This post is LONG overdue...

[zemog]

I have not posted here in a long time...

I purchased the game the day it released and after completing the first chapter of the story I could not resist and jumped right online. I played the game for a couple months at most (even though I payed for 6...) and never finished the story.

Until today...

I recall the initial reviews (which took FOREVER for any sites to post) were not that hot... I must say this game's story is underapreciated. I loved it. It's nothing incredible, but they put a lot of love into the story and characters. And there's a great Anime nostalga to it.

(listening to the explaination of the online mode which follows the credits right now... lol pretty funny)

I was a fan of Phantasy Star since I played part II... It feels great to have finished a PS story agian. PSIV was one of my alltime favorite games. (Just recently played through 80% of it on the Sega Genesis Collection, need to finish that too...)

Well, now I'm anxious to reactivate my account and jump back online to complete those story missions, but for anyone still reading this long personal thread, I have a question...

Does the PS2 version work on PS3 online??? I'm playing it on PC, but I wanna play this from my sofa on my HDTV. Any compatibility problems?

And hey! I bet my map could use an update:

http://pso-world.com/viewtopic.php?topic=127539&forum=22

http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif



[edit: searched forums, PS3 sounds promising... see yas online!]



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: zemog on 2007-09-20 15:24 ]</font>

[beatrixkiddo]

ok

[VanHalen]

Glad someone else enjoyed story mode too. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif

[Zorafim]

Erm, I believe it does...

I think the story got pretty bad after the unification point, and stayed bad for a long time, stretching through online mode. If you do play the only mission, don't expect anything great for a while. However, do yourself a huge favor and complete it.

[McLaughlin]

PS3 won't upscale PSU. It'll be in SD.

[zemog]

On 2007-09-20 15:39, Obsidian_Knight wrote:
PS3 won't upscale PSU. It'll be in SD.



?? How can it not upscale? It upsales everything, it doesn't pick and choose...

explain?

[zemog]

On 2007-09-20 15:35, Zorafim wrote:
Erm, I believe it does...

I think the story got pretty bad after the unification point, and stayed bad for a long time, stretching through online mode. If you do play the only mission, don't expect anything great for a while. However, do yourself a huge favor and complete it.



Oh i'm not expecting the online story to be "good", but I wanna be sure to have the story missions complete if they lead into the expansion... I take it the xpansion has an offline story as well? And how will the xpansion work for ps2???

[Sinue_v2]

The expansion's offline mode is the current online storymode with extra content and FMV's. Since the online storyline stops after 10 chapters, I would also tentatively expect two extra chapters to the AoI storyline to give us something new and have it compliment the original version's 12 story chapters.

Also, as far as the storyline goes - while I agree that it wasn't all that bad (people complain about the VA, for example, which as more middle-of-the-road, rather than bad), it just didn't "feel" like Phantasy Star to me. The cutesy references to PS (like Rutsu) were borderline insulting, and the whole affair seems like a children's anime like Naruto - rather than a space epic it's predecessors seemed to aspire to be. The character of Maya Shidow really bothered me, since she seems to me to be a two dimensional cliche blonde and flirtatious bombshell, and of course she's a techer as she's female. Even Karen couldn't stay a melee oriented character for long. This seems in direct contrast to how many, if not the majority, of the female characters were portrayed in previous games... all in an effort to cow over to the more popular view of dainty magic using damsels.

Hell, even with your own characters you'd be hard pressed to find a really good fighter or ranger outfit for a female character. Most of their clothing is rather lacey and frilly-girly, reinforcing that stereotype.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sinue_v2 on 2007-09-20 16:19 ]</font>

[zemog]

On 2007-09-20 16:10, Sinue_v2 wrote:
The expansion's offline mode is the current online storymode with extra content and FMV's. Since the online storyline stops after 10 chapters, I would also tentatively expect two extra chapters to the AoI storyline to give us something new and have it compliment the original version's 12 story chapters.



Huh... that's certainly not what I was expecting if I understand you correctly... so the current 10 online story missions make up MOST of the coming expansion? Did I read that correctly?? It'll just be laces with pretty FMV's, but they're the same story moments?

