America is Coming to Phantasy Star Online 2 this August :)

[TaigaUC]

Looks like it. There's only one name under Scenario in the in-game credits.
宇野涼平 Uno Ryohei (Ryohei first name)
His Twitter is at https://twitter.com/ryohuno but he's protected his tweets. Figures.

There seems to be a Wiki dedicated to his "low quality scenario": http://www50.atwiki.jp/unoryohei/pages/25.html
I guess if there's even a Wiki complaining about him, then there's probably a significant amount of people displeased about PSO2's story.
Who knows how accurate the information on there is, though.

It says Uno Ryohei's previous works are:
PSU Ambition of Illuminus: enemy planner (ie. movement and method of attack, not design art) for Ubakurada
PS Zero: Sub scenario, enemy planner (Ark design)
Phantasy Star Portable 2, Infinity: Main scenario (as support to Takaharu Terada)

Interestingly, it says the Staff Roll of PSO2 has changed the credits listing several times:

PC version initial launch: Uno Ryohei, Otake Yasushi
Vita launch (Quna arc): Uno Ryohei only
After the start of episode 2: Uno Ryohei, Otake Yasushi

And as I mentioned above, episode 4 currently only lists Uno Ryohei as Scenario staff.

Even more interestingly, one of the introduction questions is, "I feel like I know something else with a similar scenario to PSO2...?"
The answer is that Uno Ryohei has a habit of often reusing his old scenarios and copying other games and anime.
Then it lists 3 similar past works that seem to be linked to him.

It even says there's a term called "Unorish". It's a parody of a Nomura Tetsuya Squenix work's language, known as "Nomlish".
It refers to Uno Ryohei's "strange writing even for a Japanese", "plagiarism from other works", "new and meaning unknown combination of Chinese characters", etc.

If this Wiki is true, then I guess it wasn't so much SEGA trying to be trendy and popular but that their scenario writer is... lacking.

[Meteor Weapon]

I wonder if no one begged for a scenario writer change in the feedback sheet back when sega asked for it.

Tbh, even if EP3 was "good", there's a huge lack in the build up of story towards Profound Darkness. A military organization would do everything they could possibly do to stop a powerful force from growing, but in ep3 they had to rely on only 2 person when there were armies of thousands of ARKS they could rely on to stop Double and they couldn't explain the reason behind why only us could do it, also the fact that no one bothered to investigate why Kuronians were working with Darkers and it was already too late when they realized.. Military and management wise, the Oracle could get easily screwed if Tyranid hive fleet appeared right infront of them. Darkers really went easy on them despite being unable to get killed completely by conventional weapons and require Photon Weapons which not a lot of them seem capable enough to use it at full potential and had to rely on an high schooler who was capable of asspull excalibur(total rip off) for some reason.

[EvilMag]

was Uno Ryohei involved with the writing for the PSO2 anime? Ep4's purpose seems to be just connecting the story of the game with the anime.

[TaigaUC]

According to http://seesaawiki.jp/w/radioi_34/d/P...HE%20ANIMATION he is listed as "Supervisor" alongside someone else named Mizuno Akikazu (not sure how it's read).
It looks like there isn't a "scenario writer" role on the anime staff.

[loafhero]

Oh yeah? Well, I just looked up some discussion of it on MangaFox and JP reviews of the manga.
There are several people saying the same things I wrote earlier. That the story has been going astray, that its lost its direction, etc.

http://forums.mangafox.me/threads/51...1#post13639285
http://sakuhindb.com/jmanga/BERSERK/
http://www.manngareview.com/mannga/51/
^ Added another link with some JP reviews saying similar things.

First off, that mangafox thread barely lasted for 2 pages and has died so its hardly proof of a majority opinion, Secondly, I can't read Japanese. You could go to the Berserk Reddit thread and you'd find that those that complain about the shift to High Fantasy are either not given attention or are countered by several more people who not only like the shift but acknowledge it as something Miura had planned since the very beginning of Berserk. Why do you think the Golden Age arc was called the "Golden Age"? Because its referring to the fact that the dark fantasy era of its world was coming to an end and the high fantasy era was returning.

Also, Berserk has just resumed publication. Last year, SEVEN chapters of the manga had been published and the only reason it went on hiatus starting last December was because the author was involved in the production of the (now released) anime. So the argument you're making that Miura has lost interest in Berserk makes no sense.

