How DID all of you get into Phantasy Star or PSO/U?

Tails chao.

Trying to hang out with people I knew, because of where I lived. We didn't have much to do (I live with very protective parents) so one day we were looking at a gaming magazine and seen the early segment about PSO ver 1. It looked interesting so I got it, and then shortly I got my friends addicted to it.

Later once one of my friends told me about the GC getting PSO with split-screen I bought that the day it was released, good times... For PSU, I guess it was just instinct I because an PS fan so, no doubt I would try PSU. Although I didn't get onto network mode, until about a whole year.

PSO ep I&II seemed like an interesting game back then in my Gamecube days. It simply attracted my attention and I bought it in christmas, birthday or summer, I can't really remember (only that I spent a whole summer playing it a lot in offline mode).

I never liked PSO to the point to follow all its versions/updates, in fact I got bored of it pretty fast, but I liked the concept so I kept an eye on it from time to time, and at some point I got notice that they were making a sequel. I forgot about that for a couple years, I guess, then one day found PSU in a local game shop, so I looked in internet and really liked the concept of hybrid classes and the futuristic theme, so I bought it. I don't remember all the details, but I bought the game in the middle of my last year of institute, and played the offline mode until I started college. There I got my first "real" bank account with a debit card and I decided to try the online mode. That would be not too far from the game release (less than a year, more than 6 months).

Then got a group of friends, played really hardcore for the first years, but got bored of it a bit before the US servers got nuked (due to some... eh, kinda massive argument between pretty much all the people I used to play with). But I decided to try the JP servers, and then my girlffriend moved in with me, got hooked to the game and in tun I got re-hooked for a while. Then I stopped playing definitively about a year ago.

Then PSO2.

Remember my first Phantasy Star experience, went shopping with a new girl friend (8th Dec 1995) bought her a ring, bought myself Phantasy star 4 simply because the box looked amazing!

Said bye to her, got home started playing and never see that girl again lol.

i managed to play ps3 but got stuck right at the end, 1 and 2 i could never bring myself to play through, shame really.

PSO come out on the Dreamcast and my modem abosultely killed my parents phone bill, didnt stop me though lol. met soo many cool friends and no game other than ffxi has come close to it imo.

PSO2 come out so i got that on the GameCude, but without my original character i lose interest too quickly.

PSO3 was ok, didnt get far into it, Card games never really did it for me.

PSU and portable i have played but never completed, i have just picked up PSU on pc so gonna play that until PSO2 comes back out, which i am SOOO happy about.

simply cannot wait, i did install the japanese version but its not worth getting into it now while the EU version is pending.

i just hope alot of people are going to play it and we get to relive our original experiences of the world.

Luzz

I got into PSO because a friend of mine at the time asked me to play with him. I said no and he got so addicted to PSO on dreamcast that in order to talk to him, his father had asked me to get through to him. I bought the game and after meeting him in-game he tried to give me a pep-talk about males playing female characters being taboo.

Of course I was a HUmar, and I said "oh by the way your father wanted to spent time with you" then he said "what? he didn't say that" and he introduced me to some people he had met. A week later he was expelled from school and he logged in to give me another speech about playing female characters because I switched to HUnewearl.

He then left the game unannounced and for the first 2 weeks I played with his other friends before they left. What kept me in the game was finding and meeting players, not to mention the crazy hacks and weapons.

As for PSU, I thought of creating a more Modern version of Nei and wanted some independence. Back in PSO we did Roleplaying in characters, and did a near-perfect Nei in there but had been picked apart because of the additions I made to her that were not part of the original's personality.

So, when I played PSU, less than half of the roleplaying group came PSO to PSU, and I made a female newman (Keilyn) as my main and continued the roleplaying group. After playing and getting gear and being utterly bored, we left for two years because we were playing other games and came back later. Thats when I capped four characters up.

I had Erin as my experimental character as well as Phoebe and made Selene later.