[Sinue_v2]

Yeah, pretty much. And voice acting.

[zemog]

On 2007-09-20 16:10, Sinue_v2 wrote:
The expansion's offline mode is the current online storymode with extra content and FMV's. Since the online storyline stops after 10 chapters, I would also tentatively expect two extra chapters to the AoI storyline to give us something new and have it compliment the original version's 12 story chapters.

Also, as far as the storyline goes - while I agree that it wasn't all that bad (people complain about the VA, for example, which as more middle-of-the-road, rather than bad), it just didn't "feel" like Phantasy Star to me. The cutesy references to PS (like Rutsu) were borderline insulting, and the whole affair seems like a children's anime like Naruto - rather than a space epic it's predecessors seemed to aspire to be. The character of Maya Shidow really bothered me, since she seems to me to be a two dimensional cliche blonde and flirtatious bombshell, and of course she's a techer as she's female. Even Karen couldn't stay a melee oriented character for long. This seems in direct contrast to how many, if not the majority, of the female characters were portrayed in previous games... all in an effort to cow over to the more popular view of dainty magic using damsels.

Hell, even with your own characters you'd be hard pressed to find a really good fighter or ranger outfit for a female character. Most of their clothing is rather lacey and frilly-girly, reinforcing that stereotype.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sinue_v2 on 2007-09-20 16:19 ]</font>


You make a lot of very good old-school arguments... given your avatar as well, your the real deal. I guess I just accepted it for what it was, but your right, it didn't feel like PS and was a let down in that sense. It wasn't EPIC like those were... My favorite character in the game was Lou... she felt correct to me.

[McLaughlin]

On 2007-09-20 15:50, zemog wrote:

On 2007-09-20 15:39, Obsidian_Knight wrote:
PS3 won't upscale PSU. It'll be in SD.



?? How can it not upscale? It upsales everything, it doesn't pick and choose...

explain?



It just doesn't. Plain and simple.

[Sinue_v2]

Yeah, I really did like Lou as well. Not so much the way they kept trying to convince her that emotions are good, and that she has a soul though. She was fine just how she was. I don't recall Rhys or Chaz getting on Wren's case for being cold and emotionless. They accepted him for what he was.

For some reason, I also seem to have an affinity for Hyuga Ryght. He seems to be a really good mix of his inspiring characters, and he's not as much of a walking stereotype. Most people hated him though. Leo was another very good character. Although I didn't really care for him as much, he served an important purpose in being the level-head to keep Ethan (and Tonnio's) rashness in check.

I dunno, I think PSU was a decent game - and most of my critisims of it are only due to the title being Phantasy Star. Were it a brand new Sega RPG franchine, I wouldn't be nearly so critical of it.

[sweetguy117]

who here agree's with me when i say that zemog is weird???

[guise709]

the story was alright but it could of ben darker.

[Skye-Fox713]

On 2007-09-20 16:27, zemog wrote:

On 2007-09-20 16:10, Sinue_v2 wrote:
The expansion's offline mode is the current online storymode with extra content and FMV's. Since the online storyline stops after 10 chapters, I would also tentatively expect two extra chapters to the AoI storyline to give us something new and have it compliment the original version's 12 story chapters.

Also, as far as the storyline goes - while I agree that it wasn't all that bad (people complain about the VA, for example, which as more middle-of-the-road, rather than bad), it just didn't "feel" like Phantasy Star to me. The cutesy references to PS (like Rutsu) were borderline insulting, and the whole affair seems like a children's anime like Naruto - rather than a space epic it's predecessors seemed to aspire to be. The character of Maya Shidow really bothered me, since she seems to me to be a two dimensional cliche blonde and flirtatious bombshell, and of course she's a techer as she's female. Even Karen couldn't stay a melee oriented character for long. This seems in direct contrast to how many, if not the majority, of the female characters were portrayed in previous games... all in an effort to cow over to the more popular view of dainty magic using damsels.

