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Before the Dreamcast reached its ultimately inevitable demise, fans were content stealing each others Mesetas and rare item hunting in Phantasy Star Online. It was never regarded as a perfect game, but what it did a good job of capturing the best aspects of the even more popular Diablo II. Because of this, PSO's userbase grew to enormous proportions, especially for a console MMO. Now we're graced with its direct follow-up, Phantasy Star Universe, which, judging by the name alone, is already holding a lot of promise for veterans and new players alike.
The improvements might not live up to the grandiose "Universe" moniker. Quite frankly, many of PSO's quirks and drawbacks are present and some are even worse. At least it should feel familiar for those re-introducing themselves to the world of Phantasy Star.
Split into two modes, both Story and Network mode offer a fair amount of dungeon crawling, depending on which style takes better suited to your tastes. Story Mode logs the adventures of Ethan Waber, though the story is thin from the get-go. Coupled with some very jarring and bizarre voice acting and it doesn't take too long to realize that story is not Universe's strongest point.
The first few cutscenes don't do much to warrant the player's attention. As mentioned earlier, they are a little silly, with some very peculiar voice acting, but some scenes are still rather entertaining and nice to look at. Story Mode can be cleared in an average of roughly 20 hours. This isn't much, but upon completing the game, Extra Mode is unlocked. Don't get too excited, because Extra Mode is no less than an offline create-a-character version of the online game. Creating your own character and playing offline is fun for those without the option to connect to Network (which by this day and age, should not be more than a handful of people), but your custom character is limited to replaying the same missions again and again until you're forced to hop onto Network Mode for a little more excitement.
If you're too shy to directly hop onto Network, giving Story a try first is a very safe bet. Missions are fairly simple and follow a spoon-fed form of scaling in which dungeons and foes alike grow increasingly difficult without any real spikes in challenge. For the most part, it's just mindless dungeon crawling and an insane amount of level grinding (thanks to the free missions that open later on).
Of the three versions of PSU currently available, surprisingly, the PC version holds up best with sharp, vibrant graphics. There's also a $10 monthly subscription fee to enable Network Play, if you're interested in playing online.
Phantasy Star Universe to me felt more like an update of the original Dreamcast hack-n-slash than an original game. Granted, it's still a whole lot of fun, provided that you enjoy your share of insane amounts of level grinding. The more action-oriented battle system isn't what makes PSU an unconventional MMORPG, but more likely the tons of quirks and strange additions like item creation and decorating that make it feel more like a major update then an entirely new game. It's a solid game encumbered by a deficient Story Mode and some rather repetitive missions, but it's easily worth a try if you were a fan of the original or just of sci-fi adventure.
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