Reviewed: December 2, 2006
Reviewed by: Blake Kenny
Publisher
SEGA
Developer
Sonic Team
Released: October 24, 2006
Genre: MMORPG
Players: 1-6
6
6
6
6
6.3
Supported Features:
$15 Monthly Fee for Online Play
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
North American game players got their first taste of Phantasy Star back on the Sega Master System in 1988, but to be honest I never played it. I was a Nintendo guy through and through and knew very few people who even owned that console, let alone the game. However, I was familiar with the series and fully aware that it was a popular and successful RPG for Sega and the Master System. Good for them.
Over the years the series has moved on to many other systems, like the Sega Genesis, the Game Gear and the Game Boy Advance. With each iteration, the series seemed to be losing steam and heading down hill, earning less critical acclaim each time and less of a following. In fact many of the games in the series never even reached North American shores; and between 1994 to 2000 we saw nothing of the series at all. In hindsight, I suppose Phantasy Star was intended to be Sega’s answer to Nintendo’s widely popular Final Fantasy (yes, I know Nintendo didn’t make FF), but it’s simply couldn’t compare. With each sequel or re-imagining of the series it seemed to fade more and more from thought and into then annals of gaming history.
For a time is seemed that Phantasy Star was all but finished. It wasn’t until the launch of the uber powerful, Sega Dreamcast and the worlds first console MMORPG, (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) that Phantasy Star made its much publicized and anticipated return to North American shores. I was at E3 in 2000, the year that the Sega Dreamcast was easily the star of the show and Phantasy Star Online looked poised to rejuvenate Sega after the crushing it’s various pieces of hardware had taken over the years.
When Phantasy Star Online came out, I played it, paid for it, enjoyed it for a couple months, and then quit. It was fun, but a little shallow and nowhere near what was promised. Inevitably and not specifically because of this game, the Dreamcast also failed. History shows that Sega’s plans to make a big slash in the console world didn’t go according to plan, as the Playstation 2, the Xbox and the Gamecube still toppled the superior Dreamcast, leaving it with a mere 6.5% market share for that generation and ultimately destroying everything great that Sega once was. Relegating them to the world of software development, probably for the rest of time.
So here I am reviewing Sega’s Phantasy Star Universe on the Xbox 360, a game that also has had versions released on the consoles of those who were once its rivals, the Playstation 2 and the Nintendo GameCube, it’s kind of ironic when you think about it. So with all their thoughts trained on making great games, and the console wars behind them, how does this newest offering pan out? Does its latest online release, cut the mustard in a world where 8 million people see World of Warcraft as the ultimate Massive Multiplayer experience? Well read on and find out, because the Phantasy Star Universe awaits.
Like all 360 games, Phantasy Star Online comes complete with the requisite achievements totalling 1000 gamerscore. The game only has 8 achievements and they require little to obtain besides the tenacity and attention span to get you through the 25+ hour single player quest. If you can last that long, they’re all yours.
The story has you playing a youth by the name of Ethan Waber, a typically cynical know-it-all who has little respect for authority, and can also be a little hot headed. The authority in PSU is comprised of the Guardians, and galactic police force of sorts, not to far removed from the Jedi of Star Wars, granted, without the force to provide them power.
Naturally Ethan ends up joining the Guardians regardless, and sets off on a 12-chapter adventure into boredom, repetition, cheesy dialogue, lame graphics and another Phantasy star bomb.
While I did think it was cool that the game’s 12 chapters started and ended like an animated series, comprised of opening and closing credits, I did get sick of seeing it every time I moved on to a knew chapter. In fact the coolest part was, that just like a TV series, you always saw a “in our next episode” sort of chapters break, which was cool, but in all honesty, did little but spoil you for what was coming next.
Still, at the end of the day, most of us aren’t looking into PSU for the single player campaign; it’s really all about the online play and unfortunately, it offers little more than Phantasy Star’s first online adventure. Sure it’s improved somewhat with new downloadable quests, but at the end of the day, it feels all too familiar.
You can create a character from several different classes and races; you can also modify your visual appearance in almost limitless ways. Once you’ve created a character and agreed to give Sega your money each month you can party up with other LIVE members, trade items and good, grind your way through the dungeons and outdoor environments, all with the promise of endless adventuring.
While it can be fun in the beginning and enjoyable, especially if you end up playing with a good group of people, at the end of the day, it inevitably gets dull. There simply isn’t enough depth and diversity to keep most people playing and paying more than a month or 3. The combat isn’t overly thrilling, the visuals are bland, and aside from the community of friends you might develop, it offers little for a game that’s not free. In the end I spent more time stomping through the 25 hours single player campaign than I did playing online.
