A whisper from a ghost.

[voodlar]

Hi all. I don't post much. (And I don't play online anymore at all.) Yes, I am a PC player who was ended in March. I miss the game a lot and envy you guys who still get to play but it's all good. -- I'm not interested in starting over in Japanese after having 4 chars capped and seeing the ending to the story. (Giving me a month plus change to fire an edel fucil.)

I'm posting for 2 reasons:

1) I posted a while ago asking for opinions on other games and such when I new my PSU was ending. I researched and played several of the suggestions and would like to thank all the dudes (and dudettes) for their tips. The truth is PSU is an incredible game and addicts you quickly despite its flaws and such. I know ... I know ....it had way more potential and could have been done better in several areas. I have no intention of starting a bash-war thread so I'll leave that alone. No games I tried even come close. Guild Wars looked promising but uuggghhh... the travelling uphill..downhill...uphill...downhill....dead end! I will say however that Guild Wars' community was very strong and extremely polite and helpful. Very, very few toolbags. The only spamming I had to endure were people trying to get anyone to join their guild. But it was worth checking out as were other games.

2) I still enjoy reading some of the more opion-based threads and saw 2 people make some awesome points that hit the nail on the head. I'm not that swift with the quoting and stuff so I apologize for not giving these people credit (by citing their name) for an enjoyable read. Someone was discussing how you will see a commonality in a franchise set of games. They mentioned chocoboos and stuff from FF games. I have only played FF Tactics and I recognized almost every item they named. Well PSU obviously tries to do that too. That should be appreciated and expected. (How long have we been using dimates, foi, megid, killing mother brain, etc?) Some stuff should stay inherent to the Phantasy Star games but I absolutely agree with another dude that said innovation is gone. He may have been somewhat angry with Sega in his posts but basically nailed the problem in that one phrase. Games and movies share that non-innovative plague and so does music. We now have remakes of remakes? Who gets the royalties on that? You can combine 2 songs to make a new hit. (example: Kid Rock combined 2 classics to make a pop-fad piece of garbage that people spooge over.) Soon games may do that too??? They've even made movies about video games. Anyone see Wing Commander??? Not ripping on the old dos game....it was classic back then....but you gotta see that movie --> then demand your money back twofold.

Anyway...sorry for the length. I'm looking forward to reading some more of your replies / opinions. If you're gonna flame..go ahead... but just give me some interesting stuff to read. And good luck with your PSU. You don't realize how much you will miss something until it's gone. (Offline mode is okay for nostalgia but after 2 or 3 missions .... you know)

Here's to hoping there will be some innovative new gem of a game coming down the line soon from some company somewhere?!?!?!?!?!?!:-)

[Sinue_v2]

Holy Shit, I saw that wall of text and avatar and I thought it was one of my posts.

[GreenArcher]

You know, so did I. I was wondering where your sig went.

But on topic:

You're right on both accounts. After playing PSO/PSU, no other games were the same to me. I found them lacking, and was always left with a taste to play more PSO/PSU.

Innovation isn't really needed with a franchise, since you will always have the fanboy population (most of this forum population really) that will follow the series no matter what. The addicting factor of MMOs also will trump innovation alot.

[RemiusTA]

2) I still enjoy reading some of the more opion-based threads and saw 2 people make some awesome points that hit the nail on the head. I'm not that swift with the quoting and stuff so I apologize for not giving these people credit (by citing their name) for an enjoyable read. Someone was discussing how you will see a commonality in a franchise set of games. They mentioned chocoboos and stuff from FF games. I have only played FF Tactics and I recognized almost every item they named. Well PSU obviously tries to do that too. That should be appreciated and expected. (How long have we been using dimates, foi, megid, killing mother brain, etc?) Some stuff should stay inherent to the Phantasy Star games but I absolutely agree with another dude that said innovation is gone. He may have been somewhat angry with Sega in his posts but basically nailed the problem in that one phrase. Games and movies share that non-innovative plague and so does music. We now have remakes of remakes? Who gets the royalties on that? You can combine 2 songs to make a new hit. (example: Kid Rock combined 2 classics to make a pop-fad piece of garbage that people spooge over.) Soon games may do that too??? They've even made movies about video games. Anyone see Wing Commander??? Not ripping on the old dos game....it was classic back then....but you gotta see that movie --> then demand your money back twofold.

