You would give PSO2 a __/10

[amillz44]

So for those have you who have spent some time with the game, how do you feel about it?

I was in middle school when PSO v1 came out for Dreamcast. Now I'm 27.

I have a Macbook from 2008 that could maybe run PSO2, but I've been holding out as I figured a domestic announcement would have come by now.

[Lumpen Thingy]

8.5 I'd love to give it higher but some of the free to play stuff and rng needs to be fixed. Still a good game though

[Xaeris]

5 being middle of the road average, I say 7.5. Has some flaws that hold it back, but for the most part, it's a very enjoyable game.

[Ezodagrom]

For me it's 8/10, I enjoy playing, but it needs more to it.

[Porkmaster]

5 being middle of the road average, I say 7.5. Has some flaws that hold it back, but for the most part, it's a very enjoyable game.

Pretty much this. I also give it a 7.5.

Pros:
-Combat
-Customization
-Music

Cons:
-Hard to customize yourself unless you spend real money or have a ton of Meseta
-Can't earn a ton of Meseta unless you spend real money for a Player Shop
-Too grindy

[Anduril]

If you are willing to spend money to at least get a premium pass, I would give it an 8/10. But otherwise, I would probably go with 7/10. Not bad, but plenty of room for improvement.

[blace]

If you are willing to spend money to at least get a premium pass, I would give it an 8/10. But otherwise, I would probably go with 7/10. Not bad, but plenty of room for improvement.

My thoughts exactly.

[The Walrus]

If you are willing to spend money to at least get a premium pass, I would give it an 8/10. But otherwise, I would probably go with 7/10. Not bad, but plenty of room for improvement.

Yeah this

[Hodgybeatzofwg]

9/10 I like how the f2p is set up you get mostly everything for free. The shop is a must have though to make any kind of mass amounts of mesta but I just wait untill the NA release for that. The game is not too graphics heavy on the video card I was running max out settings 1080i on a HD Raedon 6670

[Syklo]

If you are willing to spend money to at least get a premium pass, I would give it an 8/10. But otherwise, I would probably go with 7/10. Not bad, but plenty of room for improvement.

icwhatudidthar.

I'd give it a 9/10; needs some more navigation outside of instanced fields other than a ship + MyRoom + teamroom.

Despite the restrictions on trading and playing the market, I really enjoy this game. Those restrictions almost made me NOT play it, but I persisted and am real glad I did.

[Cyclon]

Dagger PAs cost 5 less PP in the air. Mind blown. 10/10.<--WRONG

I fail to give a precise rating to this game. Would be something between 6,5 not included and 9,5 not included.

[Syklo]

Dagger PAs cost 5 less PP in the air. Mind blown. 10/10.

I fail to give a precise rating to this game. Would be something between 6,5 not included and 9,5 not included.
Are you trolling?
I should check this...

And i jsut realised my 9/10 rating was the 9th reply (10th post).
and your 10/10 rating was the 10th reply (11th post)

[supersonix9]

8/10.

[Cyclon]

Are you trolling?
I should check this...

And i jsut realised my 9/10 rating was the 9th reply (10th post).
and your 10/10 rating was the 10th reply (11th post)
I won't lie to you, that was totally on purpose not.

[Dnd]

9/10 for almost everything game related - doodoo ruins the 10/10 imho

I also give it a 2/10 for the way sega are ruining what could be a bloody amazing game, with the whole jumping through countless loops to get anything decent/fun

Edit: the dagger PA thing is trolling/misinformation, just been trying it myself and raging waltz/orchestra cost full PP in the air still

[Renvalt]

Lengthy review incoming! For the sake of protecting the slimness of the page, I've spoiler'd it below.

[SPOILER-BOX]-On the issue of genre and setting-

For me, this is a welcome addition in a sea of never-ending Medieval/Steampunk-Fantasy MMOs.

A lot of people say this game has steampunk elements, but that's false - this is a Sci-Fi game through and through. It's like Star Wars and Star Trek went to create a successor over in Japan, but the forbidden strain called "anime" polluted it and created what you see before you. And given that in MMOs we mostly only see the Celtic/Chinese/Korean fantasy spin, this is what I would term a rare pioneer in this genre.

True, you could say MapleStory does this, but most of Maple's Sci-Fi horizons are out of place anyways. However, PSO2 is the first to TRULY be Sci-Fi, which gives it plus points from me.

Having three planets and outerspace environments is definitely good for a change of pace. And given that the game's first section isn't even completely done, I think that I'm eager to see what more they'll do!

-On the issue of meseta and AC-
Meseta generally isn't a problem for me, since I tend to look for things that can hold me off for a pretty long length of time.

On this note, the fact that costumes can be traded, sold for meseta, and are purely cosmetic is another thing that puts this on a level above the typical Korean MMO - whereas in other games, this was hardly the case.

Being able to work your way up for that fancy shmancy outfit, no matter how long it takes, is something that I believe gives this game good standing on that issue.

For the purposes of AC, it's true that AC gives many perks to those who use it. However, I do believe those who play using it too much become addicted and drunk on it - and they tend to look down on others who don't have the same pleasure high as they do (i.e. increased EXP, FUN points, access to Shop Stalls and whatnot). Besides, the one AC feature that really DOES matter (the shop) can be acquired via FUN Scratch.

And unless I am mistaken, the timer on that ticket doesn't run out until you use it. Even if it didn't, stockpiling valuable finds in the hopes that one day you'll turn a profit is something that is good for everyone, even the non-AC user. Besides which, you can still get by in the game without using a drop of AC, you just have to either play smart or live with your mistakes.

-On the subject of gameplay-

PSO2 is a game whose genre is one I enjoy, even if I'm not good at it. It reminds one of Devil May Cry/Darkstalkers/God of War, and those high-octane action fights are what I truly crave.

On that note, someone said the game was like Tera Online. Well, from what little I have seen, Tera feels like a looser version of World of Warcraft - and that game wasn't appealing to me in the slightest (WoW is essentially Blizzard taking Everquest and reskinning/redesigning it to fit their signature franchise). TERA apparently only gained the jump feature (and wasn't designed around it), so it feels well, blocky and grounded.

Each class in this game has something that makes it a little different from the other. Or rather, I should say that each weapon does. The Knuckles and their "Sway" feature, the "dislocation" of a Talisman, and (my personal favorite) the "Backflip" of the Twin Guns. Each weapon has something about it that prevents it from really being just a stale copy of another weapon within the same styleset.

Also, having bosses with breakable weakpoints is something too. While it's true that breaking the boss parts is a smart decision, both loot and survival wise, one might wish to challenge themselves by just aiming for what kills the boss right off. In this manner, the fight gets harder, and brings back a bit of that "challenge" that some diehards crave (try killing Vardha without breaking any weaponry on his frame, or Ragne without cracking the legs, or Vol Dragon without ever touching the horns or tail).

