On September 30th, 2003, the U.S. Phantasy Star Online Dreamcast servers will officially close, thus ending the legacy that this greatly repetitive, yet, addictive game that has brought along the thousands of couch warriors to wield a blade of light, arm a handgun, or block with staves, and embark on an almost plotless quest to figure out what exactly happened to a starship carrying half a civilization and leaving all but one woman alive...

Enter one young man, on May 12th, 2001. It is his birthday today and couldn't decide what to get. Days before, out of sheer mystery, he peered into what is popularly known today as the Versus Books Guide for PSO. He "just" looked at it after seeing it on the magazine stands out of pure curiousity. After reading what he saw, he was very interested. Back to May 12th...he almost didn't get this game (he would've gotten it at a later date) but perseverence enabled him to score some cheese from his old man and nab that sucka'.

And then he read the manual in the car, but he decided to play the Sonic Adventure 2 demo that came with the game first.

Was it just only me or was everyone blown away at the first sight of Forest 1? And the music...damn, it was glorious hearing the piano keys...

We all had made some newbie-ish errors. Me, for example: I sold my Mag, I did the Hunter's Guild quests thinking I would advance to the Caves, I actually quit in the middle of the Dragon (most likely because I didn't have a Mag and it was taking ages...I was 10 minutes into the fight as a RAcaseal and a Rifle and I still hadn't taken away more than half of the Dragon's HP!), not knowing how to combo, being afraid of De Rol Le, continuously playing the Ruins over and over into LEVEL FORTY AND ENTERING A VERY HARD FOREST GAME ONLINE WITHOUT A MAG...

Then we got see our first rare items. The Chain Sawd just...OWNED! I wanted one badly (unfortuneately, the first one I was given was a dupe with 60% Dark, but I never really blazed through the areas like anyone else would). Some git PKed me and stole it, but I had a back-up Chain Sawd (duped, but without percents).

The game is something to see, and it just does things to you. I was able to meet many people on PSO and then e-mail some or meet a couple of others online in a forum or an IM app.

PSO was an addictive pill. We all never stopped playing. I never changed characters much, and if I did, it was mostly because my character file corrupted...*sigh*...so many lost Reenee HUnewearls... *bawls*

Dreamcast PSO will be gone. I wish I could get one more game...on Version 1, but my Dreamcast won't let me. One more time, with everybody I used to know... Now that I think about the close friends I met on PSO, my heart fell. I'm empty from the fact that I'll never see these people again...

The old PSO. Gone. Now it's just a memory.

Farewell, friendly nemesis. I'll miss it all.

*lowers head in respect*