Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genessis

[Kiboune]

They changed animation for Twister Fall?

[Kondibon]

There's something about this that just sets alarms off in my head.

If this was a graphical revamp, wouldn't it make more sense to show off more than just the Naberian Forest? Something feels wrong - my whole core just can't stop feeling like this is EXACTLY the dilemma that FFXIV 1.0 went through, wherein SquareEnix bit off more than they could chew and nearly tarnished the Final Fantasy brand (to the point where Naoki Yoshida had to WoW-ify it in order to save it from the dumpster fire it had been).

If this game truly IS trying to go through an ARR-style rebirth... something tells me that they don't understand WHY FFXIV: ARR was as well-received as it was.

I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic, but we NEED more info. Because right now, I got a BAD feeling about this.

I'm not sure why you're getting ARR vibes from this. ARR was a response to FFXIV basically being a trashfire on launch. PSO2, flaws aside has been relatively well recieved at its core. If anything this probably just them taking advantage of not needing to tie the game to the vita anymore. The main things people have been wanting are overhauls of the classes and some core mechanics and a graphical update. If you actually look at the gameplay flow it's not much different from how Ph and Et play.

If I was going to compare this to another game (graphic updates aside, because I'm pretty sure that's just the vita shackles coming off), I would say it's a lot more like going from Phantasy Star Universe/Portable to Phantasy Star Portable 2. Showing off new stuff is probably just to make it look new and flashy instead of showing stuff people already know about. If it's an entirely new game (which I honestly doubt based on the timing of the NA launch), then they probably wouldn't nuke regular PSO2 anyway. At least not right off the bat.

[Kazzi]

agreed

this is more like the PSO2 that should have been

SEGA just learned from their mistakes they made with PSO2 and decided to make a new PSO2 title but with a different name and a brand new playstyle/graphics

Wow this whole comment is so wrong.

PSO2 started development when PSOBB was still around. It had it's first alpha tests in 2011. What games are capable of now are immense compared to when PSO2 was created, and back then even without the graphics 6 setting the game looked beautiful for it's generation. PSO2 was exactly what they envisioned and wanted, it's just that as technology continued to improve the game just got outdated. This is by no means "what PSO2 should have been" because the game always WAS what they meant it to be.

They've been working on this update for a while, there was rumors about it way back at the 15th anniversary festival and even more rumors at the pso2fes last year (albeit everyone joked pso3). I'm glad it turned out to be real because the game really needs an overhaul, here's praying they finally cut out all the clutter (looking at you non NT weapons and outdated content).

[Kondibon]

it's just that as technology continued to improve the game just got outdated.

The game looked outdated when it came out. Not by a lot mind you, but if you compare it to a bunch of other online games and MMOs that came out at around the same time, PSO2 stands out. I don't think it ever NEEDED to look super amazing, since a big part of the draw for people like myself was the relatively low fidelity and small maps made it easier to run on basically anything. You'd have to be crazy to think it looked great for the time, considering its contemporaries were GW2, and Blade&Soul. And just to clarify because I know at least one person is going to say those games look super generic or whatever, but I'm just talking about fidelity and environment design, something PSO2 took a long time to really get a grasp on.

[Renvalt]

I'm not sure why you're getting ARR vibes from this. ARR was a response to FFXIV basically being a trashfire on launch. PSO2, flaws aside has been relatively well recieved at its core. If anything this probably just them taking advantage of not needing to tie the game to the vita anymore. The main things people have been wanting are overhauls of the classes and some core mechanics and a graphical update. If you actually look at the gameplay flow it's not much different from how Ph and Et play.

If I was going to compare this to another game (graphic updates aside, because I'm pretty sure that's just the vita shackles coming off), I would say it's a lot more like going from Phantasy Star Universe/Portable to Phantasy Star Portable 2. Showing off new stuff is probably just to make it look new and flashy instead of showing stuff people already know about. If it's an entirely new game (which I honestly doubt based on the timing of the NA launch), then they probably wouldn't nuke regular PSO2 anyway. At least not right off the bat.

When you say Portable 2, you don't mean Infinity AKA the one we never got, right? Also, having never played Phantasy Star Portable 2 but remembering what PSU was like (to a degree), I'm not sure if going from a full console to a handheld is actually a "graphical improvement".

