Phantasy Star Universe - Finished Offline
Jordan
achievements, 1000 gamerpoints, 26 hours, 17 minutes and 25 seconds.
The levels aren't really challenging until the very end and even then
if you have a Light attributed weapon it's not all that hard. I was
thinking I'd have to grind for a while to get the cash to buy an
S-ranked weapon (starting at around 500,000 meseta) but I didn't have
to. A Light Duradnal was all it took.
A couple of complaints about the game... When you finish the goal for a
level it automatically takes you to a stats screen and gives you a
ranking... even if there are items on the ground you haven't picked up
yet. PSO got around this by forcing you to return to the guild counter
for your reward.
There aren't really enough variety of enemies. When they say there are
70 different enemies on the back of the box they really mean there are
only about 10 different enemies repeated 7 times with different skins.
The same tactics work on each of them. Yeah, I know, Sega has been
doing this since the orignal Phantasy Star, it doesn't make it any less
annoying.
Initially the game felt bigger than PSO for the simple reason that the
4 lobby areas you have to choose from (Guardian Colony and the 3
planets) are all huge. But the actual gaming areas I don't think are as
large or varied as in PSO. There really isn't anything that corresponds
to the caves or the mines. You essentially have Forest, Forest, Desert,
Ruins.
They've also eliminated the option of "doing a run". Where there was no
mission involved you'd simply go through Forest 1, Forest 2, fight the
dragon and go back to the ship. All of the free missions are more
mission than free. You can't simply roam about each planet, fight the
boss and go back to the ship. Although you can do the missions as many
times as you want (even the final mission is replayable through the
Game Clear save.
On the whole, I liked it. But it's not as good or as deep an RPG
experience as Enchanted Arms and I don't think it's as replayable as
the original PSO.
- Jordan
Kendrick Kerwin Chua
Jordan <lu...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>I just finished the offline mode for Phantasy Star Universe... 8
>achievements, 1000 gamerpoints, 26 hours, 17 minutes and 25 seconds.
>
>Initially the game felt bigger than PSO for the simple reason that the
>4 lobby areas you have to choose from (Guardian Colony and the 3
>planets) are all huge. But the actual gaming areas I don't think are as
>large or varied as in PSO. There really isn't anything that corresponds
>to the caves or the mines. You essentially have Forest, Forest, Desert,
>Ruins.
Aren't there two varieties of Ruins though? The underwater city on Parum
and the abandoned temple on Neudaiz certainly diverge graphically. And the
second one has a lot of multi-level action going on, where your party can
be split up and on separate floors but still see each other. I'll admit
that these are available in the online or extra modes and may not actually
show up as part of Waber's story.
>They've also eliminated the option of "doing a run". Where there was no
>mission involved you'd simply go through Forest 1, Forest 2, fight the
>dragon and go back to the ship. All of the free missions are more
>mission than free. You can't simply roam about each planet, fight the
>boss and go back to the ship. Although you can do the missions as many
>times as you want (even the final mission is replayable through the
>Game Clear save.
See, this confuses me because doing a run is exactly the whole point of
the online and extra modes. Online, the desert planet (Moatoab) is locked
out until the admin team decides to make it available. But in extra mode,
all three planets are available and you can pretty much journey anywhere
and fight any boss. Different variations of the runs are available
depending on what level you are.
>On the whole, I liked it. But it's not as good or as deep an RPG
>experience as Enchanted Arms and I don't think it's as replayable as
>the original PSO.
I think part of the reason for that is that in PSO it's possible to play
through the whole plot with one set of characters online, beginning to
end. In PSU, they've split it out so that you can't really 'finish'
online, as it were. Ethan's story is the main narrative and everything
else is just riding along, and so from a narrative standpoint the player
might not be quite as invested.
-KKC, who didn't get to play much this weekend, but now has another
Dreamcast in his house. Woo!
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Jordan
> I'll admit that these are available in the online or extra modes and may not actually
> show up as part of Waber's story.
Yeah, they're in Waber's story too... and you go through them 2 or 3
times. But they don't feel different enough from each other in the same
way that Mines and Caves are unique. Heck, Caves had variation from
level 1 to 2.
> See, this confuses me because doing a run is exactly the whole point of
> the online and extra modes. Online, the desert planet (Moatoab) is locked
> out until the admin team decides to make it available. But in extra mode,
> all three planets are available and you can pretty much journey anywhere
> and fight any boss. Different variations of the runs are available
> depending on what level you are.
The thing is it's all mission based. You don't have the option of just
going down to the planet and hitting the various areas. You can only
visit the planet under the constraint of an over-all mission. Yes, you
can choose C, B, A or S rank levels, but it's still just the equivalent
of doing "Black Paper" on the different difficulty levels.
- Jordan
Kendrick Kerwin Chua
Jordan <lu...@earthlink.net> wrote:
<snip>
I have also completed offline mode. As usual, I will spend only a little
time talking about gameplay and too much time on narrative and aesthetics.
Apropos of nothing, where is everybody? The AGPS group is turning into the
Jordan and Kendrick show, with special guest star Bel. :)
Spoilers below. Don't complain if you read something you didn't want to
know yet. You know, the three of you who accidentally found this message
on Dejanews while searching for cheat codes.
Took me about 26 hours to complete, not counting one stupid character
death incident somewhere in mission 6. The extra time was spent doing some
free missions for the purpose of levelling up and finding materials with
which to synthesize neat weapons. Then I learned that you can get those
same neat weapons as reward items for high mission rank grades upon
completion, and that it's almost impossible to develop Pete as an evolved
partner machine. That's effort better spent on the online game.
Before I get any further? The online game has made Guardian missions
available, the first of which is the opening chapter of PSU Episode 2.
Even if you're not interested in playing with others, I would keep an eye
on the PSU forums and see if the Episode 2 plot is interesting enough to
get you online. Also, I have a need to play with... well, adults. :)
Hey, plot discussion. Does anybody feel like the unrequited relationship
between Ethan and Karen went completely unexplored? The title of 'Divine
Maiden' implies chastity (and in fact, I imagine the title in Japanese
translates more correctly to 'Divine Virgin' which would have been harder
for the ESRB to swallow.) But I didn't feel like the wall of obligation
and duty that separated our two young lovers was well illustrated. It
looks like Episode 2 might open this particular can of worms up, but it's
hard to tell from only an hour of online mission time.
Has anybody uncovered any alternate plot elements or hidden missions in
Story Mode? I noticed a couple of elements from the opening FMV that don't
appear in the game as I played it. There's a segment where Ethan is
swinging a blade at three blue Casts in the middle of Dagora City. There
are also the brief shots that introduce us to the other NPC characters,
but I imagine those were made only for the intro.
There's a surprising amount of discussion about whether or not PSU occurs
in the same continuity as the rest of the Phantasy Star games. The easiest
explanation is that this is just a reset, using the same races and same
settings but in a completely new story. Some are thinking that Gurhal is
Algol rebuilt centuries after the defeat of Dark Falz (which would mean
that Relics are the remains of the old Palman, Motovian and Dezolian
civilizations.) Others think that this is a prequel, and that our three
warring planets eventually become Algol at some point in the future.
Does anybody think that the Guardian President looks an awful lot like
Magashi? Not a spoiler, just speculation on my part about why there's a
certain even in the Episode 2 mission that's appeared so far. And now I've
gone on for too long, so I'll wait for Jordan to come in and do the color
commentary.
-KKC, fighting Windows patches. Why are there so many of these every
month?
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