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Thread: Worth my time?

  1. #1

    Question Worth my time?

    Played PSO from v1 all the way to BlueBurst to hell. I've just recently finally got bored of it so I want to try something new that is not PSU. I tried that when it came out, sold it back 2 weeks later because I didn't have access to online features and hated story mode. But I did somewhat liked the new gameplay, I figure PSP2 mixes PSO and PSU together AND adds new gameplay mechanics like rolling, blocking, chains and so on?

    I'd just like an honest opinion about most of the game's aspects like gameplay, grinding, community, stability and so on... how does it compare to PSO? Are there as many cheaters as before?

    Yeah so many questions it's because PSP2 is basically the reason why I started considering a PSP for in the first place.

  2. #2
    星たちまで旅立った人 DeviFoxx's Avatar
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    Gameplay is pretty solid. It plays just like PSU except with dodging and rolling, more Nanoblasts added for Beasts. New SUV attacks for CASTs, and Mirage Blasts for Humans and Newmans. So all races use the Blast Gauge.

    Grinding has always been severe in basically every Phantasy Star game. If you don't have a solid leveling strategy, getting to Lv. 200 can take weeks to months. Grinding isn't difficult--it's just tedious and time-consuming. That's why most people spam "The Magashi Plan" mission in PSP2 in order to get their levels up quickly.

    The online community of PSP2 has plenty of cheaters in it--enough to warrant threads of people crying about it for numerous pages on these very forums. Is it as bad as PSO was? No way. At least you can't get "NOL'ed" or Resta-PK'ed in this game. But just the same, people who like to play legitimately without hacking usually form little cliques and circles amongst themselves (see some of the other threads for a prime example of this) as a response to the talentless idiots who have no knowledge of the game and hack their way to Lv. 200.

    Save for the current situation with the PlayStation Network's downtime, stability in the game is OK from what I can tell.

    Content...? ... yeah. Well, that's kind of a hot-button issue.

    The American / European version of PSP2 is extremely watered-down and meager when compared to the Japanese version, which is completely RIFE and chock-full of content. Case in point, here's an example of some of the things that were changed during the conversion:

    · The majority of voice acting was removed. In the Japanese version, both FMVs and Dialogue Cutscenes were fully voice-acted. In the English versions, only the FMVs are voice-acted.
    · A lot of collaboration content (items from other corporate sponsors like Pizza Hut, Fanta Soda, Famitsu Magazine, various Japanese Manga and Anime characters) that were in the Japanese version were removed due to legal / licensing issues.
    · Japanese version has tons of downloadable missions. English version doesn't have any, really, and has to access the .DAT file for the downloadable missions intended for the Japanese version to play on the English version (meaning, Sega of America doesn't provide it. It's up to YOU to go and get it.)
    · Most of the downloadable / online missions and weapons that were available online only in the Japanese mission were converted to offline missions already on the disc in the English version--showing SEGA's lack of interest in making additional downloadable content for the English version.
    · It took about 11 months for the game to arrive from Japan (JP version came out Oct. 2009 I believe, EN version on Sept. 2010) ... The sequel "Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity" (Came out Feb 24th 2011 in Japan) hasn't been even announced yet for English-speaking territories.

    Maybe I might be a bit biased, but I was disappointed how Sega did a half-hearted job of bringing the game to English speaking territories, and cut out so much content. That's why I up and played the Japanese version.

    Some may not agree with me, and that's perfectly fine.

    Ultimately, it's your choice as to which version you play.

    There's plenty who play PSP2 that you can socialize with. And there's an English speaking community on PSP2 Infinity for you to play with too.

    The choice is yours.

  3. #3
    Legend joshboyd1209's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DeviFoxx View Post
    At least you can't get "NOL'ed" or Resta-PK'ed in this game.
    WHAT?!
    · It took about 11 months for the game to arrive from Japan (JP version came out Oct. 2009 I believe, EN version on Sept. 2010) ... The sequel "Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity" (Came out Feb 24th 2011 in Japan) hasn't been even announced yet for English-speaking territories.
    I think the US came out in May actually.
    Last edited by Mike; May 1, 2011 at 11:53 PM.

