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IGN Review of Phantasy Star Universe
When Phantasy Star Online came out for Dreamcast way back in 2001 we were treated to something new. It wasn't just a new direction for the beloved Phantasy Star series; it was a new direction for console RPGs. That was something special. It may not have been perfect, but it was a fun look at what many thought to be the future. In the time since we first partied up online to hack and slash our way through waves of alien monsters and now, the online RPG has gone through somewhat of a revolution. World of Warcraft has brought the genre to the mainstream and high speed networked consoles have opened the doors to what can be done with an online game. After all of the titles that have pushed the limits of the genre in the past few years, Phantasy Star Universe has come out with an offering that is largely the same as the one we saw so many years ago. The result is an unsatisfying and stale experience that feels like an update to an old game that has had its day rather than a new title.
Phantasy Star Universe is a dungeon crawling action RPG that takes place in a futuristic world where humans live alongside three other humanoid races. While the humans have all around talents, the elf-like newman specialize in force techniques, android casts excel in gunplay, and beasts are the best at utilizing close combat weaponry. Combat is in real-time with the ability to do a standard attack with each weapon and then link several special attacks in the form of photon arts or force spells allowing for from two to four ways to attack the enemies with each weapon. Still, combat is largely done with a single button. Weapons, force techniques, character classes, special moves, and even your little friend the partner machine can all be upgraded and improved through sometimes confusing processes. Beyond that, character appearance, clothing and your little living space can all be customized. All of this together gives players plenty of frills. The main focus of Phantasy Star Universe is the network mode, in which you can explore the different areas populated by other players and join up with them to fight your way through missions. Additionally, there is a complete offline game complete with a story and an extra mode that mirrors the online game.
impressions for the full scoop.
The story mode isn't up to snuff when compared to other offline RPGs, but the legions of fans that adore the new-look Phantasy Star series will be quick to tell you that the online game is where it's at. Like some other online RPGs, Phantasy Star Universe requires players to pony up $9.99 USD a month for access to the network game, so anyone thinking about taking the plunge should know that this title can cause quite a big hit on the wallet. The network mode allows players to create an online persona from one of the four races and customize their appearance and equipment to fit their individual style. When you do sign online, you'll be left almost in the dark as to what you're supposed to be doing. Although you can access little tutorials in your room, actually figuring out where to go and how to go about doing anything is very confusing. The first few hours of the game will probably be spent asking fellow gamers online just how you are supposed to do anything. Once you've figured everything out, you'll find that anywhere from one to six players can join up and enter the missions online where they will have to work together to fight through hordes of enemies for experience and collect money and items. The money and items can then be taken back to the hub worlds to upgrade equipment and purchase other items in preparation for the next battle.
These features for improving your character, equipment, room, and partner machine are the best reason to play Phantasy Star Universe. Although the gameplay and environments may be repetitive and drab, there is an oddly addicting quality to the game. In our experience with the game, we repeatedly found ourselves spending just a little more time to get that extra money to buy a new weapon. Or fight through one last mission to reach level 15. Despite its numerous shortcomings, Phantasy Star Universe still has that ability to hook you like its predecessors had.
Outside of the combat and upgrade portions of the game comes the final, and sometimes most enticing, portion to Phantasy Star Universe. This is, of course, socializing. Finding a group of friends online, or making new ones, and trading partner cards so that you can easily find each other later greatly improves the experience. While hacking through the same repetitive dungeons with not so intelligent AI on the story mode can become tedious quite quickly, doing the same thing with friends can be quite enjoyable. The old keyboard and quick phrase system also returns for Phantasy Star Universe and is complemented by voice chat on Xbox 360 that becomes available after joining a party. The voice chat is spotty though and on many occasions we found that it didn't work at all. Why you can't have voice chat in the lobbies with a volume modulator for how far away you are from the person talking is beyond us anyways.
At Phantasy Star Universe's launch, there were only three areas to explore; the Guardian's colony, Parum, and Neudaiz. This is a far cry from a galaxy, let alone a universe as the title suggests. Although the latter two are planets, they can be thought of more as lobbies that act as a gateway to the online quests. Each of the three locales has a single city containing several shops to purchase equipment and a flyer base from which players can join parties and start missions. That's the extent of what you can do on the planets.
The missions are lacking in depth as well. Each planet only has a handful of missions and most of them are merely repeats of the initial ones with higher level baddies. What's worse is that the "missions" have no context and don't get any deeper than walking through an area with little to no room for exploration and beating on the waves of enemies that come in too few varieties. Dungeon crawlers can be fun, provided they are housed in a nice array of environments with a good assortment of enemies. Phantasy Star Universe provides neither of these and running through the same drab environments fighting the same dull enemies gets boring fast. This is made doubly so by the fact that many of these enemies are the same ones we saw on Phantasy Star Online over five years ago.
The graphics on the Xbox 360 version of Phantasy Star Universe are paltry at best. The game clearly was designed with PlayStation 2 specs in mind and little more than an upgrade to higher resolution textures was done in the port to Xbox 360. This means that you won't find any fancy lighting techniques, no snazzy texture passes and no improved models. It looks more like a decent looking Xbox game than a next generation title. Despite its poor look and relatively small amount of things going on at one time, Phantasy Star Universe still runs into slow down. The improvement over the preview copies we had earlier this year is substantial, but it still hits and hits hard. Nothing could kill the experience of fighting the end boss in a game more than having the frame rate start chugging each time you try to do a special move.