It just had this incredible, “been there, done that feeling about it”. What looks good on paper isn’t always enough when it’s a completed game, and what Sega promised, once again isn’t there. I for one will never play PSU online again, and their series will need a dramatic overhaul to draw me into its world for a 3rd time.
QUESTION: What happens when you take the astounding power of the Xbox 360 and you give it to the fully capable and talented developers at Sega, in order to make their latest and greatest console MMORPG?
ANSWER: You get a visually pathetic, high-resolution port up from the Playstation 2.
The graphics are a huge let down. Honestly, I haven’t played Phantasy Star on the Dreamcast in ages, but in my minds eye, this is how I remember it. I know this is better in many ways, but not by much. The characters, while they are visually similar to your typical anime characters, they suffer from poor modeling. So poor in fact that fingers, which we all know are basically cylindrical in the real world, look more rectangular in this game. In fact most body parts are blocky and completely devoid of curved and rounded shapes. All in all, they’re just too simple and old school, hardly pushing the 360 graphics envelope.
Scenery is also very basic, with simple textures and repetitious designs. Sure there are a few times when the game looks quite good, like in the Autumn like forests with blossoming trees, but at the end of the day, those few beautiful moments are out-weighed by largely boring and un-inspired visuals.
Can you say… “Typically bad English dubbing?” All the dialogue, of which only about 25% is actually spoken aloud, is laughable at best. Most of your time will be spent reading, and what’s supposed to be a fairly serious story never comes across that way. Its poor characters never make you care and the plot never makes you feel any sense of urgency during the game’s events
The music and sound effects are also extremely Japanese in origin and very campy. While the music isn’t horrible, its lack of diversity tends to make it wears thin rather quickly.
I absolutely hate the term, the “Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game” or MMORPG. Why? Because when I hear it, I think to myself, “I’ve got to pay a monthly fee to play this.” Now for some, that’s no big deal, as long as the game truly is an MMO. I mean, I get it, hosting thousands of players and server maintenance and what have you isn’t free. Okay, I understand that. But to me, Phantasy Star Universe is no more an MMORPG than Diablo 2. Sure, there maybe be a meeting area where hundreds of players can trade items, talk strategies and what have you, but in PSU, when you head out to battle, there’s no one out there but the handful of other people you may have partied up with. There’s no stumbling across other players out in the wild or getting hacked down by some high level player-killer, there’s just your 1-6 player party, that’s all and that’s it.
Another game that works this way is the highly successful PC game Guild Wars. Like PSU, you can talk, trade and deal in town, but when you go out on a quest, it’s just your party. It’s a better game than PSU in every respect, and above all, it’s free. Why we should be paying for PSU is beyond my capacity to understand.
So with that said, I could see getting into a simple, graphically inferior, and redundant game like Phantasy Star Universe quite easily, but with that monthly fee starring me in the face upon the pages of my credit card statement each month? No way. I’ll finish up the couple hours I have left in the single player campaign for the achievements, I’ll cancel my Guardian License after this review is posted, then this suckers off to the shops to be traded in. If the game were free, as it should be considering what it offers, then I’d keep it, play it and love it, but for $15 a month, I’ll play W.O.W. or Guild Wars instead.
I’m not a big PC gamer by choice, but I’m extremely intrigued by the concept of a deep and involved MMO. I’m still waiting for the MMO to hit a console and succeed, as I’d much prefer to band together with friends while I sit on my couch with an ice-cold beer nearby and on my end table.
Phantasy Star Universe is the second game to try and capture the MMO enthusiast on the 360. Final Fantasy XI Online was the first, and in my opinion, a better example of the concept, it’s a true MMO, with thousands of players roaming the world simultaneously, but sadly it's also a visually enhanced port, mixing 360, PS2 and PC gamers is the same gaming community. It’s nothing new or fresh, and without the bonus features of LIVE, like voice communication with anyone; it’s just missing what I think Xbox Live is all about.
In the end, neither game is really worth the price of admission, and hopefully we’ll get a great Massive Multiplayer experience in the future, but today, isn’t that day. Phantasy Star, for the second time, over promises and under delivers. It’s a game that is capable of being fun for a time, but really doesn’t have the staying power to keep players enthralled for months or even years after they begin. Ultimately, the universe grow old and even the single player campaign, although lengthy, doesn’t really offer a whole lot to the player.
As I’m writing this, I feel the series that is Phantasy Star is best left in the past. There is little doubt in my mind that Sega could create a great MMO one day, but truth is, they need a make a fresh start and take the concept in a new direction, take it back to the drawing board. It’s unfortunate, but in my mind, that’s the sad fact of it. Phantasy Star Universe is a place that in the end isn't really worth your time, your money or the discovery.