  4. #4
    星たちまで旅立った人 DeviFoxx's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by joshboyd1209 View Post
    WHAT?!
    NOL'ing and Resta-PK'ing is something only the PSO Vets who've played since the Sega Dreamcast days would remember. Since the topic starter mentioned PSO v1 (The Dreamcast Version), I brought it up.
    Quote Originally Posted by joshboyd1209 View Post
    I think the US came out in May actually.
    And no, it didn't come out in May. It launched in US on Sept. 14th 2010. The Japanese version came out on December 3rd, 2009. Regardless, that's still a long time to wait.
    Last edited by Mike; May 1, 2011 at 11:53 PM.

  5. #5

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    Well, I don't know Japanese so I better forget about Infinity. Unless someone made an english patch somewhere? But I don't plan on hacking my PSP when I get around buying it (too much trouble) and I doubt the game would fit in a signed game...

    SEGA not localizing content is not really... new, I expected PSO P2 to be the same I don't really care about anime costumes but the lack of downloadable missions is really bad...

    So if I understand right, this game lost what made playing PSO online great : joining random games and plowing thru dungeons whilst chatting and making friends. What's the point of even playing then? I played PSOv1, v2 and GCN entirely offline and I have trouble with grinding alone now. The new gameplay might make it fun for a while but I know it won't last long. Sounds like I have no other choice than joining a circle of legit players... but again, I'm bound to get bored later from doing the same stuff over and over... sigh maybe I should stick to BB and hope PSO2 gets a NA release.

    What if the NGP's release drives a portion of the hacking community away?

  6. #6
    Eagerly awaiting Eva 3.0 MESeele's Avatar
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    Urgh *shudders at the mention of resta death* . Haha good times...kinda :/

  7. #7
    星たちまで旅立った人 DeviFoxx's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rovelius View Post
    Well, I don't know Japanese so I better forget about Infinity. Unless someone made an english patch somewhere? But I don't plan on hacking my PSP when I get around buying it (too much trouble) and I doubt the game would fit in a signed game...

    SEGA not localizing content is not really... new, I expected PSO P2 to be the same I don't really care about anime costumes but the lack of downloadable missions is really bad...

    So if I understand right, this game lost what made playing PSO online great : joining random games and plowing thru dungeons whilst chatting and making friends. What's the point of even playing then? I played PSOv1, v2 and GCN entirely offline and I have trouble with grinding alone now. The new gameplay might make it fun for a while but I know it won't last long. Sounds like I have no other choice than joining a circle of legit players... but again, I'm bound to get bored later from doing the same stuff over and over... sigh maybe I should stick to BB and hope PSO2 gets a NA release.

    What if the NGP's release drives a portion of the hacking community away?
    I doubt Infinity would get an English patch, hence why frequently new visitors make accounts here and almost always ask "When's Infinity coming out? Anyone know the release date?". The Phantasy Star francise is somewhat of a niche market anyway--there'd have to be enough popularity and hype, combined with SEGA not doing anything to localize the game fast enough (like always) for someone to be bothered to make a translation patch. But even if you don't know a lick of Japanese, that doesn't stop Japanese-illiterate English-speaking players from playing online. A lot of the menues and shotcuts are pretty self-explanatory to the point where you can navigate through it with relative ease.

    Similar to how PSO (and PSU) uses familiar icons, symbols, and shapes to represent things. i.e. An icon that looks like a Monkey Wrench is the options / save your game menu. An Envelope-shaped Icon is simple mail. Three green dots enclosed in vertically-aligned green parenthesis is a "Trimate", a yellow plus ( + ) icon is a "Moon Atomizer" and so on and so forth.