-On the subject of aesthetics (visual & audio)-

The music in this game is hit or miss. On the earlier levels, it does seem a bit boring (looking at you, Forest and Volcano), but later on it picks up somewhat. My favorite zones are Tundra, City, Desert (for the field), and Ruins. In addition, the unique boss tunes get me very tingly inside (specifically Banthers/Hunar/Elder/Quartz/Zeshrayda).

Not to mention almost all of the game is good eye candy. And yet this doesn't exactly take away from the core gameplay in my opinion. If anything, it strengthens it. This is one of SEGA's fortes - their visuals are often so stunning that you end up failing something in their games because you wanted to look closer at a certain object in the environment.

Not to mention the story seems to be rather well done (granted, this is only by deciphering what little Japanese I know, in addition to reading the body language of the characters). Some characters seem positively whacky, others are easy to hate, and some you can't help but just want to hug and keep them safe (and others you just plain wish were dead on sight).


So in my opinion, I give this game a 9/10, given that a lot of the things it DOES do, it does differently from its Korean/Western MMO cohorts.[/SPOILER-BOX]

[Cyclon]

Edit: the dagger PA thing is trolling/misinformation, just been trying it myself and raging waltz/orchestra cost full PP in the air still
Update, don't understand. Most plausible explanation:
[SPOILER-BOX]Side effect of shifta drink reducing PP cost, through experimentation I only got it to reduce PP cost by 3 at most, so either it's possible to get a better effect or I made some quite terrible miscalculations, also my quick testing of this a few hours ago was terribly biased by me really wanting it to be true... I trust myself enough to have a hard time believing this but I see no other explanation, except maybe a bug, but that's quite far fetched[/SPOILER-BOX]
tl;dr I was completely wrong, sorry for the false hopes guys:(

[Cagedtaytay]

icwhatudidthar.

I'd give it a 9/10; needs some more navigation outside of instanced fields other than a ship + MyRoom + teamroom.

Despite the restrictions on trading and playing the market, I really enjoy this game. Those restrictions almost made me NOT play it, but I persisted and am real glad I did.

This.
Ill give it 10,000/10. Just because theres a 10.

[Retehi]

6/10.

[Follisimo]

4/10 Because I'm forced to play this on the Japanese servers and I can't enjoy majority of it due to my fail in language. English patch only does so much.

[Alisha]

7.5/10

[Mokyu]

6.5/10 without any use of real money

8/10 if you were to spend some money for premium/shop/AC~

[EvilMag]

6/10 Ton of potential but its all completely ignored.

[Chik'Tikka]

6 +^_^+

Good overall, but one point deducted for block size limits (i feel there should be half as many blocks with twice the capacity)

One point deducted for limits imposed on trading and buying/selling stuff without AC

And 2 points deducted for removing any easy way to pay for AC outside of japan (like the removal of AmEx support months after the MasterCard/Visa bans)

[Black Nova]

4/10 for me. The lobby music is horrible so the game loses half its points right there since the end-game is and always will be the lobby. It also loses another point for being extremely grindy and having no real progression (I.E. do forest 6-7 times unlock volcano). Finally my last complaint is all the artifical content which is kinda hand in hand with the progression problem.... but anyways, yeah having to level each class to 30 to unlock each secondary class isn't really filling in for the lack of content SEGA. (Not to mention that you can't even gain exp on your secondary class while playing your primary T.T)

[Totori]

9/10 Would get a perfect, but I do wish the lobby had something to do in it, other than sit around. I don't see no big flaw with the game, that would make me hate it, so everythings good with me!

[SociableTyrannosaur]

Definitely would rate it double underscore out of ten

[Raymee]

6/10 so far, SEGA is "MONEY PLZ" mode right now rather than "We'd rather let you have FUN!!" mode.
Sounds like they're desperate not to get bankrupt or something.

Plus, I prefer PSO1's rare weaponry abilities over Photon Arts any day.

I mean, I miss Berserk, Charge, and Demons already.

[Zyrusticae]

Man, we get way too many of these threads.

I refuse to put a number on it now as the reasoning is FAR more important in my eyes.

Which you won't get, because you didn't ask for it!

[jooozek]

2/10 dum dum

[LinkKD]

4/10 for me. The lobby music is horrible so the game loses half its points right there since the end-game is and always will be the lobby. It also loses another point for being extremely grindy and having no real progression (I.E. do forest 6-7 times unlock volcano). Finally my last complaint is all the artifical content which is kinda hand in hand with the progression problem.... but anyways, yeah having to level each class to 30 to unlock each secondary class isn't really filling in for the lack of content SEGA. (Not to mention that you can't even gain exp on your secondary class while playing your primary T.T)

I'd personally say that there is so much WRONG in this post that I dont even know where to start pointing it out...

1 - Lobby music changes quite oftenly, if you're going to claim they ALL suck, then your music taste is thoroughly restricted.

2 - I have no idea what twisted fked up logic you use to conclude that the end-game is the lobby, that makes absolute no sense at ALL...you're actually weird if you spend your end-game time in the lobby, and it's a choice of yours, not a general rule.

3 - being grindy? artificial content?...you DO realize this is a MMO right? name me a few others MMOs that are less grindy than PSO2 and I'll be impressed, lol.

4 - lack of content? <_> one of the reasons I feel lazy about playing PSO2 is how many things I can actually do in the game...I haven't ever seen a game that updates content so oftenly as PSO2 did in the past year...there isn't lack of content, you're just ignoring a big chunk of what the game has to offer, or you just have TOO MUCH free time in your hands.

Erhm...well. I suppose opinions are opinions though =w=''


8.5 I'd love to give it higher but some of the free to play stuff and rng needs to be fixed. Still a good game though

What Thing said pretty much sums it up...it's a good game overall, just all the f2p/MMO system hurts it. But I dont expect it to change, unfortunately.

Spoiler containing my opinions about MMO/f2p system:
[SPOILER-BOX]
What everyone has to understand is that this is not only a game, but a business...this IS MEANT to generate profit for Sega, and that IS the priority for many sectors over there.

PSO1 wasn't like that because all the f2p/MMO systems havent been created/developed yet...and the fact they weren't there is the reason PSO didn't last as a "strong" MMO for too long too imo...however, that is also the reason that made PSO so unique and nice compared to other MMOs.

It was an amazing game, it just didn't have any of that "sticky glue" to keep you really "addicted" to it...which most MMOs nowdays have. If Sega didn't use these systems in PSO2, it would never be able to compete with all the other MMOs that HAVE all this "sticky glue" to keep players there.

Anyways, what I mean is...yeah it has some of those anoying MMO systems, yeah it's a bitch, but yeah...we have to put up with it, it's a MMO...noone that starts playing a MMO should expect something different, because that's how they work nowdays...they NEED to last, they NEED to keep as many players in the game, the competition is harsh, and they dont really want the game to be a failure and be canceled over not generating enough profit. It's something we have to live with so the game is able to exist at all.

To have anything different than that, would mean to expect that the MMO industry was changed as a whole...which I wouldn't mind, but...it's a capitalist world...and I don't see that happening anytime soon =w=.

