In a recent Phantasy Star Universe blog interview, the developers talked about some additional merchandise tie-ins such as a mini-strategy guide and cell-phone statistics service. The strategy guide will include maps, monster data, item data, and mission information. It will retail for 1200 yen. By using the cell-phone service, players will be able to view in-game news, Partner Cards, character stats, and status of your player shop. Also, you will be able to download items to customize your phone. Credit goes to EspioKaos for spotting this news.

The Sega of America page for Phantasy Star Universe was updated recently to indicate that they expect a Fall 2006 for the US XBox 360 version of the game. No specific release date for any US version has been announced yet. Credit goes to mattdude for letting us know about this update.

On the official Phantasy Star Universe blog, the developers revealed a new character and talked about Network Mode today. The new character is known as Leia Martinez (her first name could be translated a few different ways). She is a beast girl with connections to Leo and Maya.


In addition, the deverlopers made the following points about Network Mode:

• The offline story will be continued with a series of online Story Missions. These missions will be chained together to form a unique plotline. According to the interview, new missions will be distributed periodically and you must play the previous story missions to access new ones. You will be able to meet new characters, such as Leia Martinez, and obtain their Partner Card.
• An Internet connection will be required to to play the offline story mode for the PC version of the game. This is being done for security reasons. You will not need a "Hunter's License" in order to play the offline mode.
• PC players will be able to save their offline characters locally or on the server. If you store them on the server, you can access your account from different places such as Internet cafes.
• 500 people will be to play on one Universe (server) at one time. This limit is flexible and may increase.
• On the Playstation 2 Premiere Disc, players had access to four areas of stages. In the release version, players will be able to access six to start with. The number of accessible areas will increase gradually. Also, there will be areas that can only be accessed through events or special missions.

In the final part of the interview, it was mentioned that certain stores will be holding a lottery on the opening day to distribute special prizes. These prizes will include a Rie Tanaka (VA for Karen) Alarm clock, commemorative watch, and a Quo card. Participants will receive a Phantasy Star Universe Special Movie Collection disc.

Credit goes to uhawww and Tycho for helping to translate the material. You can discuss this update in our Phantasy Star Universe forum.

The Gamecube servers will be going down for maintenance on August 29th between 14:00 and 17:00 Japanese time to activate the Fall theme. The Fall theme is set to last until September 26th. This maintenance will affect Episode 1&2, Episode 1&2 Plus, and Episode 3. Please do not try to connect during this period. If you are online when the maintenance starts, you will be given a ten minute warning before you are automatically disconnected.

In today's Phantasy Star Universe blog interview, the developers talked about some of the details of the weapons system for the game. The talk centered mostly on the effects of Photon Arts, weapon manufacturers, and Partner Machinery arms production. This news article will give a brief overview of the most important points from the interview:

• Certain Photon Arts will allow you to stun enemies and knock them away from you.
• If you attack a monster from behind, you will have a 100% chance of hitting it. Since it is hard to attack a monster from behind in a one-on-one situation, communicating and cooperating with your teammates is an important part of the battle system.
• In Phantasy Star Universe, there will be four types of ARMS manufacturers:
• GRM - based out of Parum
• Youmei - based out of Neudaiz
• Tenora Works - based out of Moatoob
• Non-branded items will be classified as a "KUBARA article"
• A weapon's manufacturer will influence its statistics. For example, a certain manufacturer may build weapons that emphasize PP (weapon special points), while another will try to build a balanced weapon. You should choose a manufacturer that suits your playing style.
• Through Partner Machinery, you will be able to produce items that have elemental attributes. Stores rarely sell these types of weapons.
• If your weapon has an elemental attribute, the damage the monster takes will increase if it has the appropriate elemental affinity.

You can discuss this news article in our Phantasy Star Universe forum.

Clumsyorchid announced today on the psobb.com forums that a patch is being issued that should resolve the Cat/Bunny Ears glitch in a Dangerous Deal. This patch will be larger than usual, so keep that in mind if you are on a dial-up connection. Also, users will receive one Photon Crystal on the character that logs into the server first. If your inventory is full, you will receive it the next time you login - assuming that your character has enough space.

In today's interview on the official PSU blog, the developers went over some details about the battle system. Probably the most exciting thing to come out of this interview was some new information about Expert Mode. According to the screenshots, you will be able to choose from a number of advanced jobs. These advanced job combinations will provide you with unique combinations of stat boosts and weapon-handling capabilities. If you decided to take your class to its extreme, you will be able to handle S-Rank weapons in most of the categories that are associated with a specific class. For example, a character that completely specializes in the Hunter category will probably be able to handle all S-Rank melee equipment. However, you will still be free to change your Advanced Job at any time by visiting the appropriate counter on the Guardian Colony. Please keep in mind that in addition to having stat requirements, weapons also have grade requirements. If you want to use a S-Rank Sword and your character only has an A-Rank proficiency with his/her current job, you will be unable to use it.


Picture Censored by PSU Blog Team
In other recent developer interviews, they talked about the online gaming experience. One of the biggest changes from PSO will be the communcations system. It has been designed to be more realistic. For example, if you far away from someone, their text bubble will be small. If a large group of people say the same thing, a massive text bubble will appear instead of the screen being flooded with smaller ones. In addition, people will be able to use team chat and only the people in your team will be able to read what you type. This was implemented to replace using simple mail for private conversations.

Finally, some new PSU T-Shirts were highlighted. One of these t-shirts features a herd of Koltova and Karam from the Green Green Farms (Karam helps to raise Koltova). Unfortunately, these shirts are currently not for sale. If you would like to see them produced, please contact SegaDirect.



Credit goes to Velocity_7 for spotting the Expert Mode news update and EspioKaos for translating and summarizing the rest. You can discuss this update in our Phantasy Star Universe forum.

According to Gamefront.de, Sega of Japan warned distributors today not to break the street date for Phantasy Star Universe. The earliest the game can go on sale is August 31st at 7 am. Breaking the street date could have serious legal repercussions. Also, if someone attempts to go online before that date, their account will be suspended indefinitely. So if you happen to receive the game early, be sure to wait until the 31st to go online.

Starting on September 1st, Japanese Blue Burst players will receive 10x droprates as a reward for gaining 200 million points in Maximum Attack 4. The increased droprate period is set to run until September 4th. If you ever wanted go to hunting for a super-rare like the Yasha, Sealed J-Sword, or Real Nei's Claw, now is the time. Credit goes to Nites for spotting this news.