Customer Reviews

Phantasy Star Online, Episode I & II Plus

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you like to play games for 200+ hours, then this is the game for you. There is millions of different items, weapons, and other stuff to find. If you follow the missions you'll discover a delightful story and characters. Enjoy!

I have played PSO with my best friend for a couple years, and when he left for the Fleet in the Marine Corps, I couldn't play anymore because he took it with him :( I broke down and bought a NGC and this game was the first on my list. The game arrived in excellent condition and I've needed to buy another memory card just to keep up with my character list now ^_^

This game is pretty darn good. It's graphics are detailed, the sound is of decent quality and the story line actually makes sense.
We'll start with the storyline. If you don't pay attention to the rambally of the principal at the beginning of the game you won't know why the heck your fighting until the 3rd or 4th level. It turns out you're in a spaceship with a ton of people looking for a new home planet -Your misson: Fight through the alien monsters and see if it's safe. There are no cutscenes which is a definite time saver but you end up forgetting about the story in general through out the game. The end of the game kinda leaves you hanging too...

Next, the gameplay. The game could definitly use a tutorial i got killed like 5 times before i got the rythem of the game. Other than that though it's great. You go around different areas such as forests, caves, mines, runes, temples, spaceships and some others and kill monsters. What's great about the maps of this game is that it has the "maze element" but not so much to the point where you get frusterated and turn the gamecube off. Occansionally you'll turn around and retrace your steps but you always find your way through. You attack in a combo up to 3 hits at a time. You can choose a fast, but weak attack, and slow but strong attack or a very slow but special attack (such as lightning, freezing, steal money, steal health etc.) in a rythmic pattern. As you progress though the game you can find and buy different weapons, powerups and armor. Nintendo pros will even spend much time on this game due to multiple things. #1 you can choose from 3 different classes: hunter (melee) ranger (gun-ranger) or a mage type (range-magic). #2 each class has different attributes such as robot, human male, human female, girl robot etc. #3 There are different difficulty levels, once you beat normal you can try hard, then very hard, then ultimate. And best yet you can play online! (requires and gamecube internet adapter though...)

Lastly, the graphics. If you're looking for a game with realistic, beautiful, colorful backgrounds, i can't say i'd recommend this game. The graphics are nice... but a little cartoony for my taste; the monsters don't have much detail (for instance it took me 3 months to relizes the evil sharks had dark green scails) and although the backgrounds are colorful, not realistic, for example most caves (or at least the ones i've seen) don't have lava waterfalls with a metal bridge going over them...

Anyway over all it's definitly worth buying and playing. (I'm still trying to beat very hard mode with a ranger...)

Sega made a few mistakes. Particularly that you cannot move your characters between memory cards. So be sure your friend brings their own memory card to play, if they ever want to take their character elsewhere!

This game is highly repetitive after the first few times through.
But there are a multitude of "side quests" accomplished by taking Missions through the Hunter's Guild in a very specific order. [...]
The main draw of this game is being able to play with all your friends, as the online mode or simply the "all together in one physical room" mode of multiplayer with all four people allowed at once is really quite spectacular. The difficulty increases the more people are in the party. However, the highest difficulty level you can go to in multiplayer is limited by how high everyone in the party has gone. Meaning if one player hasn't passed Hard, but everyone else has, you can only select Hard or below if they are playing too.

Otherwise, the only point to the game is collecting dropped items. Or playing Online, in which even more quests, special event items or special item-grinding can be done.

The second revison has different cover art, and fixes the infamous shop-duplication bug.

To some gamers, there is that one game that, in spite of its flaws, you cannot get enough of it. Phantasy Star Online, Episodes I and II Plus is that game for me. I've poured thousands of hours into what, by today's standards, is a simple and non-unique experience.

If you enjoy playing a RPG, where you are not limited to a set story and can lose yourself in the mindless hunting of enemies, then this is the game for you. PSO is the epitome of the "grinder's game", where you will be killing the same enemies over and over and over again.

What makes it fun? A wide assortment of items and a difficulty setting that throws you a huge curve ball. The game teaches you to stay on your toes, especially if you're forced to hunt on your own. The story mode is note-worthy, but a bit contrived, while multiplayer allows for a fun experience, if you can find enough players to join you.

All in all, give it a try. I never regretted it.

Biggest overlooked classic - PSO is unique in the RPG world. These days, the official PSO game servers are down, but there are a few legitimate private servers out there that are free to play on. I can't even count the amount of my life I've given up slashing and blowing up boomas and pal sharks! One of my favorite games of all time!

Just a memo. This review is not written by Donna. It is written by Samuel Rowe (son); a professional reviewer, and heavy gamer.



