The Principal of spaceship Pioneer 2 has tasked you, a hunter, with the task of investigating what has happened to the colony established by Pioneer 1, a sister ship that hit up the planet of Ragol ahead of Pioneer 2.
Inspired by online computer games of the late 90s such as Diablo, Sonic Team's Phantasy Star Online is an action RPG that takes the scale of massively multiplayer titles of the computer and pairs it back to fit the capabilities of the Dreamcast and its 56k modem. Create a character, choose from one of 9 different classes, and set off on an adventure to figure out what's destroyed all civilized life on the planet Ragol. You can set out alone, or dial into one of the game's player run servers to tackle the unknowns below with 3 other players. The game is split into a number of zones that you can explore, each with multiple levels and a boss at the end of each zone. You can also head on over to the hunter's guild where you can pick out different quests to earn money and items.
The gameplay loop is simple; head down to the planet, defeat enemies and break boxes, and collect whatever loot is down there to upgrade your arsenal to keep going at it. Each enemy you tackle earns you experience, and your capabilities increase as you level up over and over in a cycle of questing, killing, and looting. The Diablo influence is massive, but filtered through the action sensibilities of the team that spent the 90s designing games such as Nights into Dreams, Burning Rangers, and Sonic Adventure. That is to say that it is light on storytelling like Nights, but cool as heck like Burning Rangers with a loose structure that encourages messing around just to see what happens like Sonic Adventure.
In single player, it's a tedious treadmill of slow action. In multiplayer its an exciting dance through which one can see two decades of online game design into the future from its foundation. Pretty interesting stuff, if you ask me.
Updated on 1/30/22 from 3 to 4.5 stars.
The Revision: A class switch and a group of 3 buds to roll with has made ALL. THE. DIFFERENCE.
The bump in difficulty due to choosing a FORCE character versus a HUNTER character has significantly rebalanced the game experience. Now the game's dungeons are filled with a beautiful tension, the likes of which were dearly missing from a solo run as a hunter character. Playing the game with 3 friends, each wielding different classes has elevated the game immensely in my opinion. Dialing into a Sylverant server is effortless with modern emulators and technology, and the scaling up of the game turns it into the truth: Phantasy Star Online is the crowning achievement of the Dreamcast as a platform. We owe it everything we know and love about console gaming today. It IS video games encapsulated. I love it, and am disappointed it took me 20 years to sink my teeth into.
Inspired by online computer games of the late 90s such as Diablo, Sonic Team's Phantasy Star Online is an action RPG that takes the scale of massively multiplayer titles of the computer and pairs it back to fit the capabilities of the Dreamcast and its 56k modem. Create a character, choose from one of 9 different classes, and set off on an adventure to figure out what's destroyed all civilized life on the planet Ragol. You can set out alone, or dial into one of the game's player run servers to tackle the unknowns below with 3 other players. The game is split into a number of zones that you can explore, each with multiple levels and a boss at the end of each zone. You can also head on over to the hunter's guild where you can pick out different quests to earn money and items.
The gameplay loop is simple; head down to the planet, defeat enemies and break boxes, and collect whatever loot is down there to upgrade your arsenal to keep going at it. Each enemy you tackle earns you experience, and your capabilities increase as you level up over and over in a cycle of questing, killing, and looting. The Diablo influence is massive, but filtered through the action sensibilities of the team that spent the 90s designing games such as Nights into Dreams, Burning Rangers, and Sonic Adventure. That is to say that it is light on storytelling like Nights, but cool as heck like Burning Rangers with a loose structure that encourages messing around just to see what happens like Sonic Adventure.
In single player, it's a tedious treadmill of slow action. In multiplayer its an exciting dance through which one can see two decades of online game design into the future from its foundation. Pretty interesting stuff, if you ask me.
Updated on 1/30/22 from 3 to 4.5 stars.
The Revision: A class switch and a group of 3 buds to roll with has made ALL. THE. DIFFERENCE.
The bump in difficulty due to choosing a FORCE character versus a HUNTER character has significantly rebalanced the game experience. Now the game's dungeons are filled with a beautiful tension, the likes of which were dearly missing from a solo run as a hunter character. Playing the game with 3 friends, each wielding different classes has elevated the game immensely in my opinion. Dialing into a Sylverant server is effortless with modern emulators and technology, and the scaling up of the game turns it into the truth: Phantasy Star Online is the crowning achievement of the Dreamcast as a platform. We owe it everything we know and love about console gaming today. It IS video games encapsulated. I love it, and am disappointed it took me 20 years to sink my teeth into.