......still....NERF DUDU'S BITCHENESS PLEASE SEGA OTL[/SPOILER-BOX]

[Lumpen Thingy]

2/10 dum dum

why even play it if you think this? -_-

[Midori Oku]

6/10

Likes:

-Character customization
-Boss battles are much more epic in my opinion
-Being able to jump and evade
-Being able to just attack techs
-Getting EXP even if you do not tag the enemy

Dislikes:

-The PP system, it was so much better in PSO/PSU. The lack of Monofluids, Difluids, and Trifluids kills it for me. I like being able to spam techs.
-Grinding, oddly enough I liked PSU's grinding system better. >_____________>
-Affixing can suck my ass!
-The skill tree bullshit, GAS was far better
-The lack of lobbies like PSU had. I don't want to just be on a Arks/Camp ship.


Overall, I like PSU far more than PSO2. I would give PSU a 8-9/10, just cause it still has its flaws, but it suited me better than PSO2. It's a personal preference really.

[EvilMag]

6/10

Likes:

-Character customization
-Boss battles are much more epic in my opinion
-Being able to jump and evade
-Being able to just attack techs
-Getting EXP even if you do not tag the enemy

Dislikes:

-The PP system, it was so much better in PSO/PSU. The lack of Monofluids, Difluids, and Trifluids kills it for me. I like being able to spam techs.
-Grinding, oddly enough I liked PSU's grinding system better. >_____________>
-Affixing can suck my ass!
-The skill tree bullshit, GAS was far better
-The lack of lobbies like PSU had. I don't want to just be on a Arks/Camp ship.


Overall, I like PSU far more than PSO2.
This. The Arks lobby looks so bland. Even the guardians colony looked fucking better than this.

[Rien]

6/10
Dislikes:

-The PP system, it was so much better in PSO/PSU. The lack of Monofluids, Difluids, and Trifluids kills it for me. I like being able to spam techs.


In this game by the time you stop and finish a mate drinking animation you would have naturally restored the amount of PP a monofluid would have given you in this game, lol.

[Antipika]

In this game by the time you stop and finish a mate drinking animation you would have naturally restored the amount of PP a monofluid would have given you in this game, lol.

Well not if you had 2900TP+ like a FOney had on PSO :]

---

For now, I'd give the game a 5/10.

Like:

- Character Customization
- Overall smoothness of the gameplay, despite servers being in Japan and me being in Europe (so ~300ms latency). Also solid 60 FPS even with an average PC, no client crash (at least for me).
- The "PSO" feeling, good sequel to the original game
- Musics/SFX
- The emergency quests concept
- Having a skill tree/being forced to make choices regarding the character development

Dislike:

- Unsecured environment. Like PSO, PSO:BB and PSU, SEGA fails once again to maintain its online titles secure. Gameguard blows, anyone can just be invincible, have infinite PP and speedhack. No server checks are being done. This wouldn't happen on a proper triple A MMO.

- Way too grindy past level 40 (you still EXP in the same area/difficulty level, yet the curve is steep). Same problem with SEGA since PSU, they release content little by little which forces them to have a very steep EXP curve once the original release "max level" is reached. The way PSO:BB was handled was better.

- Lobbies are bland. PSU was better for that. Traveling from planet to planet was fun and having different environments was better.

- Trading/shops should be free. I'm fine with the rest being premium content though. I'd be ok to pay for trading/shops if it was a one time fee. (i.e: purchase a copy of the game at ~$40 and unlock trading/shops for ever)

[Z-0]

9/10 - The potential PSO2 has.
5/10 - How that potential is being used.

[Seany1990]

Gameplay is solid, the community is okay but the F2P model is appalling.

7/10 overall

[Heat Haze]

6/10 - As it is right now
8-9/10 - What it could potentially be

Pros:
+ Character Customization
+ Battle and Combat

Cons:
- The RNG is bullshit: http://puu.sh/1RMfQ
- Far too instanced. In lobby, or in field.
- Gameguard

Both:
Level Curve becomes steep beyond level 45. However, all content currently is readily available at level 40; with Advanced Quests in the future needing level 45. You're not forced to reach level cap; albeit the 10 extra SP is nice to have.

[Bellion]

7/10
Good overall, but it could be better. Give us some quests where we can't have an infinite number of spawns for 4 hours, just progress to the end, and give us some clear boxes like in PSU.

Also, I miss the Zonde in PSU. It looked great, and it was linear. ;_;

[Terrence]

Fed up with "unused potential", "too much of this", "not enough of that", ... I spent time on other MMO and PSO2 is really one of the best. I enjoy the game as it is (even if I hope for an even better future) and that's a 9/10 for me. This is truly the Phantasy Star Online I was wainting for !

[Coatl]

8/10 if Premium member 6/10 if freeloader.
You are just too limited as a free member, and the rng sucks whether you throw cash at the game or not.

[Ce'Nedra]

I give it a 8/10 as well, I love the game, the only downsides are DuDu, the RNG and content that you need to pay for (in game) or spend time grinding stuff (Darker's Den, Advanced Quests etc)

[Cyclon]

Fed up with "unused potential", "too much of this", "not enough of that", ... I spent time on other MMO and PSO2 is really one of the best. I enjoy the game as it is (even if I hope for an even better future) and that's a 9/10 for me. This is truly the Phantasy Star Online I was wainting for !
Approval.

[darkante]

7/10.

Pros:

- Great combat mechanism
- Good looking areas
- Cool looking costumes and accessories

Cons:

- Enemy A.I doesn´t evolve during harder difficulties.
- Rare weapon droprates could be alot better.
- Some moves are just plain stupid and bad (why not just one of them)
- Too much darker appearances
- Spending Real Money for Chance items.
- Lack of lobbies.


Not sure more of what i could add.
I don´t hate it, but i have no real urge to play it.

[Zyrusticae]

Approval.
Avatar confused me, thought this is was Lord Derpington for a second.

I also, I second this post (and, by extension, the post quoted in the post I quoted).

[SisterPrincess]

I give it 10/10.
[SPOILER-BOX]But only on...
-Seiyuu performance
-Mass produce Kiritos
-chatting system
-seeing advertisments at bottom left on the screen[/SPOILER-BOX]

[Sayara]

7/10.
The game has alot of promise to be amazing. (and it is really good.) But its a huge turn off if you walk in too late. Like, ok. do get to the next area you must jump through 600 loops. 600 loops that everyone who already did it, usually prefer not to do again. So you find yourself lost and alone (for the most part.)

That bit is often why i haven't been coming home from university and jumping right into it again (outside the of course homework i have.)

[Chik'Tikka]

7/10.
The game has alot of promise to be amazing. (and it is really good.) But its a huge turn off if you walk in too late. Like, ok. do get to the next area you must jump through 600 loops. 600 loops that everyone who already did it, usually prefer not to do again. So you find yourself lost and alone (for the most part.)

That bit is often why i haven't been coming home from university and jumping right into it again (outside the of course homework i have.)

this is also true if you decide to level a new class, my HU is at 19 and i just went through about 15 blocks and the only MPAs i found were bot farmers+^_^+ imma go work on my psych paper now.....