The sound also has a decidedly last generation feel to it. Very little was done to make surround sound noticeable and the sound effects are generic. The music sounds decent the first time you hear it, but when the entire game is just a series of repeat runs through the same dungeons, you'll find yourself reaching for your own custom soundtrack.
©2006-11-06, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Phantasy Star Universe is a dungeon crawling action RPG that takes place in a futuristic world where humans live alongside three other humanoid races. While the humans have all around talents, the elf-like newman specialize in force techniques, android casts excel in gunplay, and beasts are the best at utilizing close combat weaponry. Combat is in real-time with the ability to do a standard attack with each weapon and then link several special attacks in the form of photon arts or force spells allowing for from two to four ways to attack the enemies with each weapon. Still, combat is largely done with a single button. Weapons, force techniques, character classes, special moves, and even your little friend the partner machine can all be upgraded and improved through sometimes confusing processes. Beyond that, character appearance, clothing and your little living space can all be customized. All of this together gives players plenty of frills. The main focus of Phantasy Star Universe is the network mode, in which you can explore the different areas populated by other players and join up with them to fight your way through missions. Additionally, there is a complete offline game complete with a story and an extra mode that mirrors the online game.
impressions for the full scoop.
The story mode isn't up to snuff when compared to other offline RPGs, but the legions of fans that adore the new-look Phantasy Star series will be quick to tell you that the online game is where it's at. Like some other online RPGs, Phantasy Star Universe requires players to pony up $9.99 USD a month for access to the network game, so anyone thinking about taking the plunge should know that this title can cause quite a big hit on the wallet. The network mode allows players to create an online persona from one of the four races and customize their appearance and equipment to fit their individual style. When you do sign online, you'll be left almost in the dark as to what you're supposed to be doing. Although you can access little tutorials in your room, actually figuring out where to go and how to go about doing anything is very confusing. The first few hours of the game will probably be spent asking fellow gamers online just how you are supposed to do anything. Once you've figured everything out, you'll find that anywhere from one to six players can join up and enter the missions online where they will have to work together to fight through hordes of enemies for experience and collect money and items. The money and items can then be taken back to the hub worlds to upgrade equipment and purchase other items in preparation for the next battle.
These features for improving your character, equipment, room, and partner machine are the best reason to play Phantasy Star Universe. Although the gameplay and environments may be repetitive and drab, there is an oddly addicting quality to the game. In our experience with the game, we repeatedly found ourselves spending just a little more time to get that extra money to buy a new weapon. Or fight through one last mission to reach level 15. Despite its numerous shortcomings, Phantasy Star Universe still has that ability to hook you like its predecessors had.
Outside of the combat and upgrade portions of the game comes the final, and sometimes most enticing, portion to Phantasy Star Universe. This is, of course, socializing. Finding a group of friends online, or making new ones, and trading partner cards so that you can easily find each other later greatly improves the experience. While hacking through the same repetitive dungeons with not so intelligent AI on the story mode can become tedious quite quickly, doing the same thing with friends can be quite enjoyable. The old keyboard and quick phrase system also returns for Phantasy Star Universe and is complemented by voice chat on Xbox 360 that becomes available after joining a party. The voice chat is spotty though and on many occasions we found that it didn't work at all. Why you can't have voice chat in the lobbies with a volume modulator for how far away you are from the person talking is beyond us anyways.
At Phantasy Star Universe's launch, there were only three areas to explore; the Guardian's colony, Parum, and Neudaiz. This is a far cry from a galaxy, let alone a universe as the title suggests. Although the latter two are planets, they can be thought of more as lobbies that act as a gateway to the online quests. Each of the three locales has a single city containing several shops to purchase equipment and a flyer base from which players can join parties and start missions. That's the extent of what you can do on the planets.
The missions are lacking in depth as well. Each planet only has a handful of missions and most of them are merely repeats of the initial ones with higher level baddies. What's worse is that the "missions" have no context and don't get any deeper than walking through an area with little to no room for exploration and beating on the waves of enemies that come in too few varieties. Dungeon crawlers can be fun, provided they are housed in a nice array of environments with a good assortment of enemies. Phantasy Star Universe provides neither of these and running through the same drab environments fighting the same dull enemies gets boring fast. This is made doubly so by the fact that many of these enemies are the same ones we saw on Phantasy Star Online over five years ago.
The graphics on the Xbox 360 version of Phantasy Star Universe are paltry at best. The game clearly was designed with PlayStation 2 specs in mind and little more than an upgrade to higher resolution textures was done in the port to Xbox 360. This means that you won't find any fancy lighting techniques, no snazzy texture passes and no improved models. It looks more like a decent looking Xbox game than a next generation title. Despite its poor look and relatively small amount of things going on at one time, Phantasy Star Universe still runs into slow down. The improvement over the preview copies we had earlier this year is substantial, but it still hits and hits hard. Nothing could kill the experience of fighting the end boss in a game more than having the frame rate start chugging each time you try to do a special move.
The sound also has a decidedly last generation feel to it. Very little was done to make surround sound noticeable and the sound effects are generic. The music sounds decent the first time you hear it, but when the entire game is just a series of repeat runs through the same dungeons, you'll find yourself reaching for your own custom soundtrack.
©2006-11-06, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved