I much prefer this game to PSU

[AndyPandy]

I only recently got this game, and after playing PSU, I must say its more like PSO, ie more fun, in my opinion.

The one thing I hated in PSU was the way rares were handled. I thought it spoiled the one thing that made PSO great, the chance of looting a rare weapon, there and then. I just hated the whole weapon synth thing. PSU, is still an good game though.

Anyway, just my thoughts on what appears to be a great handheld game for PSP.

[TecherRamen]

yes I agree. actually finding a weapon is usually more fun than synthing one.

[Waki Miko Syamemaru!]

I agree as well. I never liked synthing at all. The only time I do synth is to make Room Decos...and free Scape dolls. Yea I be cheap like that. Also I like the grinding aspect. I don't have to worry about breakage aside from the Meat weapons. But then again I don't use em so its no biggy. Another thing is I can grind quests to get the special outfits instead of runnin a special mission OVER AND OVER just to get a freakin rare item just to find out I need X amount of other hard to get rare items. Bull honkery. Oh and the "Bleep Bloops" are fun to get. "I died 100 times on purpose! OOOOOH RAPPY SUIT!!!!". Ya know, playing "Yakety Sax" while trying to get that achievement is fun as hell.

[Dragwind]

Actually finding weapons is one of the few things I prefer in PSP over PSU. Other than that, it's virtually the same game with minor differences and less to do.

[Volcompat321]

I prefer PSU still. Although the portable-ness of PS:P is great, it's just not the same to me.
This game is a bit too east after you reach high levels, and I now have 2 characters I beat the game with.
I really cant wait til the new one comes out, I hope it's soon too.
(is the US/EU one due out in January? or was that the JP one?)
Either way, I'll switch my file to the JP one just to play the second PS:P. Then when it comes out in US/EU, I will just switch my file back over.

[Darklighter]

That you can find weapons with up to 50% attribute just kicks the crap out of synthing in PSU. I have yet to get a 50% anything outside Bouquets in PSU but have more 50% stuff in PSP then I know what to do with.

[Volcompat321]

Yea, I do like that part of it, but if it were that easy in PSU, I think people would just complain about how easy it would be, because they are still complaining it's too easy.
Of all my weapons (on my main character) if I have the same weapon, I keep the highest % and sell the rest.
I tend to keep only 50% or 49% weps. I only keep 50% armors. (Have all 50% Red Lines)
That took me over 100+ hours to get too. In those 100+ hours doing True Darkness runs, I've only gotten 1 Guld & Milla too, so you can see how rare those are lol.

[Waki Miko Syamemaru!]

I got a Saber that was 50% ice. What did I do with it? I grinded that sucker to 10/10. For no reason. Maybe because it was 2:30 in the mornin and I was suffering from a bout of "CRAZY TYME"

[panzer_unit]

The things I liked best about PS:P:

* The pace for learning skills was fast enough that I was able to master ALL the jobs... not just ranks but playing with maxed skill levels, while I was still interested. I got as far as starting Beast and Cast characters as dedicated FighMaster and GunMaster but got very bored trying to hunt appropriate rares for them.
PSU was slow so that the only thing really within my level of patience / time to play was mastering a single job. It fits since it's more of an MMO and players are supposed to depend on each other to compensate for individual limitations... but I'm not the sort who can play the game like rocking a shotgun is my full-time job.

* The character classes have a lot more breadth. Every job has a wide variety of good melee weapon types, can shoot to some effect, and cast techniques... which is an absolute good for the fact that it reminds me of PSO, never mind the actual utility (I can't count the number of situations Tornado Dance saved me from as a Force) one strange note is that as a Protranser I'm using mostly the the weapons they didn't have in PSU - rifle, doubles, twin claw, and rod lol.

* Race balance is a lot better for Humans and Newmans... partly because of RCSM access on all non-magic jobs, and decent statistical balance on the hybrid classes. RCSMs and they're strong enough to make up for the loss of ATP a bit, especially when using mag/slicer as a fighter or mag/saber as a gunner.

* The set of job types make sense. The list isn't padded out with a million variations of "nonmagical fighter/gunner hybrid" and the two types that can sort-of use magic weren't beaten with a nerfing stick for the privilege. On the downside I don't see what room ST's left themselves for additional guardian types in PS:P2

[Gibdozer]

Coming from 3 years of PSU 360 to PSP it's very rewarding to finally find some decent rares. It's also really fun to level spells and bullets with blinding speed(compared to PSU). I can't say I like the PSP version better, but it's certainly fun!

