Phantasy Star Zero is a highlighted production by Sega, the fruit of the combined efforts between the anime producer Kobooka Toshiyuki and the mystery novelists Shiwasu Tooru and Arai Teru. It inherits the exciting gameplay and adopts a completely new storyline.
Three races are present in this installment, the Humans, the androids Casts and Newmans, a new type of beings that descended from the moon. Depending on what strengths you value and what weaknesses you can afford to have, decide your player character's race and profession.
The game takes place two centuries after a great war which destroys everything. To rebuild civilization, the humans, the only race left on the crumbling world did all they could and constructed cities. Within the city everything remains peaceful, but once they step out, the people are accosted by enemies.
To keep their cities safe, the humans formed the hunters organizations and joined forces Casts to combat the enemies' aggression. However, there is another race which humans have forgotten for they have disappeared even from the history books. When the Newmans descend from the moon, new opportunities for adventures and conflicts opened.
Greater if played with friends First of all, if you just want greater graphic, you should go wait for Phantasy Star Portable 2 on PSP or play previous ones (also on PSP).
The key of the game relies on its multiplayer quest. Playing it with friends is much fun. And exchange written message with them makes more sense of its usability than playing it by yourself.
PSO on the go Phantasy Star Online basically consists of creating a character, going out into the battlefield and killing lots of hostile creatures, making you stronger and giving you better weapons and items to help defeat more hostile creatures. It is, however, guilty of turning something which sounds so boring in words into a ridiculously fun experience.
Phantasy Star Zero is closely tied to the original formula, down to the 4-player online game, character and item design, and even general environment and feel. It refines a lot of the mechanics, and borrows a few new ideas introduced in sister sequel Phantasy Star Universe to create a rich and flavorful piece of software.
Unlike PSO, the game is much more story oriented. While you still find the cryptic message capsules spread through the different areas, the story mode is much richer with the addition of regular characters whom which you form a party and live out your adventures.
There's a lot more talking going on, and the player is often pressed to choose one of two reactions or answers to the non-player characters' actions. This is good, because it allows the characters to be developed much further than the paper-thin roles played by the likes of Ash, Sue, Elenor, etc. in PSO.
At any given time, you're allowed to play any stage you've previously cleared either solo or teamed up with NPCs you've met in the story mode. While they still shout the random taunt here and there, the game is never interrupted for dialogue, much like PSO's standard game.
Though it's a bit of a drag, characters' max level is limited to 100, and levelling up itself is very easy to do. While this prevents frustration and the need to "grind", it does underwhelm the experienced player. But with 14 different character types to sample, there's always something new to try.
The graphics are excellent, as is the music, and both, though not nearly as futuristic as PSO's, are rich, characteristic and very likeable. Though I do have a minor gripe with the choice of making every single non-NPC look like a child.
Great game, must get if you're a fan.
thomas.cheng.qa(9) on 04, Dec. 2009 10:42 (HKT)
Just can't get into the mood... Compared with the original PSO experience on Dreamcast, I just cannot get into the mood of playing this game.
I am not sure why, perhaps it is the style of the art, perhaps it is the graphics, perhaps it is the mood of the game, or maybe perhaps Sonic Team is no longer the Sonic Team it once was that made PSO on Dreamcast.
The graphics of the game surely looks better than most games on the DS, but the "world" illustrated is just nothing like the one that was made on the original PSO.
I am bitterly disappointed with this game, because I was a real big fan of the original (I even bought the version on GameCube). The only upside is that I bought this when it was cheap so it didn't hurt my pocket too much.
neondoto(2) on 04, Nov. 2009 03:07 (HKT)
Fun experience for the Phantasy Star Online fan I got this game a while ago because after seeing how long Phantasy Star Portable's localization took, I didn't want to be left waiting with PS0 as well.
The game will be very accessible to anyone who played the original Phantasy Star Online or even Phantasy Star Universe. Gameplay and music in the game are very nice, and the in-game graphics aren't half bad for the DS either. The formula is generally the same explorative hack-and-slash in PSO, with beating up enemies and taking on storyline missions to earn Meseta and better equipment for your character. I agree that if you're unfamiliar with Japanese it can be a bit of a hurdle, but having familiarity with PSO or PSU/PSP as well as at least recognition of katakana can help out a lot as far as at least getting a handle on the gameplay (following the storyline and dialogue requires a decent knowledge of kanji, though).
The US release is fast approaching, so if the language barrier is a problem for you, you won't have to wait much longer. Overall, I can definitely recommend this as a solid buy for the RPG fan who's looking for a good single or multiplayer game for their DS.
almightypickleking(2) on 21, Oct. 2009 08:53 (HKT)
great game it's fun, but it'd help if i knew japanese