[Coatl]

Enemy A.I doesn´t evolve during harder difficulties.


This is false. Enemy A.I. does, in fact, become more agressive in VH versus how mellow they were in normal mode.

[Z-0]

The problem is, it's still not hard enough to kill you.

Unless it's something like El Ahda.

D:<

[Antipika]

Fed up with "unused potential", "too much of this", "not enough of that", ... I spent time on other MMO and PSO2 is really one of the best. I enjoy the game as it is (even if I hope for an even better future) and that's a 9/10 for me. This is truly the Phantasy Star Online I was wainting for !

It just doesn't make sense to give a 9/10 which is a nearly perfect grade and say at the same time "I hope for an even better future". What's that future? 10/10? The best MMO ever made?

I enjoy the game, yet I'd still give PSO a relatively average grade, based on how much it can improve and that's what people saying "unused potential"/"too much of this" meant. That's what grade are for. When you get 5/10 in an exam, it means there are lot of room for improvement. It's not SEGA's first game also, so I find it normal to have high expectations.

I personally don't even understand how -any- game using Gameguard can score 9/10. It defies all logic. You are playing a multiplayer game where some players are invincible, speedhack, bot and SEGA doesn't do anything. And the worse part is that SEGA is doing the exact same mistake since PSO:BB. It's been 10 years seriously...

I feel tired to play a MMO alongside cheaters. Yeah I know that almost all games got cheaters/botters, but nothing is close to PSO when it comes to people being invincible, teleporting anywhere on the map and killing bosses in <5sec... Basically doing whatever a normal player does, about 100x times faster.

Finally, by not doing something against cheaters, SEGA also endanger their revenue from the AC Shop, from players interested in buying items to make progression faster. Why would I purchase those +100% EXP/+250% Drop Rate booster, if I can speedhack at 10x (that's virtually +1000% EXP/+1000% drop rate) and get away with it? Sure players buying costumes will always spend cash, but still, cheating cost money to SEGA and they don't seems to realize it, especially now that the game is F2P. (At least on Blue Burst or PSU, even cheaters had to pay their monthly fee.)

Can't wait to see how the NA version will fail because of this. The same way PSU PC failed in less than 6 months, losing a good 90% of its launch player base. (X360 version stood longer and that's partly due to the more secure environment Xbox Live/X360 was providing. It's way harder to cheat there.)

[Akaimizu]

The Xbox Live/360 lasted longer for the same initial reason I mentioned it could pre-release. A lack of competition on the consoles. The PC arena is way more strict when it comes to what an online RPG (treated as a content-driven MMO) offers and when it can offer it. You have to really keep them engaged in something that keeps them coming back, when they feel they run out of it or you're dangling them too long, they leave. The amount of patience they have is inversely proportionate to the amount of choices they have to go elsewhere. Especially if you're making them pay a monthly subscription fee.

Still, I actually give it an 8/10 at this time. I'm not endgame yet, but I do like where it is going. At first, I may have scored it a little bit lower due to the insane amount of times an early gamer may end up repeating the same missions over and over. But saved from scoring much lower due to the level of random events they can encounter during said missions. This get a lot more exciting for them once they open up the caves and such because the random encounters get a whole lot more interesting. Sometimes giving out tougher and more drawn out fights than the actual intended Boss encounters. Sometimes, they get epic. The bad, they can sometimes really lower the impact that the actual true stage boss has.

As a freeloader, so far, there is one thing that actually seems to help raise the score instead of lowering it. Depending on your class choice, RNG, whether you solo, and certain scenarios; it can be quite easy to get killed and either lose the mission, lose a lot of potential boss drops, or lose certain client orders. Why? Because freeloaders generally don't have the 1 thing that has made previous games in the series much easier until the end game of a final released revision of said game, years afterwards. Scapedolls. Which means they don't even have the (already helping the difficulty) aspect of 1 scapedoll limit like in PSP2. So it can be quite exhilarating having to know that when that bar hits zero, the first time, it's time out for you. Even Monster Hunter is less lenient, in that category.

[darkante]

This is false. Enemy A.I. does, in fact, become more agressive in VH versus how mellow they were in normal mode.

Apologies. I haven´t noticed much since i usually played in MPA.

[Cyrusnagisa]

how is customization a good point, when it is a step back from what PSU had? yeah our characters physical looks have a lot more choice, but the outfits are mostly one piece things.

[Lumpen Thingy]

how is customization a good point, when it is a step back from what PSU had? yeah our characters physical looks have a lot more choice, but the outfits are mostly one piece things.

cast get it like PSU and you can change most outfits to whatever you want with a color change pass sooooo ya....

[Darki]

cast get it like PSU and you can change most outfits to whatever you want with a color change pass sooooo ya....

Because a color change is equal to being able to swap bottoms, shoes and other part of the outfits, right.

U serious?

[Akaimizu]

Yeah, that was one thing I noticed. Sure, it is called PSO again, but it does seem we took a step back a little towards PSO's original customization options than we did in PSU and PSP games. One might say, it's exactly the opposite effect of what was done in Animal Crossing going from City Folk to New Leaf.

[Chik'Tikka]

cast get it like PSU and you can change most outfits to whatever you want with a color change pass sooooo ya....


Because a color change is equal to being able to swap bottoms, shoes and other part od the outfits, right.

U serious?

lol, i think he meant CAST and Caseal got to keep the arms, legs, body parts all separate and mix/matchable+^_^+

[terrell707]

Near the end of PSUs life line, the outfits became one piece also. Even in PSP2 and Infinity, all he new outfits were one piece. They stopped making them separate pieces because apparently it was hard to make each piece work together and animate them separately or something. Basically they didn't feel like doing it anymore lol

[Akaimizu]

Near the end of PSUs life line, the outfits became one piece also. Even in PSP2 and Infinity, all he new outfits were one piece. They stopped making them separate pieces because apparently it was hard to make each piece work together and animate them separately or something. Basically they didn't feel like doing it anymore lol

Actually, that did make me sad face a bit when that became the trend. Issue being that all of my main character's best outfits in PSU were account for being able to mix and match. Why? because outfits for the aspiring Tomboy don't exist in Sonic Team's world unless you take a part from one and put it with another. The one piece offerings they have, will never let you express your avatar that way. At least for the fleshies. One reason why I said Tynselle will probably never enter this game. Any person that makes her wear getups like *ahem* the maid outfit would get shot. Repeatedly.

Though the opening of male outfits for females, recently, has opened a possibility in the future, given maybe a few more options.

[Jim]

If I were to free-associate a number, I'd say 8.5.

They got a LOT right this time around. Frankly, it's better than I thought it was going to be after PSU and the PSP games. There were some pretty careless blunders, but the core game seems pretty solid.