Hell, even with your own characters you'd be hard pressed to find a really good fighter or ranger outfit for a female character. Most of their clothing is rather lacey and frilly-girly, reinforcing that stereotype.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sinue_v2 on 2007-09-20 16:19 ]</font>


You make a lot of very good old-school arguments... given your avatar as well, your the real deal. I guess I just accepted it for what it was, but your right, it didn't feel like PS and was a let down in that sense. It wasn't EPIC like those were... My favorite character in the game was Lou... she felt correct to me.



I do agree with this, PSU's story lacked the dark sci-fi epicness pso ep1&2 had, but it was an ok storyline in the end.

Then end credits were pretty funny as well when they were talking about the online mode.

as for the clothing the only stuff i like is the gardless and amf stuff

[PJ]

My brother now is playing through the story mode. Really reminds me how much I loved the story mode.

And it's really fun watching him, with his 21 Rising Strike and his level 18 Burning Hit, and he loves it, even after I told him to buy more PAs XD And I really wish they'd find SOME excuse to use the Landeel Dock, just cause that place is so cool.

I'm really tempted to play through the story mode again but... that's valuable online game playing time http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wacko.gif I should have done it while my internet was bad [worse]. Ah well.

[Sinue_v2]

Then end credits were pretty funny as well when they were talking about the online mode.

There's a comedy bit like that after the end of each chapter after you've already completed them once. Some of my favorite parts of the game dialog, like when Lucaim Nav and Ethan are spying on Karen when she's taking a bath, or when Lou logically concludes that she must kill Karen in order to fall in love with Ethan and make him go back to the colony.

[omegapirate2k]

On 2007-09-20 16:51, sweetguy117 wrote:
who here agree's with me when i say that zemog is weird???



What makes you say that?

[DarkEliteRico]

On 2007-09-20 20:23, Sinue_v2 wrote:

Then end credits were pretty funny as well when they were talking about the online mode.

There's a comedy bit like that after the end of each chapter after you've already completed them once. Some of my favorite parts of the game dialog, like when Lucaim Nav and Ethan are spying on Karen when she's taking a bath, or when Lou logically concludes that she must kill Karen in order to fall in love with Ethan and make him go back to the colony.


goodness i need to play that again...i don't remember that, but boy i'd love to see it for sure.

[VanHalen]

On 2007-09-20 20:23, Sinue_v2 wrote:

Then end credits were pretty funny as well when they were talking about the online mode.

There's a comedy bit like that after the end of each chapter after you've already completed them once. Some of my favorite parts of the game dialog, like when Lucaim Nav and Ethan are spying on Karen when she's taking a bath, or when Lou logically concludes that she must kill Karen in order to fall in love with Ethan and make him go back to the colony.



I wanted to play thru story mode again before when I heard this some time ago. I do I have to resave over my old file or could I create a new one for that?

[HUnewearl_Meira]

I have been previously aware of people playing PSU on their PS3. As far as I know, it runs just fine on the PS3, if not significantly better than on the PS2.

Of course, if you have an HDTV to play it on, you can conceivably just hook up your computer to it, and play using a standard-issue PC game controller.


On 2007-09-20 16:10, Sinue_v2 wrote:
The expansion's offline mode is the current online storymode with extra content and FMV's. Since the online storyline stops after 10 chapters, I would also tentatively expect two extra chapters to the AoI storyline to give us something new and have it compliment the original version's 12 story chapters.

I've heard this as well, but various conversations I've had have given me the impression that the AoI picks up where the online missions leave off. Time will tell, I guess.


Also, as far as the storyline goes - while I agree that it wasn't all that bad (people complain about the VA, for example, which as more middle-of-the-road, rather than bad), it just didn't "feel" like Phantasy Star to me.


For what it's worth, there's quite a bit of stuff in the game that really reminds me of Phantasy Star II. Running through the Linear Line back on the beta, for example, brought back some of that feeling. Parts of the story mode and online story missions (chapter 10 of the online story missions in particular) really brought back the feel of PSII. For me, anyway.

[XenithFlare]

On 2007-09-20 20:23, Sinue_v2 wrote:

Then end credits were pretty funny as well when they were talking about the online mode.

