I like the part where it's like every class has 3 different action game design tropes at once and tells you "this one is the best one to use for the big number". Raw. I also like how they made 3 different spinoffs of Vergil but the last time they were like, "what if at the end of Judgement Cut End, he slides back and fires at all the lingering slashes with a gunblade". Kino. Episode 4 UQS. GOATED. I affixed some pretty alright units, it was okay. Swag. In-game Takenobu Mitsuyoshi model. Soul. Sodam? Stacks

Luster my beloved. I'll see you again someday. The secret to making MMOs not lame is to make every class a different flavor of DPS. If you get it you get it. Showing anime repulsed PSO gen x'ers my all scion class 4man Primordial Darkness runs to watch them mald into flames and dust. "Beating" an MMO is a surreal concept I think

Really puts the "Online" in Phantasy Star Online.

I've actually started PSO2 since maybe around 2016? So this is the only time I'll talk about gameplay for all EPISODES.

It's very braindead, which is all I need in a time passing MMO. Reaching Level 75 without even touching the first EPISODE is real weird but whatever.
I also don't care for the massive grind or min maxing or whatever MMO players smoke, I'm just dedicated to doing cool shit.

The presentation and gameplay has certainly aged, being made for 2012 and not recieving massive upgrades for its price (being free) and meant to be accessible on weaker platforms, like the Vita.

It's age is also shown in the rough execution of its stories, which I expect to be a running theme until EPISODE 4. The old progression of plot used to be finding cutscenes on the field, but they've all been crammed awkwardly into one menu and I pray for anyone who has no idea what Xion means by Divergence Matrix. You remove the gameplay breaks with long strings of mostly unconnected cutscenes and event battles that range from piss easy to absolutely annoying.

Not to mention the actual thread of events just sorta happens. It's a mess but with having experience with FFXIV's A Realm Reborn MSQ before it was cut down, can't say I expected anything else.

You're not missing anything not doing this, personally.

Extremely soulless and greedy game. Over 100 hours in and I could not bring myself to remotely care about the plot and characters or the story. Gameplay is flashy no doubt but it basically boils down to devil may cry without any depth. It certainly is fun to turn your brain off and fight big hordes of enemies but it does get old when you realize you’re doing the same thing over and over again. The main draw of this game for me was grinding to get enough money to buy cute clothes from the player market, where everything is disgustingly scalped. By the way, the only way to even sell anything on the market is by purchasing a market pass with real life money. The dark and mysterious art style of the original pso is replaced with a more polished boring anime style. I’ve heard New Genesis improves on aspects of this game, but it runs horribly on my computer so I guess I’ll never know.

giving this five stars is pretty generous given the amount of dumb shit this game has (lots of 2012 MMO jank, the UI is confusing, the tutorialization tells you both too much and too little at the same time, the first half of the story mode is fucking incomprehensible, the NA translation is blatantly unfinished, and so on) but the fact that i'm still giving it five stars despite all this bullshit should be a display of just how high this game's strengths reach.

despite how archaic a lot of pso2's systems are, there's a lot of surprisingly smart design that may seem odd at first but ends up working in its favor. the main story being completely skippable lets you get to the raids immediately, leveling up is lightning fast compared to most other MMOs, the difficulty system allows even tutorial dungeons to have max level variants, the lack of the tank + healer + DPS trinity means that all the classes can be built wildly different from each other (one turns the game into a third-person shooter, one is a pet raising sim--the variety is nuts even if a few classes overlap a bit), there's so many ideas that shouldn't work by conventional standards but they end up making the game unique and allow it dodge a lot of problems it could've run into otherwise.

the combat is excellent. the weapons offer a great amount of variety and interesting systems to play around with, and the animation work is stellar and conveys impact extremely well. there's just so many cool systems to master; not every class is a home run, but most of them manage to be a blast even on just a fundamental level, especially the unlockable successor classes. the bosses are even better--phaleg and omega masquarade are some of the most fun i've had fighting a boss in any action game.

pso2 can be a bit difficult to get into with how obtuse it is but it's well worth taking the plunge if you can get past the fact that it is still ultimately an MMO at its core. it's just a really damn good one.