My point here is that you're comparisons of both Berserk and PSO2's shift in direction is not a good comparison. I could care less if you don't like Berserk and have your own vision of what it should be. Berserk had an actual story arc called the Fantasia arc lasting for 11 chapters explaining the shift to High Fantasy as an acknowledged plot point. Berserk's shift to High Fantasy was clearly planned out years before. It is not a weird and sudden change in direction especially when the High Fantasy elements has existed in the universe's lore since the first chapter. Meanwhile, PSO2's shift in direction was not planned out earlier and has absolutely nothing to do with whatever it had previously established. PSO2 and Earth is a blatant "jump the shark" whereas Berserk's shift is not.

If you still don't like Berserk's shift, that's fine but don't compare it to PSO2's shift as both have an entirely different context.

[TaigaUC]

I don't want to waste anymore time arguing with you. Even if I'm a fan of something, I try to be objective. I don't like to be blindly faithful.
I also don't have the confidence to simply state my own opinion as it is. I question myself and often check to see if there are others with similar views before I say anything.

And if you want someone to take you seriously, maybe not open by saying stuff like I'm pure bullshit and that I take things at face value.
Notice I didn't accuse you of having character flaws or being full of shit.
If you think I'm wrong, just correct me where I'm incorrect. In a reasonable manner. Preferably with some kind of proof.

[Altiea]

Even out of context, this image is great.

[DrCatco]

And thus, a meme is born. First time I witness this; truly a nature's marvel.

[Zysets]

A few pages ago people were discussing the story itself, and I just had the thought, what if Earthlings are the Photoners? That would be a weird twist. ARKS comes in contact with Earthlings, Earthlings learn of their ability to manipulate Photons, they develop newer and better technology, they go into space, and become the Photoners that create ARKS in the first place.

I have no idea how to incorporate the whole Phantom situation, and there's probably things that contradict this theory, but I'd like to believe that's where this is going. There's also the fact that this would make a weird paradox, but PSO2 already has those, so I bet it doesn't matter.

I doubt our dear scenario writer would go with that though, considering the previous posts pointing out his inability to do something not directly inspired by anime trends.

[Zephyrion]

A few pages ago people were discussing the story itself, and I just had the thought, what if Earthlings are the Photoners? That would be a weird twist. ARKS comes in contact with Earthlings, Earthlings learn of their ability to manipulate Photons, they develop newer and better technology, they go into space, and become the Photoners that create ARKS in the first place.

I have no idea how to incorporate the whole Phantom situation, and there's probably things that contradict this theory, but I'd like to believe that's where this is going. There's also the fact that this would make a weird paradox, but PSO2 already has those, so I bet it doesn't matter.

I doubt our dear scenario writer would go with that though, considering the previous posts pointing out his inability to do something not directly inspired by anime trends.

Well, at SOME point, this story would have to at least somewhat link back to the core setting of the story (probably won't, but let me try to muster all of my optimism to weather through all the anime BS the next story events will throw at me)

- Sierra does confirm in the story during the long explanation summing up their situations (that I mostly skipped sooo) that Ether has similar properties to Photons. Mother Cluster is made of people who are gifted at using Ether, and use it to create Phantoms, similarly to how Dark Falz use photons to create darkers. Also accounts for how Mother Cluster can actually infiltrate ARKS, under the pretense of bug-fixing a game.

I don't expect this to go further than "hey random photoners decided to go to earth long ago and yaay humans and ARKS have similar origins, love and brotherhood, yaay ! Let's use this power to vanquish evil Mother Cluster, who will probably associate with Dark Falz for x reason. Final fight, evil is defeated, now establish true peace ! But now, Arks have to go back to space and do actually relevant stuff so bye, but we won't forget the fact that somewhere in space, we have bros watching over us !"). I' d actually prefer your scenario 40 times over that, but the story has been so predictable so far (I called Enka being secret superhero the MOMENT they introduced him, just had to think of the most cliché thing to do and BAM) that I wouldn't place my two cents on this.

- The only thing that would remain a question mark, and the only reason I'm somewhat remotely going through this is "in this case, what's Aru's role, aside from being an annoying kid. His role seems important enough for him to go through obligatory embarassing bath scene and be extensively introduced, but can't pinpoint exactly what's his purpose (probably because I've skipped through every scene that looked irrelevant to the "plot", read half of the story episodes). If anybody can cue on this ?