Phantasy Star Universe gets big update

By Oli Welsh Published 22 July, 2010

Plus, Illuminus expansion now free.

SEGA has released a major new update for its online Xbox 360 role-player Phantasy Star Universe, and made the Ambition of the Illuminus expansion a free download.

The Guardians Advanced Content, an automatic update for subscribers, adds new missions, weapons and items, a new customisation system and an overhaul of the game's classes and skills.

The Guardians update requires the Ambition of the Illuminus expansion to work, so that add-on - which previously cost 800 Microsoft Points - is now free.

Phantasy Star Universe, the sequel to the much-loved Dreamcast game Phantasy Star Online, launched back in 2006. We didn't think it was that hot then. What do you reckon - is it worth a re-review in 2010? Is anyone out there still playing? Let us know in the comments.

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (20) Latest comment 10 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Monkey_Puncher #1 2 years ago

    People are still playing PSU after all these years?

    I didn't even realise the servers were still up...

  • Diogo_Ribeiro #2 2 years ago

    Never played online. I was mostly in it for the SP side of things, trying to rekindle some PSO memories. In any case, is the expansion free only for the 360 version? No word on it extending to the PC version as well?

  • Paperghost #3 2 years ago

    i've read that you can only play the expansion IF you've paid the subscription fee to play online. is this correct? seen quite a few people complaining about it elsewhere...

  • telboy007 #4 2 years ago

    Sold the game, may pick it up again... maybe!

  • RobotRocker #5 2 years ago

    Isnt the 360 version getting its onlive servers shut down in a few months as well?

    It would explain Sega's sudden burst of generosity.

  • RodHull #6 2 years ago

    @Diogo_Ribeiro

    I seem to remember they shut down the PC and PS2 servers last year which is probably why there's no news on updates on those platforms.

  • ShapeThrower #7 2 years ago

    For those looking for a trip down memory lane I'd highly recommend picking up Phantasy Star 0 on the DS
    Near enough the original PSO in the palm of your hand, complete with online play too .. Picked it up on Amazon the other week and haven't been able to put it down yet !!

  • roquey Verified Lead Quality Assurance Tester and Compliance Specialist, Universally Speaking #8 2 years ago

    Good game, loved the DC version too, had all the Gamecube editions too, CARD revolution was fairly poor but i wasnt interested in paying £40 for XBL and another 7 ontop per month. why not release it for PC? or am i missing something...

  • Toothball #9 2 years ago

    Oh, it's Phantasy Star news. I still play this every day. There have been numerous improvements and changes over the years, and although there have been some dips in the population this new update has brought a good few people back online in the past few weeks. It's certainly not as big as certain other online RPGs that I won't mention though.

    I wouldn't mind seeing a re-review of it, if only to make more people aware of its existence. The game itself is definitely showing its age though, and while this is the first major update we've had for two years there isn't really all that much new to it. The first expansion introduced a range of new levels, weapons, mechanics, balances and character classes. This new update on the other hand is mostly focussed on mechanical changes that do benefit the game but are mostly in place to give players who have reached the level cap something to use the excess experience on.

    They also introduced a new series of challenge missions that temporarily reset you to a lower level and then see you fight your way through tougher enemies, which makes a change from taking on missions that used to be challenging but have been long outgrown by most of the seasoned player base. Completing them nets you points to use on trading in for some of the newer weapons and items.

    All in all the updates have been largely welcomed by all, and are set to give us plenty of ways to waste many hours in the coming months. It's not been a major change but there's still fun being had with it. A re-review would be nice to see, but I don't expect it'd see a big change in opinion. The attention would be welcomed though, as we're trying to get the game onto Games on Demand since they don't produce the disc any more.

    @Paperghost

    The downloadable expansion is only useful if you play online, as none of it is available for offline play.

    @RobotRocker

    That seems fairly unlikely given the fact that they've just put in this update. The PC side went on for quite a while with a minimal number of players before they decided to give up on it. We've probably got a bit longer on Xbox.

    @roquey

    It was out on PC but that side got shut down as there weren't enough players.

  • Paperghost #10 2 years ago

    @Toothball thanks, appreciated!

  • argus_raphite #11 2 years ago

    hasn't this been available free for a while? I'm pretty sure when I came back from uni (early June) I hooked my 360 up to live to update and check on new content for my games and noticed AoI was free.

    Pretty old news then ;)

  • bloodflowers #12 2 years ago

    Unfortunately with the good comes the bad.