Here are the pros/cons based on my experience as a Lv. 28/1 Humar-FO. They're not 100% fanboy-gripe-free, but isn't pleasing PSO fans part of the marketing strategy here?:

[SPOILER-BOX]Pros:

Music feels like PSO again
Combat is solid, and photon art combos let you customize the experience
Player shops and resulting economy are convenient and increase sense of community
The core game has been simplified so it's welcoming to newcomers, (even my mom could play!) but the game is still deeper than ever. EG: Players don't have to time their attacks anymore, they can just hold down the X button and tilt the stick towards the bad guy until it's dead. But once they get the hang of the game, they can time their presses for Just attacks and customize their photon art combos.
Money is NOT an issue. The entire game is free, all the way to level 55, and without limiting your drops or meseta. You would have paid $60 for this game plus $15/month if that's what Sega wanted. Griping about paying $5.50 to have a second character on the same account is nothing short of bratty. Appreciate the AAA polish. Support it with your money. Even if you wait for the NA version until you do so.
The AAA Polish, in fact, deserves it's own bullet point. PSU's menus, animation (even just walking), and polish were horrible. HORRIBLE.
PC support. I feel for you poor people who are stuck with console for money reasons. That being said, this game belongs on PC. If I had to deal with Xbox's voice chat, I'd kill myself. (Granted I LOVE playing with my Xbox controller.) Also, the game is VERY well optimized! You don't need a killer GPU for it. I haven't tried it, but I bet it would run awesome on Intel HD Graphics 4000.
Bosses and stages are relatively fun and interesting. (Except for the desert and it's boss. Shitty and lazy beyond belief.)
More players on the battlefield. I had 10 or 12 in the "Where's the Chocolate" Valentine's raid the other night and the ensuing melee was dazzeling. I don't know how the rainbow PSE Boosts work, but we managed to chain like 5 of them and it was very exciting to hear all of those blows landing and bonuses flying at once.

Cons: (mostly PSO fanboy garbage)

Unnecessary restyling of classic weapons. They got rid of sabers?! :nono: Sabers have always been my main weapon. I know we have Gunslashes, but they're just not the same, and I feel like I'm wasting the block button on a built-in gun that I rarely use. Now, getting rid of the "lightsaber" look I understand. I like the idea of having physical blades that emit photon energy. I think I prefer it actually. But why does there have to be a gun glued to the side?! Also, losing rifles for assault rlfles is a bummer. Poor Yas3000... :no: PSO rifles could have been fun as hell with OTS aiming.
Classic weapons have been reserved for new classes. Hunters can't use daggers and doubles? I mean, we still have swords, but since any weapon can hit multiple enemies now, the sword has lost a lot of it's original meaning. I've been a HUmar for 10 years, and I know it's just a name, but I don't know whether to give it up for daggers and twins. I mean, I use NO Hunter weapons, just the Gunslash. Still, I shouldn't have to make that choice. Why couldn't they give wire lances and the new partisans to the Fighter instead of two staple Hunter weapons? (Partisans are very cool, but work nothing like the classic, so they're basically a new weapon.)
Mags bind to your character, so breeding them for trade is now a thing of the past. A cool part of PSO culture is no more.
Male costumes that aren't attrocious are limited, but this will slowly improve as content is added, so no major issue. Still when I'm shopping for costumes, most of them make me think "Why? Just why?":roll:
Big one: While the animations are good, the walking animation gets shoddy when using a controller. A partial-tilt sends your character into full sprint, but you still move along the ground slowly, making it look like you're awkwardly moonwalking forward. Complained about this in beta, and it still isn't fixed.


This is getting long... that's enough for now.[/SPOILER-BOX]

[Eman2417]

7/10
It's good and all, but I hate games that rely on chance. ( Not that weapons even need to be grinded anyways ).
It gets boring after awhile too. I love doing tas and whatnot, but mpas bore the hell out of me, idk how people sit in them for 4 hours.

[Kaziel]

まあまあで/10

Lets see a US release.

[Crystal_Shard]

I'm giving PSO 2 a high 9.5 for maximum potential, and an actual score of 6.5

Point deductions made as spoiler boxed:
[spoiler-box]Gameguard -1
Bad software that screws with the low level processes of one's PC, has the potential to cause major damage, and doesn't even do it's job properly? If I didn't have a separate drive/laptop that I could use/borrow, I might have just as easily skipped this generation of PSO.

PS: It's only getting a 1 mark deduction because I'm limiting the highest deduction limit to 1 mark per issue. If I really deducted the full amount of annoyance I have for forced installation of software I don't like, I'd be giving it a zero right now.

Mr RNG and Doodoo's Honest Lotterys lol -1
Point deducted for overly harsh RNG (why hello grinding failstreak!), overly inappropriate RNG (oh boy, another ranger weapon for my Force character!), overly sadistic RNG (I got the 10*s you wanted, let's trade! OH WAI...), AC scratch in general and Doodoo just for being Doodoo.

Gimping of trading and selling of 10*s -0.5
Pretty much destroyed much of the motivation I would have had to maintain my premium set, and further increases the gap between people with good luck and bad.

Removal of good ideas from the Portable 2 series and older -0.5
Weapon Type Extension, Unique Weapon Skills, dropping of racial bonuses, unique gender animations, etc... it's a long list. Some of these might get rectified in future though, so I'm not deducting that much for it.[/spoiler-box]
On the positive side, PSO 2 does bring to the table one of the most enjoyable and complete action oriented combat systems I've had the pleasure to play, combined with their best character creator to date (lack of mix and match costumes notwithstanding), a wonderfully unique sci-fi / fantasy aesthetic, and a return to quite a number of things that endeared me to the original game.

I'm also willing to tolerate the F2P / P2W aspect of the game that Sega has implemented, mostly because it means I don't have a constant outflow of cash going out of my wallet just to maintain one account, let alone multiple accounts. The idea of AC Scratch pisses me off, but I recognise that it's not only optional for me, but that Sega is a business and having it be wildly profitable means the game'll stay online longer. Being able to buy the costumes and most of the AC items certainly does help to ease the annoyance.

Although, I think I've spent far more cash already on the game than I ever spent on PSO and possibly PSPo2i :3 Well played Sega, well played.

In general, it plays well, has a good level of polish, includes a number of tolerable but annoying aspects as well as a few nearly and it made me abandoned almost all my other projects for months on end. I'd say we Phantasy Star fans have it good. At least our game still resembles Phantasy Star (even some aspects of the classics) compared to some of Sega's other franchises. :3

[Angelo]

July - October? 9/10

November to now? 6/10

[Coatl]

Cons:

Say for example you thought FO was a pretty cool class. You make colorful explosions, what's not to like? You adjust your mag accordingly because you want to be the best FO ever. Then you unlock techer and find out that techer wears s-def requirement units and not t-def requirement units. What a tragedy, all the t-def you put into your mag is useless for this class you imagined would be similar to FO. What to do? Either choose to gimp yourself as a FO and TE and distribute your only mag with s-def and t-def, Main FO and gimp your TE, or you buy a new mag just for your TE. As a free player you aren't given that last choice.

Not a FO? Ok good, you won't have to deal with that, right? Let's level ranger instead. Pew pew and whatnot. You want to be the best Ranger ever now. Max out that standing snipe, max out weak bullet, max out those weak hit advances. Then you unlock gunner and find out that standing snipe is completely useless for machine guns, and 4 Weakbullets is a little unecessary for gunner. So in this situation you have two choices, re-roll and choose to be a gimped RA or a gimped GU, or buy a 2nd RA skill tree purely for a gunner's sub class.

