True enough, the genesis is indeed new! I loved the original PSO2 to death so I was excited to go into this one, and while playing it I've had a great time! I'm giving this a 7/10, but it's a very positive, optimistic 7/10 and I'm looking forward to more content coming out and for that rating to go higher. It's a smiling 7/10 :) (UPDATE: frowning 4/10)
One aspect I admired about the original PSO2 is how far it deviates from the structure of traditional MMOs, sidestepping many of those common genre issues as a result: the main story was completely optional and allowed you to explore the rest of the game's content at your own pace, the difficulty system made older content feel way less disposable, leveling up was beautifully quick, and so on. My hope for New Genesis was that it could carry on this design philosophy while nailing its new open world style, and for the most part it does! The tutorial sequence goes on for a bit too long (likely an overcompensation for how nightmarishly unintuitive base PSO2's tutorialization was) but once it's out of the way you're let loose to explore at your leisure.
It's fun! The open world is stunning, filled with so many cool vistas and little nooks to find. The combat is a neat alternate take on the base game, absorbing tons of DNA from the later classes and transforming series staples into something even more technical despite there being a lower number of skills compared to before. These new classes do a lot with very little and juggling all the small nuances in the heat of the moment is engaging as ever--PSO2 combat is still some of the best in the business for ARPGs as far as I'm concerned. The user experience has also been streamlined to help you spend less time in menus and more time out on the field. No more needing to keep spreadsheets and calculators open to upgrade your weapon!
Unfortunately, this can only do so much to distract you from the game's biggest problem, which is that it runs out of steam almost immediately. You'll run out of things to do extremely quickly, with nothing here that can really challenge or blow you away past those first few hours. I love short titles, and it's usually my preference for games to try and be dense and easy to come back to when possible, but the issue here isn't that it's short--it's that it's unfulfilling. It's like playing a demo version of BOTW that ends immediately after leave the Great Plateau, where what's on offer is still a blast but it's obvious that it's only a very small piece of a bigger package that you already know will soar to much greater heights when you get your hands on the full experience.
To some extent this was inevitable given that it's still a newly released MMO, and I think going from base PSO2 which had 8 years of content (especially on the recent NA version where those 8 years of content had to be crammed into the server over the course of barely 1 year so that it could catch up with the JP server) to a new title starting from scratch warped a lot of expectations people had for New Genesis even further. That said, even while trying to keep those expectations tempered, it's hard not to feel like something's missing. Even having just one bonus superboss that puts your knowledge of these new classes to the test and functions as a fun place to experiment with your skills would've gone a long way. Messing around with the classes is enjoyable as is but it's not like a proper action game that allows you to be fully expressive with how you handle enemies, which is why more intense content could be a huge benefit for something structured like this. I got so much mileage out of Phaleg and Omega Masquerade in base PSO2, and NGS doesn't have any real equivalent to that which is a huge shame.
This review may come off as fairly negative, but I'd easily still take how NGS is set up over 99% of other MMOs. I prefer this far more over having a bunch of blatantly throwaway filler content that would never be worth doing on their own merits, and I appreciate the game as something I can come back to whenever I want another quick dose of that slick combat or to find some more hidden items I missed. New Genesis has set a great foundation and I'll no doubt be coming back any time some new content releases, and I'd ultimately still recommend the game to anyone who is interested and has enough hard drive space for it. Just don't get your hopes up too high, because it's over before you know it.
EDIT: Nvm it's been over a year since release and it still feels pretty unfulfilling lol. Oh well!
EDIT2: Two years since making this review and still nothing of substance. Also half that last paragraph doesn't even hold true anymore. maaaaaan
One aspect I admired about the original PSO2 is how far it deviates from the structure of traditional MMOs, sidestepping many of those common genre issues as a result: the main story was completely optional and allowed you to explore the rest of the game's content at your own pace, the difficulty system made older content feel way less disposable, leveling up was beautifully quick, and so on. My hope for New Genesis was that it could carry on this design philosophy while nailing its new open world style, and for the most part it does! The tutorial sequence goes on for a bit too long (likely an overcompensation for how nightmarishly unintuitive base PSO2's tutorialization was) but once it's out of the way you're let loose to explore at your leisure.
It's fun! The open world is stunning, filled with so many cool vistas and little nooks to find. The combat is a neat alternate take on the base game, absorbing tons of DNA from the later classes and transforming series staples into something even more technical despite there being a lower number of skills compared to before. These new classes do a lot with very little and juggling all the small nuances in the heat of the moment is engaging as ever--PSO2 combat is still some of the best in the business for ARPGs as far as I'm concerned. The user experience has also been streamlined to help you spend less time in menus and more time out on the field. No more needing to keep spreadsheets and calculators open to upgrade your weapon!
Unfortunately, this can only do so much to distract you from the game's biggest problem, which is that it runs out of steam almost immediately. You'll run out of things to do extremely quickly, with nothing here that can really challenge or blow you away past those first few hours. I love short titles, and it's usually my preference for games to try and be dense and easy to come back to when possible, but the issue here isn't that it's short--it's that it's unfulfilling. It's like playing a demo version of BOTW that ends immediately after leave the Great Plateau, where what's on offer is still a blast but it's obvious that it's only a very small piece of a bigger package that you already know will soar to much greater heights when you get your hands on the full experience.
To some extent this was inevitable given that it's still a newly released MMO, and I think going from base PSO2 which had 8 years of content (especially on the recent NA version where those 8 years of content had to be crammed into the server over the course of barely 1 year so that it could catch up with the JP server) to a new title starting from scratch warped a lot of expectations people had for New Genesis even further. That said, even while trying to keep those expectations tempered, it's hard not to feel like something's missing. Even having just one bonus superboss that puts your knowledge of these new classes to the test and functions as a fun place to experiment with your skills would've gone a long way. Messing around with the classes is enjoyable as is but it's not like a proper action game that allows you to be fully expressive with how you handle enemies, which is why more intense content could be a huge benefit for something structured like this. I got so much mileage out of Phaleg and Omega Masquerade in base PSO2, and NGS doesn't have any real equivalent to that which is a huge shame.
This review may come off as fairly negative, but I'd easily still take how NGS is set up over 99% of other MMOs. I prefer this far more over having a bunch of blatantly throwaway filler content that would never be worth doing on their own merits, and I appreciate the game as something I can come back to whenever I want another quick dose of that slick combat or to find some more hidden items I missed. New Genesis has set a great foundation and I'll no doubt be coming back any time some new content releases, and I'd ultimately still recommend the game to anyone who is interested and has enough hard drive space for it. Just don't get your hopes up too high, because it's over before you know it.
EDIT: Nvm it's been over a year since release and it still feels pretty unfulfilling lol. Oh well!
EDIT2: Two years since making this review and still nothing of substance. Also half that last paragraph doesn't even hold true anymore. maaaaaan