    While we finally got the update, the content lag between the US and Japanese servers is now approximately 15 months, an extension of a year from the original split when the game launched. Update information is patchy and sporadic at best, they won't ever commit to providing anything on a set date (suggested dates are missed almost without exception), the GMs basically don't police the game anymore, they can't (or won't) answer questions, and they don't even bother dealing with ticket submissions anymore. The game economy is in tatters due to the mishandling of glitches and poor decisions made with drop rates of items/game currency. The Japanese side had a huge amount of new content lately, but most of it is linked to 'Guardians Cash', essentially your typical MMO cash shop. They've decided not to bring this to the US servers, so that's a large chunk of actually new content which we might not get at all, or which will be distributed poorly, given their sustained track record of failure and bad decisions. If you ask them they have no information.

    When we /do/ get information, it's frequently wrong. When we /do/ get updates there are often bugs, which they rely on the player base to find rather than testing things. When we /do/ get events they're sometimes cut-down versions of the ones Japan got. There's already a list of bugs on the forum for this latest update. A couple are obscure but at least one is a 'what? you didn't test this??' example.

    They're more than happy to keep taking the subscription fees though.

    A shocking and amateur display, on every level. Even their forum is moderated poorly, mostly staffed by players, ones who have been selected .. questionably.

    If I didn't have an investment of time and an established group of friends, I wouldn't play it anymore. I don't think a revisited review would be especially helpful, as the game has not aged gracefully. Due to higher level attacks and spells being made available, it runs slower - the graphics engine can't cope at all. No frame skip, no option to disable effects, it varies wildly from 60fps to about 10. All time based challenges are done by server time too, so when you do suffer from graphical slowdown, you actually lose real time.

  • Diogo_Ribeiro #13 2 years ago

    @Rod Hull: Thanks, that must've slipped by me. Too bad then.

  • Toothball #14 2 years ago

    @argus_raphite

    It was made free around the end of June. The update only landed this week though,

  • NeverWinter28 #15 2 years ago

    I played the demo of PSU and it seems to be full of perverts sending dirty msg. No amount of free content would make me go back that rubbish

  • Toothball #16 2 years ago

    @NeverWinter28

    The demo is quite the cesspool of freeloaders and pornography sellers. The subscription generally keeps they out of the real game. Sega aren't very pro-active when it comes to clearing it up though so it's not really that great an advert for a game.

    Sadly it's also the only advertising the game gets.

  • StriderRex #17 2 years ago

    I have PSU and played it due to my love for PSO on the DC, big big mistake, I thought it was awful, mind you I only ever played the SP, played online on the demo and it didnt seem worth the money and everything Ive heard since has made me think I made the right choice.
    Personally I just wish Sega would release PSO unaltered onto XBLA, though this could backfire, when I played it on Xbox (PSO V2.0 I think?) I found that it didnt have the same atmosphere simply because people were talking.

    I know how ridiculous that sounds but one of the things I loved about PSO on DC was the atmosphere, the sounds of the monsters and the evironment and the music (have the soundtrack on CD loved it so much) and people had to say something worthwhile in the chat bubbles rather than spout any old nonsense as there was only a limited window in which to type.
    This is probably just me mind, I can imagine more people would want the headset, your fingers would be wrecked otherwise ;)
    Sorry for going off topic!!

    At some stage will try to finish PSU for the simple fact I hate leaving games unfinished, but the SP at least is franky (imo) tedious and boring, who knows, maybe it will improve later in the game...

  • Toothball #18 2 years ago

    @StriderRex

    The story mode doesn't get particularly better by the way. It only lasts about 20-30 hours though, and isn't particularly taxing.

    I can see why you like typing, as I played a good deal of PSO myself. I do like having the option to talk available though, as I find a conversation can keep a party going far longer than a silent one. It's not so bad stopping to say something every so often, but when you're trying to get to the end of the run sooner you can often find yourself taking fewer moments to chat until very little is being said at all. On the other hand, you do sometimes find yourself listening to people who you would rather not, but on the whole there's some decent chat to be had.

  • dave-on #19 2 years ago

    Reading what you guys are going through now reminds me of what we faced with Sega when PSO was getting a bit old in the tooth. They just don't seem to care what state their games end up in. After PSO I got myself FFXI and while Square Enix aren't exactly perfect they do fix bugs and ban people occasionally.

  • MaxLimitz #20 10 months ago

    I bought this game years ago, but it's so bad I got my first achievement yesterday, in 2011. It's so complicated it's hard to understand what you are supposed to do, there are cryptic and hard to remember names for guns, skills and items, usability sucks, there is no pause, too few save points, uninteresting characters, etc.