The IP actually wasn't in a different place at all, except maybe outside of Japan where the IP always barely existed. PSO2 didn't really do anything special that the previous games were not doing. Obviously PSO2 makes money, but one of Sega's headliners? Not a chance. Mind, I'm not saying it's "niche" either, as whether something is "niche" or not is incredibly relative, and it can easily be changed because it's not an innate quality whatsoever.
... this is bothersome to research. At a glance and to keep it simple(both ways), PSO2 Global and JP were the two highest grossing F2P games they had back in August 2020, and their F2P amount to slightly less than a third of their gaming division, according to this article:
https://mmos.com/news/phantasy-star-...een-april-june
It's on me for never taking the time to thouroughyl fact check all this stuff though. I could have things to present to you, and I don't.
The roadmap really was not much more "content-rich" at all. and PSO2's idea of free fields are not really the same thing as NGS's idea of open fields. We are starting with six classes, with multiple classes coming within the first six months. It took a year (eventually two years, disregarding Episode 6) to get a single class before.
Okay, disclaimer, I'm not trying to bum everyone down. Mine was a reaction of surprise and confusion, so I don't have much of a wish to fight you, if you're excited, cool!
With that being said, I do think you're factually incorrect here. First, class concepts are ripped straight from the previous game to a much higher degree than usual(same weapons lineup with generally similar gameplay, very... evocative skill trees as well), second, you can't both push that we started at three and that we got none for a while since Fi, Gu and Te came pretty fast, and third, areas in New Genesis are individually pretty small, though I get the feeling this isn't something everyone's realized. The enemy variety is also, thus far, well kinda disappointing there's not much of a way around it, and with four new zones came/will come, proportionally, very few new things to fight. PSO2 was guilty of palette swapping no doubt, but, still, overall, with two bosses each time most of them brand new and a bunch of new regular ones per zone at least... we had housing too, and a full mag system.
What they seem to be doing, is applying PSO2's more... leisurely pace as an aging game, to NGS, immediately. Which makes sense in a number of ways mind you, but I definitely don't think it's ideal.
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