[Ryna]

I like PSP for the following reasons:
-Being able to find completed weapons with decent percentages is preferable to synthing.
-Photon Arts and Jobs level reasonably fast.

The biggest issue I had with PSP is that too much like PSU. After playing through PSU's missions several times over, playing the exact same ones on PSP was boring.

[Dragwind]

Not to mention that everything is 10x easier, and depending on your situation you're stuck playing the game alone which is not fun. Your only other options are local friends, or dealing with a non-user friendly format of playing the game online with a much smaller player base.

I find the game to be ok as an introduction to the PSU series. PS:P2 on the other hand sounds like it's shaping up to fix those issues.

[panzer_unit]

Haha yeah, it was lol/sad that in 40 hours of PSP I already had more rares than 1000+ of PSU.

[Gibdozer]

My only real complaint is that it has no trading system, its like they tried to force out any incentive to seek out co-op games!

[panzer_unit]

Enemies need to have about twice the HP in end-game missions ... that way you'd want at least two characters beating through missions just for efficiency's sake. As it is I can clear spawns with a Tornado Break combo and a second player really doesn't speed things up much.

Or they should do more about mission maps having branching and back-tracking so a team can split up to save tons of time overall.

[Akaimizu]

The difficulty is pretty much all to the issue of the US version not getting the extra tough monster download missions. What was nice about that end game, was that you had the choice to go up against monsters well over the max level your characters can go to. It was still possible, but it definitely upped the end-game challenge. Especially since you can have 3 scape dolls (max), and you have to find every scape doll instead of being able to buy it (or in some cases, not even see a Scape doll drop in several runs).

However, I do agree. PS:P was designed first and foremost to be able to play with a pocket-system aspect in mind, plus single-player offline in mind. So as far as how quickly you get rares, among other things, I can see why it was done though it still has you playing plenty of hours to get everything considering the 1-time purchase price of the product. Absolutely well worth it, in my opinion. The 2nd one sounds like it could be insane. Having a more accessible multiplayer would give them the excuse to have extra difficult (you want a party) style missions just because they know you'll be able to team up.

Obviously, they'll have to make sure much of the necessary game missions are accessible for single-players to beat with, at most, maxed out characters. That's the nature of supporting a pocket system that demands a full-on offline experience with each title.

Still, I think it's natural progression. Phantasy Star Online started off as a game you wouldn't spend THAT many hours to beat, and you could get a lot of your stuff in much shorter time. It was then when SEGA realized that the game they didn't originally intend to have a very long grind could be made into something bigger. Thus all the additions for Version 2 and the Episode 1 and 2.

Now, if they do intend to make the game have something closer to the amount of hours (to get the stuff) as in Monster Hunter Freedom Unite; I guess it would be cool if they also add in the diversions to just combat. A casino or something would be nice, but the only bad thing I can see from that is that people would abuse a casino that has data linked to offline save files. Perhaps if the casino rewards has nothing to do with obtaining items you would use for going into combat. Maybe some decoration you can use in a room, or some funny lobby thing you get. That way cheating would serve little purpose, but winning the casino could be a fun past-time.

Like it or not, Phantasy Star will always have the standard *dungeon crawling* roots it came from. So obviously, better weapons and equipment will make things easier for you. Monster Hunter has a very different system and set-up from any "dungeon crawler" due to the idea that those who cheat for good equipment, will still have a hard time with the game unless they built up the necessary skills to use such equipment, in the first place. The difficulty curve, there, is being able to use such a weapon in the first place. So it's not as linked to a weapon's stats until you overcome the weapon-use hurdle first. Dungeon Crawlers generally make weapon use accessible to most anybody.

Thus I think PSP japan had the right idea. Don't make it cease to be a good standard Dungeon Crawler. People already fell in love with that sublime aspect since the earlier games. Just make the end game monsters a certain amount of levels over the max any character can get. Thus making the survivability a challenge for anybody who hasn't learned the deeper nuances of the game, and fight smarter to use the group and/or whatever gameplay legal exploits they can figure out to do what they need to do without dieing.