When the new classes were introduced, not much was known about sub classing. To those Fighers who put points into step attack will always be gimped by 4 SP. Not enough SP to cry home about maybe, but it's there.

My real issue is that Sega takes every opportunity to do petty things like this in order to reap in more AC. It's unfair to everyone, it's just that those with ACs can undue the damage sega's done. This is the most stingy game I've come across when it comes to mag resets or skill resets after every expansion. It's pretty standard to compensate the playerbase after making major updates to the skill tree. That's my biggest gripe about PSO2 honestly. It wears the lofty title of F2P and with that it is easier to bring friends to the game.

But it's not a nice feeling when you have to tell your friend they'll have to re-roll because they messed up their tree or mag.

[pikachief]

6/10.

EDIT:


July - October? 9/10

November to now? 6/10

I agree with this.

[Agitated_AT]

To me it's like. Every update brings me back, I enjoy the fresh new content but then when I continue to play it for another hour, the game puts me into such a bored mood I just cant help pressing alt+f4 and wanting to spend my time on quality elsewhere.

The game has a lot of great stuff. I've always been a fan of the PS universum, but in general the game gets a 6 from me. The game feels messy. Some great ideas here, some terrible ideas there mashed into one hell of a weird game.

+ combat
+ boss battles
- No sense of progression(i dont mean storywise here ;))
- No real need of teamwork unless it profits your own needs instead like other games where teamwork is essential to progress.
- Regular mobs are almost never a threat .Making it feel like you are hunting them down instead of the other way around. This with little effort and requiring little of your attention.

So far the game is putting everything which I find, has and should be important in a game in the backseat. PSO2 is using lame mmo traditions to keep shallow players coming back. I'm talking about the lvl exp bars, useless, baseless and unneeded grinding etc to give a player a sort of feeling they're achieving something. The latter being kind of hilarious because it makes the game even more boring when u get everything out of the game. It should be the other way around. All the exp bars, grinding or even weapon collecting, should be secondary but still encouraged by the primary gameplay.

I've been doing the opposite actually. Keeping myself underpowered with weaker units and weps. Weak subclass etc. It helps a little sometimes, but yeah, only sometimes.

[Shadowth117]

This game had, and has, a lot going for it. Feel of things in the engine is smooth, graphics are decent, and at its core the gameplay is good. But PSU at its core was good as well...

Lets go over graphics first. Character models look great. Could they be better? Yes. Do they look fine enough overall? Absolutely. Weapons and armor are similarly nice. No longer is there an abundance of weapons with 2D details. HUD and menus are also appealing which is always good.

As for environments? They could definitely be better, which is unfortunate. The art direction is okay at best for these I would say, which is sad given some of the better locales in PSO, PSU, PSP2I, etc. To do them justice, I may as well go over these individually. The areas feel rather generic and terrestrial; many of them lack the more alien, sci-fi, and fantastical appeals that previous entries and other games have done. Devoting more resources to designing these areas along with more polygons and visual effects would have done the game good.

Forest: Probably one of the better done maps although most of it was clearly done as a homage to PSO which is pretty clear to anyone who had played the Forest in that game. Its a nice area with a lot of nice little details like the the monkeys hanging from trees as you enter an area, quiet ponds with nice little reflections, rapid rivers which take you along with their current, and thick, tall grass that often hides things. Its definitely nice although the ground and walls tend to be rather flat and bland looking which appears to unfortunately be a common theme with this game.

Volcanic Caves: At first glance, this is a neat looking area with lava all around to avoid. Lots of interesting formations are spread around as well as the occasional ruins of some sort. Smoke or steam rises all around from the clearly hot areas which is a neat detail and plumes of fire erupt semi-randomly from the ground. Sadly, the upper walls tend to be very lazily done, as if all someone did was elongate cubes and round off their edges a bit and the rocky areas sometimes clip into each other unnaturally. Its alright, but it doesn't seem like its as good as it could be.

Desert: A fairly stereotypical desert area with generally uninteresting ruins spread throughout. Deserts haven't generally been very interesting areas in games and they certainly didn't go out of their way to make this one an exception to that rule. Its not horrible, but it looks too... normal I guess would be a good word for it.

Tundra: A decent-looking area. There's more detail here on average then in a lot of other areas, like the forest. The muddy water areas and rocks are for the most part put together rather well. Of course, aside from the walls and the odd placement of things like the caves in the middle of the open areas, this place is pretty similar to real world environments although there's a noticeable lack of extremely large slopes.

Subterranean tunnels/Mines: Not a horrible area on its own, but it pales in comparison to the mines of the first PSO. There are a fair amount of nice little details like the conveyors, lasers, spikes, boxes of gems and such, but nothing in particular really sticks out as very interesting here. It may be the lack of vibrant appearances and somewhat intentional, but it feels very dreary and it seems easy to get bored here.

Floating Continent/Floating Islands: This was an opportunity to really take a lot of creative freedom and make some rather fantastical areas, but instead it takes on the generic feel many of the other places in the game suffer from. The ruins from the caves show up here too with things like lightning pillars spread about as well, but other than the arenas there's nothing too interesting done with those. You do see what are presumably the homes of the dragon-kin, but these tend to be as uninteresting as the rest of the areas. The background of the Quartz Dragon boss area IS in fact very nice looking, but that level of detail was unfortunately denied from the rest of the areas in this place.

Ruins: Huh, what to say about this area. On its own, it certainly doesn't look bad. Its not bad looking by any means. But well... it looks somewhat similar to the pre-existing Forest and Floating Continent Areas particularly palette wise with its greens. Were it always a night environment it might have been better, but the daytime palette isn't as interesting. And considering it was released directly after Floating Continent... it was easy to get bored of the aesthetics here quickly.

City: The first area I'll mention that isn't readily accessible from a normal mission! Its actually not too bad looking to be honest. The city looks like its been through a bombardment for sure. The lack of undamaged areas is somewhat questionable, but its cool to look at overall. It also looks... a bit too similar to a 21st century city. Even PSU's Parum, while very generic looking itself, still managed to look like it was from a city from a future time period.

Darker's Den: Admittedly I haven't played in this area personally (Computer issues FTW -_-), but this place is pretty cool. To me, its a little reminiscent of the HIVE areas from PSU, if far more open and more inspired. Its a neat area, but the fact that it can't be played whenever is a downer since its so different from the readily accessible areas.

Arks Shipwreck Field: This is another pretty cool place and there wasn't even any places to fight normal enemies in it. There really isn't much to it since it was just for boss fights, but it could have been very neat traveling across ruined ships and eradicating darkers and maybe even rampant ARKS robots. It looks really cool, but since aside from the boss fights there's nothing to do here its a bit sad.

Parallel Areas: Wow, these areas... Why exactly couldn't they put the detail they put in these into the rest of the game? These areas look rather spectacular. They are all colorful and wonderfully designed with numerous appealing elements in them. After seeing these, its really sad to me that they didn't put this level of detail into the rest of the game...

