as an MMORPG, the game becomes a playground for friendship and questing. The simplicity and rudimentary presentation becomes a bonus as it makes it very quick and easy to dip into and out of games painlessly. The scenario of Japanese space robots with short skirts, photon blasters set against infinite oceans of space outside your room’s porthole becomes beguiling rather than sterile. Player costumes (ranging from underpants to full on Rappy outfits), customisable rooms and personal shops add depth and width to the original vision suckering you in quickly. The four basic character classes can later be mixed and hybridised to create more complex characters as the game progresses and, as such, the game has been expanded in many of the right places.
But, in many ways it’s also a regression. PSU, at the moment, costs £6.99 a month and, arguably scandalously, Sega are currently holding content ALREADY ON THE DISC back from players in order to release it to paying subscribers at a later date. Even if some areas of PSO were hard to unlock at least they were attainable right from the start with perseverance, here you are kept out of areas of the game online - areas you know are available on the disc because you can visit them all in the offline quest. It’s a shocking decision and we really, really hope that EA et al are currently too busy with something else to have noticed.
Also downgraded is the online sense of purpose. It’s devoid of story or narrative to draw you in; no drama links the lines of online play and even the most basic guild principals of PSO are here removed to promote the offline story. Remember when your character killed Falz in PSO and your avatar was put in flashing lights on the screen? There you were the hero. You visited the principal to gather clues; your missions were tied together by a narrative thread - no matter how simple your purpose was - you had a purpose. In PSU your online character is a mere statistic in the census of an online world; your character will never be master of this universe.
But then, despite all this, as we adventured with Kyoko, a Japanese girl playing from her college in America on our television near Brighton, the magic of Phantasy Star was rekindled; the memories came flooding back and we found ourselves wishing that this had been released five years ago so that the sparsely populated corridors would be full and framework around us would be fresh. For the persistent there is a magical world of friendship and adventure to escape into in Phantasy Star Universe. But for most, while the hacks and cheats may be gone, they have simply been replaced by new chaos and a design disorder that does everything in its power to dissuade anyone but the keenest of sentimental subscribers.
6 / 10
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Comments (39) Latest comment 5 years ago
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The Xbox 360 version is the worst port (graphics wise) i've seen in a while, plus the paying extra to play online for such limited gameplay is a joke.
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Added voice chat. Shitty character customisation. Somehow a worse camera than in PSO. Confusing and needlessly sprawling city areas. It's just not like the old days, unfortunately.
Avoid this game.
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I thought the Japanese version looked pretty interesting a few months back, I had no idea what was going on mind.
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Oh, and I dont think that they made the cities, "needlessly sprawling" on purpose. I suspect that they anticipated a larger user base to fill them up. Imagine IF or SW from WoW if you and 3 other players were wandering around all by yourselves in there. That would seem needlessly big too.
Its a real shame about this game though, esp. after looking forward to it for well over a year
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To move on to something slightly relevant, what's happening to Sonic Team lately? I used to get excited when I heard that they were developing a game, but their recent record is startlingly below-par. Sure, PSU isn't getting anything like the media murdering that Sonic the Hedgehog is, but it's hardly been well-received...I hope they can do something to arrest this decline, or else they're just going to sputter out of existence.
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For science's sake they didn't even give the game the old Xbox360 port-0-shine, lazy fuckers!
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The one thing I'd disagree with is the criticism of the graphics. It's one of the maybe 5 360 games that isn't too dark, and one of maybe 15 that doesn't have a bad frame rate (and most of those were multiplatform too). It's been a breath of fresh air to have something bright to look at, without overuse of shadows and shading turning everything into a mire of blackness unless a light is shining on it.
That was one thing that got me thinking about buying a PS3 - seeing the Ridge Racer comparisons - everyone says the 360 one looks better - I disagree, the PS3 version is much easier on the eyes. Screenshots count for NOTHING people, you want things to be easy to see when moving, and the PS3 isn't constant racing at dusk. MS really should have put system level calibration in.
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Anyway, I'm not shocked at all - to drag me on, like the original was so close to doing, would have taken 2 things: no extra cost over Live, and a long story. Neither happened, and it turns out it's pap. Shock horror.
How much IS it, anyhow, per month?