There's a comedy bit like that after the end of each chapter after you've already completed them once. Some of my favorite parts of the game dialog, like when Lucaim Nav and Ethan are spying on Karen when she's taking a bath, or when Lou logically concludes that she must kill Karen in order to fall in love with Ethan and make him go back to the colony.



O.o

What?

[Sinue_v2]

I do I have to resave over my old file or could I create a new one for that?

Once you've beaten a chapter, the only way to see the FMV Narrator preview again is if you completely remove your save file and let it create a new one. Otherwise, you will always get the alternate comedy preview regardless of whether you started a new game or not.



O.o

What?

*Snipped from the Script*


Episode Five: Alternate Preview
---------------------------------------------
--Nav: Ha ha ha. Your training is still incomplete, Mr. Waber.
--Ethan: Yes sir. Please teach me what you can.
--Nav: Calm your impulses and focus your mind.
--Ethan: Yes sir.
--Nav: Well, what do you see?
--Ethan: It's hazy... I can't make anything out.
--Nav: You cannot see, because you let your feelings distract you.
--Ethan: Yes sir. Sorry!
--Nav: Turn inward, and gaze upon the smooth reflecting surface of the water, Mr. Waber.
--Ethan: Sir, I can't see anything!
--Nav: Look with your mind's eye, boy! Your mind's eye!
--Ethan: But sir, you have telescopic goggles. You should be able to see fine.
--Nav: No, no that's no good! I'm old and my eyes aren't what they used to be.
--Karen: Hey! Who's out there?! Show yourself!
--Nav: Look out, Mr. Waber! Run! Next time, Phantasy Star Universe: The Divine Maiden. See you then!
--Ethan: Uh.. Sir! Man, I never seen anyone run so fast!

Although simply reading them isn't quite as good as hearing it for yourself since you don't get the nuances and tone of the voices. Since the actors weren't limited by having synch up their dialog to action onscreen (it's all blackscreen and audio only), they were able to do a much better job on their roles.

[Xtian913]

That sounds like fun. I need to replay it now!

[zemog]

Dangit! I was thinking if I ever play the story mode again it would be on ps2 since I played it on pc this time... I'd love to hear those comedy bits.

I do play PSU on my HDTV now, but in windowed mode... because my system will not allow me to full screen games to my HDTV. And my system is barely handling it as it is. So I wanted to jump to PS3.

So, I can place any PS2 game in my PS3 and it will upscale to 1080i... I assume I can do the same with PSU. I'm not talking about PSU outputting in HD or anything... Just the basic PS3 upscale. I assume that works fine.

I wish PSU had a widescreen mode though. I'd love to see the 360 version.

(Too bad they just wouldn't re-release it for PS3, perhaps with the xpansion, but it would need to share servers with 360, if anyone, due to voice support. But that would be great.)

[McLaughlin]

Whatever, try it yourself. It doesn't upscale.

[Skye-Fox713]

On 2007-09-20 22:32, Sinue_v2 wrote:

I do I have to resave over my old file or could I create a new one for that?

Once you've beaten a chapter, the only way to see the FMV Narrator preview again is if you completely remove your save file and let it create a new one. Otherwise, you will always get the alternate comedy preview regardless of whether you started a new game or not.



O.o

What?

*Snipped from the Script*


Episode Five: Alternate Preview
---------------------------------------------
--Nav: Ha ha ha. Your training is still incomplete, Mr. Waber.
--Ethan: Yes sir. Please teach me what you can.
--Nav: Calm your impulses and focus your mind.
--Ethan: Yes sir.
--Nav: Well, what do you see?
--Ethan: It's hazy... I can't make anything out.
--Nav: You cannot see, because you let your feelings distract you.
--Ethan: Yes sir. Sorry!
--Nav: Turn inward, and gaze upon the smooth reflecting surface of the water, Mr. Waber.
--Ethan: Sir, I can't see anything!
--Nav: Look with your mind's eye, boy! Your mind's eye!
--Ethan: But sir, you have telescopic goggles. You should be able to see fine.
--Nav: No, no that's no good! I'm old and my eyes aren't what they used to be.
--Karen: Hey! Who's out there?! Show yourself!
--Nav: Look out, Mr. Waber! Run! Next time, Phantasy Star Universe: The Divine Maiden. See you then!
--Ethan: Uh.. Sir! Man, I never seen anyone run so fast!

