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I never owned my own Dreamcast, so the Xbox version of PSO (Phantasy Star Online) was my first introduction to the game. My best friend who had played the Dreamcast version, gave me a basic run down as I mentioned to him I was about to play it for a review. He told me it was basically a 3D version of Diablo: simple, fun and addicting. He was pretty much right on the money.

PSO is a sci-fi based RPG set in the distant future. As the story goes, the inhabitants of Earth are colonizing the galaxy. City sized ships, dubbed the ‘Pioneers’ have set off to locate habitable planets that can support life and civilization. You find yourself on the second colony ship, Pioneer 2, in orbit around planet Ragol, thought suitable for colonization. All seemed to going well until a large explosion on the surface seemed to knock out communication from Pioneer 1. You’ve been hired to discover the fate of Pioneer 1 and it’s colonists. You are able to play three different character classes, each with four subclasses. You have Hunter, Ranger and Force classes to choose from. Hunters are more geared towards melee combat. Rangers can melee, but excel in ranged combat, and Force characters are basically the mages of the game. Each class has subclasses that get a bit more specific on what capabilities you’ll get. Certain classes also have ‘techniques’, or special attacks you can use in the game or while in combat. Every character also has a mag. A mag is a pet that floats above your shoulder, which can help you in a few different ways throughout the game. Depending on how you raise your mag, will determine their abilities, whether it be combat or healing. You can feed your mag items, which will raise any number of its five stats. After your mag has achieved a certain level of power, it acquires its own techniques that can be used from time to time in the game. You can also have more than one mag, although you can only use one at a time.

After you’ve created your character, I suggest playing through Episode I in ‘offline’ mode before you decide to hop online. This will familiarize you with the game and the controls so you won’t look like a total doofus when you hop online to play with other people. You can run through Episode I in a few days (20-30 hours). In Episode I, you will explore four different levels, each other 2-3 sub levels and a boss at the end of each. After an or or so, you’ll notice the game feels a bit more like an arena than an actual world. The areas are not that big and didn’t really give me that sense of immersion that a good RPG should give you. Most are maze-like with switches and locked doors to hamper your progress. Episode II is more of the same. I’d really like to see PSO evolve into an actual WORLD. The game has the background for it. They just need to get rid of the generic arena feeling and make it more wide open with seamless areas instead of a zone based dungeon crawl. The maps get awfully repetitive after you’ve done all the sub missions for each level. It’s funny how the sub missions all use the same level maps, but start you off at different parts of the maps to try and make it feel like you are in a different level all together. I thought that was rather... cute. By the time you’ve walked through all the sub missions for any given level, you’ll be more than ready to say goodbye to that map and on to the next one.

Online play is the star in PSO’s universe. Xbox live play is smooth and generally lag free. You have a number of multiplayer options, including local split screen multiplayer. On XBL you can hop onto a Ship block, then jump into a lobby with a number of other players. From there you can join an existing team of players or create your own team and hop into either Episode I or II. A total of four players can participate in a team. You can also trade for items, mags and other participate in other social avenues of the game. The game types are Normal, Challenge and Battle. Normal mode lets you play through one of the episodes with up to three other people. You can choose one of four difficulty settings depending on your own level and what previous difficulty modes you’ve already completed. In Challenge mode, you will need to clear a series of stages with your teammates without going back to the city to restock or heal. If any teammate drops to 0 health, the challenge is over and all members loose. If you manage to complete the challenge, you will be rewarded with an item that will be saved to your character file. The last mode is Battle mode. In Battle mode pits you against up to three other players in a duel. Each player starts at a different location on the map and you must hunt down and slay your opponents to score points. Scores are tallied and displayed at the end (when time runs out). You can also play through the normal episode in battle mode. It will play just like the regular game except you can damage your teammates so it’s basically like turning on ‘friendly fire’. Online play supports voice within your team or in lobbies, with little voice icons appearing next to the players who are speaking. You can also get a free (minus shipping) USB keyboard adapter from the Xbox site and use a USB keyboard to communicate. There’s also an in-game keyboard, but as you may expect it’s very cludgy to use. I’m assuming the USB keyboard adapter will be used in future games, even though it says ‘Phantasy Star Online’ on it.

The achilles heel of this game is the goddamn, annoying camera. The camera does not lock behind your character, so it does not turn as your character turns. You will need to use the left trigger to snap the camera back behind your character about every 5 to 10 seconds. All they need to do to fix this is make the damn camera lock behind your character’s shoulder and then allow a free look using the right analog stick, which is otherwise totally unused. I guess that must have been more complicated than it sounds. Direct ports can be a real bitch sometimes.

The other looming problem with PSO is the lack of server side character storage. Any hacker with a mod chip can cheat and give his character any item in the game or make them any level, up to the max. I hope idiots don’t still wonder why Microsoft auto bans you from XBL if you have a mod chip. THIS is why. All of you ‘non-cheating’ mod users out there can thank all the cheaters for this policy. Don’t blame Microsoft, they’re just trying to keep the game cheat free without having to dump millions of dollars in anti-cheat programming for their XBL games like SO MANY other companies have had to do for their online games. DON’T fucking cheat online, you little shitheads! Keep your hacked characters on your own local games. Hopefully the next PSO will have server side character storage, which will resolve 95% of the cheating. It’s a shame that Microsoft has to spend money and resources like this, instead of putting that money to good use elsewhere to enhance the gameplay experience, otherwise ruined by the inadequate feeling smacktards you’ll likely run into while playing online. The cheaters haven’t ruined online play yet, but they’ve definitely affected it. But I digress…

The graphics of PSO are good when compared to a PS2 title, but really lack the punch that some other Xbox titles have. The Dreamcast was a great console, graphically superior to everything else out at the time, but the Xbox has spoiled us with even better graphics and it’s sometimes disappointing to see the noticeable different in graphic quality when ports are involved; Shenmue II also comes to mind here. Fortunately, the sound track is very cool. Notice I said ‘sound track’, as in singular. There’s only one. The game doesn’t support custom soundtracks either. Fortunately, it has a unique, techno theme that doesn’t tear at your brain with repetitive, annoying jingles. The sound effects are on the same level of coolness. The saber effects will remind you of Star Wars, but still fit within the games theme. The game also supports Dolby Digital.

Overall, PSO is really a light-hearted RPG, with consistencies that resemble more of an action adventure game. Both single player and multiplayer are addicting. The ‘hunters license’ needed to play online runs $9 a month, with a 2 month free trial. Without server side character storage, that’s a bit steep if you ask me. I suggest you try it out for yourself though. I’ve played so many online games I’ve gotten to the point where I’m very picky on what I pay for. Do NOT buy the license until you are ready to play online. Finish Episode I or whatever you need to get accustomed to the game before you buy the license, that way your 2 months free can be used to it’s maximum extent.