Arks Lobby: The main lobby area. Overall, this area looks pretty nice which is good because you'll be spending a lot of time here, some people more than others (HI BLOCK 20!). It actually is fairly large although there's little reason to congregate outside of the center of the main lobby and on holidays the center of the shop area. There's also nice little details like ships taking off in the background and what looks like a room with little cryo pods or something in the back of the main lobby behind the class/team counter and medical center. Hardly a bad looking area to me.

And that pretty much covers graphics. Lets move onto gameplay...

So you have 6 classes now. Hunter, Ranger, Force, Fighter, Gunner, and Techer. I'd say that Fighter and Gunner could have had more inspired names, but that aside lets move on to how they play. Keep in mind specific combinations won't be brought up much as there are numerous.

Hunter - A typical melee class. They specialize in close range combat and have nice close range crowd management abilities. They use the sword, partizan(Spear for PSU players), wiredlance (Sort of a knife or bludgeoning weapon that is slung around and controlled by wires which the player holds) and gunslash. The sword's main move, Sonic Arrow, tends to be one of the main DPS dealers for this class and is good for clearing small groups of enemies. Other moves can be useful, but Sonic Arrow is definitely a staple here. Over End is also quite the crowd clearer and is very powerful although its slowness makes it arguably unuseful.

As far as partizans go they're not bad weapons, but they don't tend to be overbearing. Speed rain is a commonly used ability on them for general use and trick rave is also a fairly powerful attack. Since the release of a certain single slashing PA though (can't recall the name) which does mass damage in a single hit, the rest of these have become less important as well as the weapon itself for more serious play.

Wired lances can arguably be the best weapon of this class although some of their better moves aren't suited for general use unless the player is careful since they leave the player in a set spot for a decent amount of time. Particularly powerful moves on these are holding current, heavenly fall, and air pocket swing. I will admit that I haven't played with these enough however to do much justice to describing them.

Gunslashes are just in there list of usable weapons like they are for every other class, although they are amazingly useful here. Some players enjoy using them, but they aren't major DPS dealers on this class unlike certain other classes.

Ranger - Mainly a support class. Its weak bullet allows for some of the highest damage in the game and this can be shared among other other players against the target its been placed on. This is used with the rifle which is the Ranger's main weapon on single targets. Aside from that, its launcher is probably one of the better weapons in the game assuming that one doesn't miss often with it. It has very large AOE and has high, high damage output in those areas which can be very nice. Certain gunslash PA's, because of their reliance on ranged attack are also extremely useful on this class. While its good at boss killing, it falls short often times in other categories.

Force - The primary mage class of this game. They are the main AOE users and are generally the most powerful against groups of enemies. They fall short often on bosses, but make up for this in their power against groups. While they do have support abilities, they tend not to be worthwhile in this aspect. Their main weapon can either be the rod or talis depending on how one feels like playing although the rod almost always wins in power in serious play which is unfortunate given the utility of the talis. Their ability to use gunslashes proves to be a good way to restore PP.

Clearly, the main draw to this class is their magic, and they have a lot to choose from. The uses for each spell are varied and even similar spells between elements often have differences which make one far better over another. To play this class effectively, its necessary to learn what works best where although fire spells are generally very effective on everything with the right skill tree.

Fighter - Some players would call this class lackluster, but its actually a quite powerful class against single targets as well as some small crowd damage dealing that is also arguably the best class to sub. Its main DPS dealer is clearly the double saber with deadly archer and acro effect although twin daggers aren't bad whatsoever for aerial attacks. Knuckles are pretty worthless overall aside from their gear which can be used for traveling although they can be fun to use. Gunslashes remain about as useful as they are on hunter. Of note is that this class has relatively high technique attack which can be potentially useful were one to sub force or techer. I'd love to go more into detail, but I haven't played the class too much so my input there wouldn't be in-depth.

Gunner - This class probably has the most powerful single target attacks in the game making it one of the best, if not the best overall boss killers. Its crowd killing abilities aren't terrible although its options are severely limited with its natural PA's for destroying groups. Because most of its PA's aren't very powerful, it can be very spammy and its PA's tend to knock enemies out of reach of other classes. This class can be fun for its flashy moves and the infamous twin mech gun dodge, but for competitive play it tends to be far less useful generally than classes with more proper crowd control.

Techer - This class is essentially Force with more striking attack, striking defense, less technique defense, and wands instead of rods. Clearly, its meant to be a more close-range focused class with wand gear itself being based around melee attacks. Unfortunately, the wand itself over a rod makes this class far less powerful with techniques even with the power ups from subbing force. The class's natural lack of power boosting skills in its tree and abundance of support skill boosting techniques push it more towards a support role although currently its not good enough in that respect to be of use in that role. I would personally say that techer as it is right now is unfortunately best used to supplement force although some argue otherwise.

And of course, there's the other mechanics...

Subclassing - This was a marvelous idea really. Essentially, this gives players the ability to sort of combine classes however they want. For example, one could play as a Hunter/Force and be able to cast spells to heal and what not. It certainly gives more variety to play styles which is always nice although some combinations are innately terrible. Hunter's Fury Stance for instance increases striking attack and ranged attack, but NOT technique attack which means that magic casters get no reasonable benefit from it. Main classes also, while inheriting PA's and Techniques from their subclass, do NOT gain the ability to use the weapons of the subclass right off. While there are workarounds for this, it makes weapons for some classes a lot less desirable than they could be.

Still, the combos that do work can be very nice. Fighter in particular is great as a subclass for stance abilities which affect all forms of damage tremendously.

Grinding - The most well known method for upgrading one's weapons is known as grinding. No not fighting numerous monsters over and over with the weapon repetitively. Essentially, one takes "grinders" and money over to a certain NPC who that person will grow to hate. For all armor and any weapon below 7 stars, this is trivial. It takes little effort to get the +10 next to your equipment.

However as soon as one tries grinding a weapon of at least 7*, it seems to take considerably more money. Its also painfully random. One could spend 200k meseta and their grinders to raise a weapon to +10 or spend over 9 million meseta without success. Percent chances of raising a weapon around grind 6 and above also plummet drastically and have punishments that range from -2 grinds from the current grind to -4 for rarer weapons. While the game will never require you to pay real world money to fix a weapon since they can't permanently break and they can never be destroyed from grinding, the expense of it at times is frustrating enough to make someone want to tear their hair out. Simpler systems like in PSO or PSP2 seemed to be the method most people would have preferred to grind since these methods guaranteed the upgrades even if they were expensive. Getting people to spend AC was probably a motivation for this aggravating system, but its frustrating nonetheless.

Affixing - This often lumped in with grinding and tends to be very similar. Its expensive and necessary to have what's considered "good gear" even if one already has a good weapon/armor to begin with. It relies a lot on silly percentages that get sillier the more abilities that one tries to add on to something. Just one small ability failure can also mean millions of meseta lost in a failed investment which combined with being time consuming is very frustrating. The time consuming nature is a major put off for most people and is for a few reasons the current fastest and best way to make money aside from simply RMTing to buy meseta.

