I first started playing Phantasy Star back on the gamecube when it was such a small and compact game. Over the years it grew bit by bit and I was still with it during the Phantasy Star Portable days on PSP. Now we're at PSO2 and the game has just spread out into this weird hard to decipher mess. I'm starting to think the limitations were what made this game reign itself in and stay so on-point.

There's a small variety of weapons, races, classes, and sub systems that I can recall from the PSP games. Mags are back but not as fun and the missions feel like an endless parade of pointlessly short skirmishes that are over as soon as they've begun. That doesn't stop them being endlessly repeated though as you go back to the same map numerous times for the same experience over and over.

The combat has the classic stiff timing for attack combos that it's known for but in HD it's lost a lot of its charm as the larger levels feel poorly utilised. The minimal combat, highly repetitive rooms, and repeating monsters just smack of laziness by the developers. Back on the gamecube this felt charming but now days it just seems crude. Combine that with bad UI and poorly signposted NPC's and it's just not worth the time expenditure learning how to do the basics.

I couldn't get into it and doubt I'll return. Whatever curiosity I had coming into it was lost very quickly.