what do the acronym mean?

[Ceezer]

I see alot of acronyms like

VAmar, VAmarl; VAcast, VAcaseal; VAnewm, VAnewearl; VAbeast, VAbeaseal; VAdewm, VAdewearl.

BRmar etc..

can anyone enlighten me a bit on what they actually mean

I would assume the VA is for vanguard and BR for braver but a little confused on the rest

thanks in advance

[Mike]

You're right about the first part. Those are jobs. HUnter, FOrce, RAnger, BRaver/VAnguard. Braver and vanguard are the same thing, only Japanese and English respectively. The later part represents race and sex. If it ends in an "l," then it's a female. "R" and "t" are male. Mar / marl are humans, cast / caseal are casts/androids, beast / beaseal are beasts, newm / newearl are newmen, dewm / dewearl are dewmen, the new race for Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity. All these abbriveiations are leftovers from PSO and don't quite fit in to the PSU terminology as well as they did with PSO.

[Ami]

PSO way of class+gender+race

mar=Human male/Marl= Human female
Cast= Cast male/caseal= Cast female
newm= Newman male/newearl= Newman female
beast= Beast male/beaseal= Beast female
dewm= Deu/Duman male/dewearl= Deu/Duman female

Also you'll probably see with starting

HU= Hunter
RA= Ranger
FO= Force
VA/BR= Vanguard/Braver (same class different name so eh)

Personally, I don't use this way of shortening for the Gurhal-based Phantasy Stars because I like to keep it exclusively to PSO.

EDIT: Mike beat me to it dammit *shakes cane at him*

[Ceezer]

thanks folks :-D