What drew me to PSU-Japan was that a year came where we had no xmas event and I was getting mad at SEGA. I went to PSU Japan and managed to get into the server. Back then, I had a very small group I played PSU-NA with for a year.

I was extremely happy when Red* (Kaylee) came into PSU Japan, though I was sad to see DarkStar go, but I was able to talk to Darkstar in Guild Wars. I was also sad to see all the stuff that transpired when players switched versions. I remember, just like PSO....less than half the people I liked playing with tranferred over and of the ones that came over, most had their established groups but the PSU-JP economy was so much better.

Unfortunately, I know from PSO and PSU experience that it takes around 2 - 3 years for a Phantasy Star game to actually get really good. I have no idea what will draw me into PSO-2 or if I would be drawn to it again, but I have no real plans to play outside of character building out of curiosity since its F2P and most players can not afford to play F2Ps :)

I've never been more afraid of the word "FREE" when I see an F2P.

I was first introduced into the series back in the late 90s when I play Phantasy Star III for the Genesis. Of course I wasn't very impressed with the game, but I received the cart for free.

Fast forward to the Dreamcast, I still remember being disappointed when I fond out that the next Phantasy Star was going to be online (Which at the time I thought was online only). I eventually purchased a Dreamcast towards the end of it's life in 2001, and purchased Phantasy Star V.1 and V.2 in Jan of 2002.

I've been hooked every since and I've spent time on Episode. 1&2 (Gamecube), Episode 3, Blue Burst, Universe (Xbox), and PSP 1 & 2. Episode 1&2 was actually one of the reasons why I picked up the Gamecube, same with PSU and the Xbox360.

A friend showed me Phantasy Star Online episode I & II for the Gamecube. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I thought it was a neat game that I might end up playing some time.
Eventually, a few online friends introduced me to PSOPC. I could play online on my PSO. Huzzah! It was a private server, but I couldn't complain.
Then after a few years, I heard PSOBB had a private server now. I got right on that, and played away. I know, it's not really being that supportive to Sega to do so, but eh, I met many online friends that I still currently play with today, or even met in person.
I skipped out on PSU, and went straight into PSU:AoI when one of my online friends got me in for a month. It was fun times. Then the server died, and then I was left PSO-less for some time. I tried getting into PSU:AoI on the JP servers, but couldn't.
When news came up about PSO2, I jumped right on that. I wanted to play it. Didn't know how the game would end up, but I knew it was the revival of a long lost friend. And damn, did it ever impress me. It still does.

Randomly, I decided I'd play some of the older series games (sometime after being on PSOBB). I played through PSI first, and enjoyed it. The grindfest didn't feel too much out of the way. After that, I played through PSII. As much as I enjoyed the music, and the boss battles, most of the game is redundant grindfest. I know there's some story, but Nei dying didn't seem to affect me at all. I played PSIV, and instantly fell in love with the characters, the narrative, and just about everything in the game. It's well paced, fun, dramatic, and intense... I can say I cried when Alys died. I can easily put it on one of my top favorite RPGs. Still haven't played through PSIII due to getting bored partway in. It's like it took a step backwards after PSII. I guess it tried to do something different, and I couldn't get into it.

I Have Played since Dreamcast my grandma took me to the store and phantasy star stood out among everyother game so i got it played it all day. once nt gamecube broke it was time for a xbox 360 and i was looking through the market place and saw phantasy star universe for 20$ brought the member ship and i mained PSU on 360 until it was closed at first i thought that was the last game but i still wanted to check so i did research and Found PSO2

I was browsing the seasonal nintendo release guide book and when I saw pso I was Ooo this looks fun but when I saw it say online I was like aww sad face but then I saw "Offline Mode" I was SWEET MOTHER OF JESUS this is gonna be awwwwesoooooommmme. and bam here I am cursing out at the jpso2 patcher and its mass loss of signal -_-

Was browsing FilePlanet and saw that Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst had a beta. I played the hell out of PSO, it truly was an enjoyable game.

Ended up purchasing the Gamecube version shortly after and that was the start of my love with the series.