Elemental Upgrading - This is a very simple, guaranteed system. No matter what, upgrading elements on a weapon is trivial which is nice. It can go faster with certain items that are rather expensive, but its not hard or very frustrating to upgrade this way. The hardest part is probably getting more of the weapon to sacrifice for the upgrade, particularly for 10*s. Of course aside from that, its very easy to do and the process itself isn't annoying like other methods of upgrading. Unfortunately, it is currently impossible to upgrade armor this way.

NPC shops - As with most games, the majority of these are only useful for beginning players. After a time, the things sold in them are generally worthless to a seasoned player. In the beginning however, they are very useful and provide a plethora of nice items. The buyback feature in these is very nice to have for sure since it allows players to repurchase an item back if they didn't actually intend to sell it in their mass selling of other items. There was a time when there could be a lot of money made by selling items here, but that was destroyed in a failed attempt to supposedly "help the economy". Selling items this way makes money, but not very much.

Player shop system - While players cannot sell items without premium, the game allows all players to buy from the player shops. Searching is very intuitive, if somewhat limited by not being able to search multiple affixes or limit the rarity that is being searched for as well as the fact that partial searches are impossible. There are many options to specify what item is being searched for which is very nice and overall, the player shops are quite useful. Unfortunately, 10*+ items cannot be sold along with any 7-9* items the player has already equipped even with a shop pass and premium. Its also worth noting that lv 11+ PA's/Techniques are not purchasable which can be frustrating due to some of their rarities.

Regardless however, the shop system is very nice and players even have the option to buy many Arks Cash exclusive items through it without ever paying real money which can be very helpful, if expensive. The free market system may be laziness to an extent, if influenceable by changing drop rates etc., but it works well.

Story Missions/matter board - The story missions themselves in this game are pretty standard as far as those go. Given my inability to fully understand Japanese, and the fact that I haven't played with English story patch yet, I can't judge the story at the moment. However the missions themselves are done well enough overall. They are disappointing in difficulty since they've been nerfed, but they're not horrendously boring usually. I'd imagine understanding the cutscenes would improve this experience a lot.

Normal Missions - *sigh*... Its sad really how these go. I'm going to lump Free missions in with these since they're essentially the same thing. Basically, you go through a semi randomly generated area and accomplish some task in the last area of the mission. This is cool at first since areas start out seeming completely different. But this tends to get old fast since everything is randomly placed and often times there are long paths that lead to nothing for no particular reason. Having set layouts for at least some of these could have really helped the game, but as it is, the randomness is really what makes these more boring to run in the end. Its a cool concept, but it doesn't work well.

Multi Party Areas (MPAs) - This idea seemed pretty novel on its introduction, but has proven to be very... boring. A player can run around an area with up to 11 others for 12 total people and fight monsters and do emergency trials repeatedly. This can be very fun for a while since players get to fight mass amounts of monsters for a while, can get PSE Bursts easier, and get tons of exp and drops. After a time though, a lot of people realize that they're simply running around in a set pattern absent-mindedly killing things repeatedly. It takes no real skill in anything other than perhaps "follow the leader" to play in these and for whatever reason rewards players more than almost any other style of play in the game. It can make veteran players wonder why they bothered to gather powerful gear in the first place.

Time Attacking - You either like it or you don't, but its a nice feature to have in the game given its randomness in normal missions. These missions are pretty self explanatory, but tend to have many tricks in order to get through them the fastest. They give a nice way for players in this game to compete for sport rather than just have "mine's betterer!!" "arguments" about gear. If you enjoy this style of competitive play, than they can be very fun, but many players simply don't get the rush that these missions can give. Unfortunately, even if you do enjoy these types of missions, there are only 4 available as of this writing and none specifically made for any less than 4 players even if they are all technically soloable.

Rare drops - Any item 7*+ is considered rare in this game. AKA, you won't see them drop for you a whole lot generally. There are some that drop more than others for various reasons, but rare items generally aren't generally going to be found easily. Sometimes its possible to even go on for long periods of time without even finding a 7*, common as they are at times. As there is no system in place for getting a rare after a set time, there have been cases where players have searched for a specific item over months and never found it. This is VERY frustrating at times given the fact that 10*+ items cannot be sold period and must be found along with some of the rarer PA's/Techniques at high levels. There are measures in place and being added to make acquisition of some of these easier, but overall this can be very annoying.

Punishment for dieing (or rather lack of) - Essentially, most of the time in this game there is simply no real punishment for dieing unless one dies in very specific missions or when they are alone against a boss. One can simply go back to campship and jump back into the mission, no strings attached, wait until another player revives them, or use ARKS Cash to buy a scape doll and automatically revive. There are no limits on this either which makes many players call the game easy since they aren't punished when they repeatedly die. And indeed, a lot of it at the moment is easy otherwise. But this is definitely fairly ridiculous as far as that goes. Obviously there are ways this could have been better, but as of right now this is definitely an issue.

ARKS Cash features - Ah, the PAY component of this f2p game. Its not incredibly surprising to see this in the game. Indeed, every time a player dies they are presented with the choice return to the campship as I previously mentioned which is amusing. Thankfully, aside from that free players don't have things like this constantly thrown in their face in normal play. Actually, many of the AC items don't even affect the game all that much in terms of making it easier. Even the premium that can be bought isn't as amazingly impacting on gameplay as one might expect. Most items that can be obtained from this are just "nice to have" and not "almost necessary" like they are in some games. Players can have a very enjoyable time playing without paying.

To list the features that premium gives...

Premium package featues:
- Ability to add items to one's personal shop *
- Ability to trade *
- Access to player rooms *
- Access to premium blocks
- 40 rather than 20 client order spaces
- More symbol art space (not sure if this has been implemented yet, haven't been on lately)

And correct me if I missed any, but that's all I can think of. Anything starred can technically be done without premium although it may require random chance to obtain. Trading like with premium isn't directly possible without it, but through shops it is very easy to do so its almost a non issue. Not a hell of a lot is truly gained from premium unfortunately for those who pay for it, especially since shop and my room passes can also be bought individually for half this price or less, despite it costing more than most MMO's without considering Dollar to Yen (This is an US player's perspective) rates. On the plus side, players who don't intend to pay a cent have access to the majority of the game!

Overall - 7-8/10, premium or not.

For the right people, the game can be very enjoyable. But there are many obvious flaws either through Sega's greed or laziness. I personally love the game, but there are a lot of reasons to dislike it. Hopefully in the future they'll fix a lot of the flaws I've listed. For example, the Advanced missions may scratch an itch for something that's been missing for a while. The game has been out for less than a year now so there it would be expected for it to change a lot in time, but as it is there's a lot that needs to change and a lot that likely will change.

[Demon-]

July - October? 9/10

November to now? 6/10

This.


I would go on about its pros and cons but plenty people already listed them.

[Menasthos]

9/10 if just was possible to move out from that boring lobby..