Anyway...sorry for the length. I'm looking forward to reading some more of your replies / opinions. If you're gonna flame..go ahead... but just give me some interesting stuff to read. And good luck with your PSU. You don't realize how much you will miss something until it's gone. (Offline mode is okay for nostalgia but after 2 or 3 missions .... you know)

Here's to hoping there will be some innovative new gem of a game coming down the line soon from some company somewhere?!?!?!?!?!?!:-)


yyeeaahhhh that long-winded post was mine, lol. The one about the chocobos and stuff was Tetsaru. Just another one of my QQ moments about how bad things suck these days, and how i dont think we're ever gonna get another "PSO" to come along, even if its a sequel like PSU or PSP2. Companies just...they no longer focus on that. "Make a fun game" is now "make whatever they'll buy", and while that sounds like it goes hand in hand, it just doesn't anymore. People advertise these days comparing everything to something successful before it. Once again, while this is nothing new, it is something thats become way too common. They dont venture out anymore. They stick to what other people have gotten rich off of and only slightly alter it. Thats why i cant stand Shooters anymore. They're all either Halo, Call of Duty, or Goldeneye, and it pisses me off. Every MMO is a World of Warcraft. Every action game is a Devil May Cry. Every RPG is a Final Fantasy VII. They always go off the popular opinion of why the game was so successful, and then completely drop everything else in the game in a sad attempt to cut corners and get people to buy it expecting the same feeling of the original successful game.

Take FFXIII, a perfect example. Great game, but severely lacking something. We all know what it was, it was the towns and exploration. They try to justify it with the storyline itself in an attempt to make the entire game Story based, likely in an attempt to copy Final Fantasy 7's main points. Oh, FF7, why do none understand you?. Games that try to copy off FFVII's storyline all amuse me. They ALWAYS focus on the wrong thing. Final Fantasy VII's storyline is not what made it a good game -- Final Fantasy VII was just one damn good rpg. It had everything -- minigames, sidequests, extra characters, great script, great music, great environments, wonderful atmosphere, comedy, drama, and tons of other things. And to top it off, when it was released, it was like the best looking game of its time. While the other ones did the same thing, they usually didn't do it up as heavily as Final Fantasy 7 did.

Developers are really starting to do this alot, the same thing Final Fantasy XIII did. Take what people liked, and focus on it tenfold, ignore everything nobody talked about, even if it was something VERY important to the game and people just didn't immediately realize. Final Fantasy XIII was a game that relied on its storyline and battle engine, however Square Enix seemed to have overlooked the fact that the storyline in the other games are severely strengthed by NPC interactions and sidequests. Why should i be on a quest to save a world i know NOTHING about? The people are trying to kill me from the start of the game to the very end, and im supposed to give a damn? No. Sonic the Hedgehog, a game that has gone from a game based on platforming greatness and catchy music to....blazing speed? What? Yeah, sonic went fast in his older games, but thats not what made them great games, Sega. You making a game where he headbutts everything at 300MPH is...pretty, and all, but...its not sonic. Its Burnout : Hedgehog Edition. Yeah, Sonic Adventure 2's grinding system was cool and all, but the game did NOT focus on grinding as its main gameplay element. Every game after SA2, however, has grind rails all OVER the place, floating in midair and making no attempt to make any kind of sense with the environment whatsoever.


Im tired of everyone trying to find the "perfect blueprint" instead of just doing something thats fun. Doesn't even have to be completely fresh, just FUN.





Innovation isn't really needed with a franchise, since you will always have the fanboy population (most of this forum population really) that will follow the series no matter what. The addicting factor of MMOs also will trump innovation alot.
Wow. Thinking like this is why i cant stand MMOs right now. Its the reason PSU is less of a game than PSO was, and its the reason Sonic the Hedgehog is garbage now. And im sure its exactly how Sonic Team thinks, too.

[Pob]

Come and play on the 360. After the PC servers shut, I vowed not to start again... but just started 2 days ago. It's great :)

[Esther Reagan]

Come and play on the 360. After the PC servers shut, I vowed not to start again... but just started 2 days ago. It's great :)

Lmao, it's true that I did the same. Lost 3 capped chars and 1000's of hours when they killed my poor PS2/PC babies. I was enraged ad vowed to never pay $10/month for sega ever again, and here I am with an almost maxed character and 2 back-ups on the x-box. BUT, Kudos to you for not giving in.

Everything you said was absolutely true, about this game being amazing in it's own way and other games not being able to match it. Even the things about games just repeating their old cruddy BS was true.

I've tried to get away from PSU. Tried a bunch of other MMO's like Flyff, Warhammer 40k online, and guildwars. But i'll be totally honest, I'm an action-guy. I can't sit tere in a game, run up to a non-hostile/hostile enemy, and tap F1, F1, F1 and the occasional F2/F3. It's so lame and dull. I don't see how people can possibly waste hours on WoW or Flyff just pushing F1. I'll admit, button mashing X and Y (on the x-box version) isn't really satisfying either. But eventually you realise that you have the freedom to control everything your character does. You can slash once with X then hit Y or twice with X then hit Y. You can use Y only or X only. You can slash once and not do combos (I don't know why you would) but you get my point. The freedom of control for fighting makes PSU the best MMO IMO. Almost every other MMO out there is just another F1 game. Also everything that PSU brings to you; customization of your character's looks, outfits, room, weapons, etc makes it that much more appealing. Other MMO's are just "pick a race, a class and a weapon and go spam the **** out of your F1 key! :D"

With that said, When I am finally done with PSU, I'll miss it and pray to god that Segac can actually make another MMO like it that will blow my mind.