First off, let me just start off by telling you that this game is more of an add on from the original version. You might not understand what i mean so, here's a quick orientation. This game comes with all the quests and items that you were only able to obtain from the original by playing the online mode. If you have already played the originl, think of this game as a 7/10. If you haven't played the original, this game is a 10/10. It's more of an add on, but its a great one at that. The graphics are well done, the script is engaging, and the gameplay is very fluid. The only downfall side this game has to offer is the prices. Unfortunatley, I had to pay a substantial amount of cash for this little number, but it was worth it.

Conclusion: It's a great, solid RPG game experience at its' finest. In my opinion, it's the best RPG on the Cube. If you have the cash I'd say go for it; but if you aren't willing to spend the amount it's worth, then just go for the original version which is still an epic title.

Originally i played PSO years ago and became an instant addict. I have now played this game a good 8 years and logged thousands of hours and havent seen everything. Honestly, this is one of the greatest games ever and is extremely underrated. When i bought this game, i played it for 3 years without a break, and to this day i still play it. After getting slightly bored with this version, i played Blue Burst, which expands on this even further by adding tons of new items and a new episode. This game is simple yet extremely compelling and i have never grown tired of it. You can take your character and customize them 100% and through the entire game find thousands of different items, each weapon will have different stats and make your experience different from anyone else. Have friends that play this game? Luckily for you, there is 4 player co-op or versus, i highly recommend you play this with a group or online via private servers! 4 player forces you to cooperate and share items to complete the game, and you can save your game at any time and pick it up later at the same level (granted if you do, you will have to restart the area). This game is a MUST buy, or if you dont have a gamecube just go download Blue Burst for free (google SCHTHACK).

I know almost no one is gonna read a review for this, so i'll put it quick and simple. I love this game. Its so sad they have discontinued it....."sniff"......But i think this is one of the greatest games of all time. You would need to play over 500-1000 hours to experience everything.40 - 50 days worth of playing, i mean. but it is so worth it.

I played this game lots back in the day's of the game cube and I still pick it up from time to time. In some ways I would still argue that this game is better then the current phantasy star universe games. Prettier graphics does not always mean a better game. Though, I do play universe online for the xbox 360 and enjoy it very much.

However, after all these years I don't see many people just picking this up without doing a lot of research or for nostalgia purposes. Your mind is probably already made up and I don't see me saying anything that has not already been said in other reviews on here if I where to truly review the game. Instead, I felt I should let people know about my sad experience with trying to go online with this game.

I think it was about 3 years ago when I moved from my parents home to an apartment and finally was paying for my own internet access. My parents had and still use (god forbid)Dial up internet. Even back then I could not find a dial up modem for game cube. So I physically could not connect the game to the internet back then. In retrospect the cube dial up modem is probably all but useless today anyway and I ended up getting the broadband model.

Anyway, after getting my high speed game cube part. I attempted connecting to the internet with my game cube to get this game online. However, I had issues connecting the game. So I got on my computer and did an internet search. After about 5 minutes on Google I learned that Sega had killed the servers for Phantasy Star online only a few mouths before I tried going online with it.

I also learned of a site called SCHTHACK that offered free servers for this game that was meant to replace the official servers when they want offline. I thought I had my solution. However, part of there confirmation system was to send them an email. They never responded to my mails and I sent them over and over with no response. I have been waiting for over 2 years on this now and have long given up on ever getting a response.

I guess my point is that if you plan to play this game online, I must tell you there is next to no support for this game. If you plan to play online I would highly recommend making your own server if you have the skills. However, if your like myself and do not have these skills, your probably stuck playing offline.

Also, now that the Wii has been out a while. It may be important to state that if you do have the tech skills to make online servers or have a friend that does that the Wii does not offer online hardware for game cube titles. The Wii only offers online support for Wii games. This is because Nintendo saw no point in putting it in. The cube only had 2 online games. This one and its sequel PSO III card revolution. plus 3 other titles like Mario cart double dash that where used threw a LAN connection (cube to cube) only. In all this is only 5 games that supported the cube broadband adapter back when it was around. I guess Nintendo though why bother when they created the Wii. So if you have found a way to play online, you will need a cube with a internet adapter of some kind if that information is helpful to anyone.

Still this is a great game to play offline alone or multilayer with friends and is still plenty playable offline on the Wii (I own both a cube and a wii so I have the right to confirm this for the skeptics out there). I just can't recommend this game if you plan to play online as it now has way to many barriers for most people. Sadly this does heart the game a little as I heard that back in the day that the online content was excellent and helped keep the game fresh with new content. I pretty much have done most everything I can do with this game offline and would have loved doing something new with it.

Well I hope my random rambling about this game is useful to someone.