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I'm not a PS3 fanboy. I was already very undecided about getting a PS3 until Sony forced the closure of Lik-Sang, but that was enough combined with their other recent actions as a company (lies, DRM rootkits, more lies, getting modchips made illegal, etc) to mean that I won't be buying a PS3 unless they start to act less like assholes to their customers. This is unlikely to happen.
However, being somewhat rational, I'm still able to look at the PS3 shots of RR vs the 360 ones (actually, I've completed that one), and notice that the PS3 one is easier on the eyes, purely due to the 360 one being too dark, like most 360 games. Like most of the 25 360 games on my shelf. It really bugs me now - even bright games look too dark because the shadows are hugely overdone. The same TV is used for my old Xbox, Dreamcast, PS2, Gamecube, and PC Engine - none of those systems have problems with being too dark generally.
Why I've even bothered responding to your fucking stupidity, is quite frankly a mystery even to me.
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This, I must say, is fast becoming one of those moments. Apparently, making an low-key, offhand comment that praises a single PS3 game (in a post whose bulk was actually spent defending a 360 game from overwhelming criticism) is enough to qualify you as a "PS3 fanboy"...who knows, maybe playing videogames DOES rot your brain.
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I'm not bloodflowers, so this is just an educated guess, but maybe he likes the games and system apart from that one really minor gripe.
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Btw: RR6 is not too dark on the 360. I am playing it right now and while I agree that a lot of games are really too dark, RR6 is not one of them. Gears of War is dark (but it fits the game, so it is ok), Splinter Cell is way too dark, Tomb Raider Legends at some points is too dark and also Perfect Dark Zero is too dark, although PDZ has screwed up lightning troughout the entire game anyway.
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sad to see care in the community diminished by this moron...
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Seriously... ¬_¬
and one of maybe 15 that doesn't have a bad frame rate (and most of those were multiplatform too).
Then I would suggest that you get your 360 replaced as I am yet to find any framerate issues.
PS3 games look worse SHOCKER!
Just put a cork in it, will you? -_-
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Why is this not in ALL CAPS and why are we not screaming death and murder about this?!
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I completely disagree that this a 360 issue, it is an issue but its apparent on every platform available with games that are realistic, shader intensive and "shadowy". Some people have grown to like it, some people blame the lighting engines(I think HDR is an area devs should focus on to perfect these styles of games) or the colour pallets(which would mean that adjusting your TV-set could help... if there are alot of dark colours then its going to look a bit dark on your screen "innit"?).
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no no no
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But then we're paying extra on a monthly basis so.. I dunno where that leaves it.
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The game however, reperesents the current state of SEGA, one of the best developers in the world, now are worthless.
In this state, I would hate to see what they would do to shenmue 3.
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Same with sonic.
What did happen to Yuki?
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what and rob you of your career opportunities?
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I thought the recent 360 beta demo was absolutely dreadful... it was like the last six years since the Dreamcast version of PSO hadn't happened... bland graphics, bland level design, bland music, just completely... well... bland really! Oh and the loading times are quite frankly disgusting. Then I read gamesTM's 4/10 review and thought there was some justice at long last, particularly as I'd just bought the Sonic Team's other craptastic game, Sonic the Hedgehog (another game with disgusting loading times too). PSU is marginally more playable admittedly but it's still mind-numbingly dull even with other players. This sort of rubbish should be left in the past in my opinion... if I'd bought it for £40 and had to play it I'd have been upset but then to have to pay £6.99 a month to play it online... well, my polite response, is NO THANKS!!!
I'll have to accept EG's generous 6/10 score simply because I have no desire to waste any more of my time (or money) on this drivel...
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6/10? Fair enough, but Im one of the many exceptions that loves it.
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Generally people godify Japan culture and aesthetics regarding video-games, but when some company puts a true Japanese game in front of their faces, they don't like, they call it bland. I guess people like the idea of Japan's games, not the SW per-se.
The game's very nice, and it has nothing of "bland". it carries lots of personality. The grpahics for instance, use a pallete of "candy-colours" quite distinct of any western game. It has a vast array of weapons and very deep and funny characters.
Needless to say I enjoyed Story mode very, very much. I have no intention of playing it online, but the solo experience deserved the money. And it is a very nice collectable piece of SW.
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