EDIT: nevermind don't take the plunge i take it back. base pso2 is still "supported" after NGS but that's supported in name only. there are still base players but there's so few that aren't playing NGS now that i have no idea how someone even would get into base PSO2 and make solid progress at this point with the lack of promotional campaigns + significantly less boosters and also the dumpster fire-tier economy. shame!

THIS LOSER SPENT MONEY ON THIS FREE TO PLAY MMO JUDGE THEM ACCORDINGLY

so. after about 6-7 months of playing this game daily, i think i'm finally calling it quits. i walked into this game going "this is not going to be anywhere in the ballpark of the same game as PSO" and, with that mindset, i was able to enjoy it. there's a lot here that i had fun with, but i would not say i enjoyed it on nearly any level as complex as PSO, which is odd to say considering how needlessly obtuse the game's systems (like affixing, crafting, etc.) can be.

i was talking about it with a veteran of PSO the other day and we both came to the agreement that this is really only a sequel to PSO in name alone. almost all of the systems from PSO (i.e. section IDs, quests, class stat minmaxing, etc.) are either completely absent or radically overhauled, and the setting is completely different from ragol with (unless i missed something) no mention of pioneer 1/2, or any of the named characters from PSO. in many ways, this feels like a game that was going to launch under a different name, but then got reskinned to be PSO2. that's not entirely a bad thing, but it is a thing. (for the curious, me and said veteran did end up agreeing that PSU is more of a sequel to PSO than PSO2 even is, lol)

as a game that you pick up, play for an hour to three, and fuck around in? it's very fun! some of my fondest memories of the game are when i would try to optimize how i handled an urgent quest with other players, or when i was dicking around with new character classes to find what worked for me (i eventually settled on fo/te, which is an engaging and entertaining way to play DPS for me). there's a lot of content here, especially for a free to play game! if you play this game and make a personal rule of "i will never spend money on this game", you'll be surprised to find out how little is gated via money. you'll miss out on extra crafting slots, extra mags, higher inventory/storage space, etc. but it's all extremely doable. i was able to hit 100 (the current level cap, and, i predict, likely the final one) without spending a single cent, and i only ended up spending money when i wanted to start minmaxing. again, as a purely simple package of free game for content, this is a great deal.

the problem for me comes in when you consider how much of this game just doesn't... work. i tried so hard to get invested in the story and good christ did i just not give a shit. i couldn't even make it past episode 1 because all the story segments were just cutscenes where your character watches other characters interact or gets monologued at. it's boring! it's very poorly told. and, having read a basic summary of what the plot even is, it doesn't seem to be terribly well written in the first place. i also regret to inform you that this is legitimately one of the first sega games that i've ever played that has a mediocre soundtrack. none of the OST is bad here, but it's unmemorable and bland. after a certain point, i would just listen to spotify while playing this game, and my experience jumped up in quality immensely when i did.

i feel bad not saying better things about this game, because there is a lot of effort and talent on display. there's a lot more map variety than i was expecting here, and there's actual verticality that's used in a lot of them too. compared to PSO and PSU, that's significant to me! there's just not a lot to actually invest in once you get past the newness of the game. i was going to make it a personal goal to try and hit 100 with every class, but after the third one, i lost steam and just eventually got burnt out. i put in around 350 hours, which is pretty fucking good on a return basis considering i only spent like maybe $20 at most. but i struggle to tell people "play this game and do x y and z" because i can't name worthwhile xs, ys, or zs. play this game because... you want to play it? there's a lot here that will hook you, but there's not that much that'll make you stay if you have no prior experience with the series. that's a missed opportunity for the game as a whole, and probably the worst thing about it.

overall, i enjoyed this game, and if you're looking for something to try out over the weekend for free, you've got a great candidate here. i can't say this is a great game, but for every tempered expectation i had, it mostly succeeded in passing. considering how much time i've put and still put into PSO and how difficult i can be to please, that's worth something to me.