    Yeah, them not releasing new missions is pretty bad. As I mentioned, the downloadable Missions / New Weapons patched in the original Japanese version (Prior to NA release) were written to the English game disc as "Already-Available" Missions, giving SEGA no reason (and no excuse) to add more stuff to the English version. (Case in point, the annual "Maximum Attack" event that PSO is known for was changed from "Maximum Attack" in the JP version to an unrelated mission called "The Kasch Test" when it was localized into English).

    To it's credit though, PSP2 is still fun to play online. It just depends on how you play, and how you look at things. People still find the game a challenge in trying to get 100% of all the rare weapons available in the game. The game has a built-in list for all the extraordinarily rare weapons available.

    Only thing to be aware of is the fact that there's something of a "social rift" in the game's online community (but most Online RPGs are like that anyway) of the uneducated players who hack their way to Lv. 200 and ask how to find / do the most basic of tasks that they should've learned long ago... versus... the players who pride themselves on playing legit, and look on hackers with a general disdain (not that it's bad, but some of them develop a borderline-elitist mentality against anyone who's Lv. 200).

    If I were you and bought PSP2 English, I'd probably just level up my character in anticipation of the English release of "Infinity".

  8. #8
    Legend joshboyd1209's Avatar
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    Like DeviFoxx said it is not hard to navigate menus in Infinity even if you do not know Japanese(although I recomend palying the US demo for vanilla PSP2 first though to memorize some of the icons and where everything is in the stores ) however SEGA and PSN still need to do some DLC missions for weapons like World of Guardians as it is not dropped on any known mission that comes on the disc even though it is there and if you play with a hacker they can help you get if they have the correct cheat codes.

  9. #9

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    Oh I'm not worried about figuring out the UI, I'm ok with trial-and-error. I'm more concerned about NPC dialogue (mainly story and missions... are there basic translations for the important stuff?) and language barrier with the Japanese players. Hehe this might be interesting after all. A whole game in Japanese... that could enhance the atmosphere in a way.

    To buy this I suppose I have to register a Japanese PSN ID and buy it from the PlayStation Store, right? Since PSP2 is 15$ I figure Infinity is in the 30-40 range?

    I might get both versions though. The English first to go thru the story then later port my character(s) to Infinity for the online. Hopefully it doesn't lag too much.

    Could you share a link outlining most of the main differences between PSP2 and Infinity as well as Infinity's new content? Stickies did not prove useful on that.

    Oh and thanks for the accurate replies so far, it's very helpful.

    [EDIT]

    Oh wait. Can you transfer save data from one PSN ID to another? If not... I'll have to use Play-Asia. Ouch, the game is $60+shipping on there lol.
    Last edited by Rovelius; May 3, 2011 at 01:40 AM.

  10. #10

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    There would be a barrier if you wish to transfer a character over from PSP2 US to PSP2i, and that would be the game data. Requires CFW to do that.

    You may or may not need 2 PSP's for this since, each time you switch accounts on one you need to reactivate the games/add-ons associated with the PSN ID.

    Price range is about $50-$55 from last I checked, and it also requires you to get a JP PSN card to make any valid purchases. And no credit/debit cards will not work.

    I can name a few differences, so someone else fill it in as I go along:
    -Race and class selection are more balanced this time around.
    -5th race Dewman
    -Type selection max increased from 30 to 50.
    -Some PA's were fixed or nerfed depending on the PA, for example Blade Destruction.
    -Online mode has a lobby feature similar to PSO.
    -Infinity Missions, customisable missions you craft to your liking, like drop rate increase.
    -Being able to have your friends characters as NPC's or bring along your gang of characters to fight.
    -Screenshot function, hold down the Select button until you see the camera icon on the bottom of the screen.

    I think I listed most of them, as for topics that explained these I'll need to hunt around for.

    Edit: Found the thread about the changes, but you'll need to hunt through 101 pages to find them. I listed the most notable differences so it pretty much covers it until someone remembers something I forgot.

    http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=180829
    Last edited by blace; May 3, 2011 at 01:45 AM.
    Interested in playing PSP2i without starting over? Click here to get started or look here for people converting saves.

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