Although simply reading them isn't quite as good as hearing it for yourself since you don't get the nuances and tone of the voices. Since the actors weren't limited by having synch up their dialog to action onscreen (it's all blackscreen and audio only), they were able to do a much better job on their roles.



I only got one or two comical comintaries for the inbetween chapters, i got one where ethan and lumia are calling Leo an old man, great stuff.

so far i have beaten story mode once compleatly through and i'm wondering if this will effect me getting the comical next chapter intros.(i have a suspicion that u need to beat all the timed triles of the privous chapter with an S rank to get these, but correct me if i'm wrong)

so if i'm getting this information stright, lets just say that i start a compleatly new story mode game and i beat the first chapter(i think right as u beat the chapter there is an option to overwright the current saved game in the slot where u started a new one) and I'm letting the game intro run and when it finishes will i either get the comidy intro done by the main characters or a standard narrirator. Then after the narirator/comidy intro there is a nother save option. Please correct me if i'm wrong because i will replay all the way through story mode just to listen to all of them.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Skye-Fox713 on 2007-09-21 10:57 ]</font>

one more thing, i was wondering if there are multiple different comical next chapter intros for each chapter. Like could chapter 1 have 2 or 3 different comical next chapter intos


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Skye-Fox713 on 2007-09-21 11:05 ]</font>

[zemog]

On 2007-09-21 10:55, Obsidian_Knight wrote:
Whatever, try it yourself. It doesn't upscale.



Ok, maybe I'm not saying it right... but I'm refering to what PS3 does right now with PS1 and PS2 games... mine outputs them to 1080i and smothens them out.

So if that's not called upscaling, that's fine... but whatever you call it, I want to know if it works fine with PSU?

I'm getting confused because this is a system feature, and not game specific... I'm not talking about progressive scan or high definition options in the games themselves... It should work fine, but all I'm getting are "No"s. Can someone please give a fully detailed response?

[Sinue_v2]

so if i'm getting this information stright, lets just say that i start a compleatly new story mode game and i beat the first chapter(i think right as u beat the chapter there is an option to overwright the current saved game in the slot where u started a new one) and I'm letting the game intro run and when it finishes will i either get the comidy intro done by the main characters or a standard narrirator. Then after the narirator/comidy intro there is a nother save option. Please correct me if i'm wrong because i will replay all the way through story mode just to listen to all of them.

Once you've completed a chapter and see the regular narrated preview, whether you save or not, you will always get the comedy preview following any subsequent playthroughs of that chapter. The only way to get the Narrator + Cutscene preview again is by deleting/removing your saved game file and then starting all over from scratch. Your Save/Continue screen pops up after the comedy sketches just as it would after the Narrator preview.

[Skye-Fox713]

Ok thanks a bunch, now i'm definetly going to have to play through story mode again.

[SStrikerR]

On 2007-09-20 16:51, sweetguy117 wrote:
who here agree's with me when i say that zemog is weird???

dude what the hell? why do you say that?

im gonna have to say we're all weird, i mean, we chat about videogames for hours sometimes(well i dont anyway) we belong to a fan site, and so many of us have waaaaaay to much time on our hands.
take rena for example, who has so much free time she makes sigs 24/7.
which is very weird, because i still havent gotten one.of course she needs screenies of my char, but when it was good time for me, rena couldnt.when rena could, i couldnt. WTH is up with that!?

[Aralia]

On 2007-09-20 15:33, VanHalen wrote:
Glad someone else enjoyed story mode too. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif


Fixed >.>

[Koji1m1]

i beated the story mode as well and man it was kinda cheesy to me but i guese wut i did hate is the vehicle controls for the speeder bike thing and the tank were a bit clunky and confusing to me.