Either way, me making that comparison is just a personal dealio. I can't shake the feeling of SOMETHING being wrong, with how little has been shown. Personally, for me to feel more at ease, they'd need to showcase AT LEAST 2 or 3 more areas/enemy types before I truly feel that this is an actual overhaul and not a totally new game/attempt at ARR.

Considering how much I've enjoyed PSO2 since it came out officially in JP (which was when I started playing; you can check my post history if you're skeptical), you're not wrong about PSO2 itself being a good game. However, it's done a lot of things since then which have given me the feeling of the developers having some kind of fatigue towards the game itself (either that, or the systems currently in place aren't capable of doing what the developers want; my personal opinion is the former, tbh).

I dunno, just... ever since the crunching of Free Fields that slowly began in Episode 3 - which got worse in Episode 4, and were obliterated in Episode 5 altogether - I've been slowly feeling like the team working on PSO2 is straight up sick and tired of working on it, and wants to break from it and make something fresh. Not that I'd blame them for doing so, but at least be open about it and tell us if that's the case, shareholder intimidation be damned.

EDIT: Again, just my opinions - I'm probably wrong, and I'll be happy to admit such if and when the proof presents itself. But my own personal gut just feels something's not right here.

[Kondibon]

When you say Portable 2, you don't mean Infinity AKA the one we never got, right? Also, having never played Phantasy Star Portable 2 but remembering what PSU was like (to a degree), I'm not sure if going from a full console to a handheld is actually a "graphical improvement".

I meant in terms of mechanical overhaul. I pretty clearly said "graphic updates aside". Again, I'm pretty sure the graphic updates are just due to being able to get away from Vita support.

As for the rest of your stuff I think it's pretty clear to everyone that the game had a serious case of feature bloat that's been needing to get looked at and overhauled in general. Between the skill trees, the bunch of quest formats, and everything else, SOMETHING like this was a long time coming. It could still be an entirely new game, and I don't really see a problem with that outside of basically fucking over the NA players, which would make the NA release timing kind of weird. But comparing it to ARR implies basically redoing the core of the game, but the actual GAMEPLAY style seems basically the same, so at most they'd probably be trimming the fat and making a more holistic experience instead of the patchwork of random game modes and temporary content.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a bit apprehensive that they didn't show much old content off either if it's meant to be an overhaul to the existing game, but this is pretty clearly a "look at the new shiny open world" trailer.

[MikonX]

I'm not sure why there's discussion as to if this an update or a new entirely separate game; Bumped spells it out quite clearly.

https://www.bumped.org/psublog/phant...for-pc-xbox-1/

In celebration of Phantasy Star Online's 20th Anniversary, a new title for the series was announced. Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis updates PSO2's game and graphic engine.

Seems pretty self-explanatory to me.

[NightlightPro]

Wow this whole comment is so wrong.

PSO2 started development when PSOBB was still around. It had it's first alpha tests in 2011. What games are capable of now are immense compared to when PSO2 was created, and back then even without the graphics 6 setting the game looked beautiful for it's generation. PSO2 was exactly what they envisioned and wanted, it's just that as technology continued to improve the game just got outdated. This is by no means "what PSO2 should have been" because the game always WAS what they meant it to be.

They've been working on this update for a while, there was rumors about it way back at the 15th anniversary festival and even more rumors at the pso2fes last year (albeit everyone joked pso3). I'm glad it turned out to be real because the game really needs an overhaul, here's praying they finally cut out all the clutter (looking at you non NT weapons and outdated content).

let me clarify you this:

EP4-EP5 was when SEGA has started making mistakes

what did you really like from it since then?

the whole content was all wrong and they were just running out of creativity to keep PSO2 still a cool game, and it all ended up with ruining it even more and more, until they realized that all they needed was something else like brand new.

Well now we all know what it is? and will it replace all the things that went wrong with PSO2 (or atleast i hope)

[Batty]

If this is actually an overhaul to the current pso2, then thats one MASSIVE overhaul. I wouldn't even compare it to FFXIV ARR level of overhaul, you can still see elements of the original version 1 on ARR. New Genesis being an update to pso2 looks more like if FFXI or GW transformed into FFXIV/GW2 by means of a patch update instead of being different games. How many gbs would an update like that add if the current game is allready about 82gb size?

[Kondibon]

Seems pretty self-explanatory to me.

That could go either way though. It's super vague. "A new title" could imply an entirely new game, but expansions are often referred to that way as well. You can make a new game using an updated version of an earlier engine, but you can also just update the engine to a game and add to it without making an entirely new game.