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| exodus 3558th Post
 
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|  "Pantasy Star" , posted Tue 10 Oct 06:07
Man, that is a pretty good deal!
My japanese one was $260, so thankfully I don't feel cheated.
As for PSU, to be honest I didn't play PSO...or any other Phantasy Star. But I did like this game, pretty much.
Here are some impressions:
I had access to three worlds - First is Guardians HQ - this is where your room is, which you can decorate as you see fit, with stuff you can buy in the mall, and you can often hook up with other players here. There are training missions, and also missions you can get from the Guardians dispatch, but I was unable to get on any of those during the beta. Not sure if anyone else did...
Second world I went to was Parum...sort of drab introductory world, but with a good shopping area. There was a 'flight deck' or something, from which you can go on missions that don't have to be dispatched, and which can be redone over and over. Good place to get money/items/EXP/try out new weapons. This is where I leveled up.
Third world was Neudaiz (something like that...they had a lot of puns in the game, like that one, and shop names like D-mode or...something. Foggy brain.). This place was higher level (the flight deck missions you could take had monsters at level 15+, as opposed to the 10+ enemies in Parum), and this is apparently a good place for Force characters, as they sell lots of force tech and gear there. I met two out of four people that I met during the whole beta there, and they were both force characters, so...I guess that's that. This is a 'mystical orient'-themed place, with lots of big buddhist looking gates and western-vision-of-asia type architecture. Very nice looking, koi ponds and all. The flight deck missions from there had much nicer environments, with leafy autumn-colored trees, or blue islands (two missions were available here).
You can upgrade your weapons in the game, but only at the planet of the weapon's manufacturer, which is a little silly, but not a big inconvenience, as when you fly from planet to planet you can choose what area to start from (ie you can just choose to transport straight to the shopping mall). I never did this, because I was conserving money. Right at the end I got a pike from an enemy drop that I wanted to try to upgrade, but the beta period ended literally five minutes after I got it.
I stayed hunter class, as I feel it suits me better than ranger or force, so I had a big sword, then a small saber/gun combo. Not sure how it was in PSO, but the large sword combos three times, and can hit a wide horizontal range of enemies. It was ultimately too slow for my tastes, and I wound up never using it after I got my first spear(which was better than the pike from the item drop, incidentally). The spear I bought was faster, also three hit combo, but only in a straight vector from the character. You could hit two enemies or more at once if they were either right next to each other or one behind the other though. Powerful and fun.
The Gun/Saber combo was good because after completing the training mission, you got a photon arts skill to link to the saber. These are special skills that require photon points, which gradually charge up during battle. Some weapons have more photon points to start with than others, and you can charge them if you don't want to wait, at various points in the game (towns, or sometimes in the field). Saber is quick (the second one I bought was really quick), but short range. I still used it a lot though, and the force character I fought with used it constantly. The gun is also useful because you can toggle a first person mode (I assume you could do this in PSO?) even if you're not a ranger, and blast away at the flying creatures, which are otherwise tough to hit. You can't move while you're doing this.
The synthesis stuff is ok, not super exciting yet because I don't know how to make any weapons. (Note, synthesis is like recipes - you find 'boards', feed them to your Personal Machine or whatever it's called, and then it can make items for you if you have the ingredients. There's more to this machine than I know, at this point, because you can give him items and it seems to increase his stats.)
Really annoying how it keeps logging me off and putting me on another server, especially when I'm grouped with someone and in combat. This could have been my connection some of the time, but not all the time, I don't think.
Combat is pretty fun, overall, except sega has never learned how to use a camera in games, and this is no exception. It changes around all the time so you can't see your enemies, and sometimes scenery or gates will block your view completely. This can be frustrating. But it's cool that unlike some other MMOs, you can run away to dodge your enemies' attacks, then come back at them. It's very action game-oriented.
Everything seemed pretty expensive. I met a level four force person who I grouped with, and (s)he seemed unable to buy any force tech because of a lack of funds. I guess you work up to that point, but if you're force, you should be able to get that stuff, I figure... Maybe they just handn't done enough questing. For reference, the lowest decent armor cost 2400 meseta, while decent weapons are only 800. Kind of odd...
Enemies drop from 30-70 meseta, round there, when they do drop money at all.
People were generally nice so far, and helpful. Everyone I met seemed willing to talk, if not group. I only got to goup and quest with one person, but it was an enjoyable experience, even if we went somewhere that was well above our level and just crapped out.
As for whether I'd pay for it...probably, it can't be that much money. I think I'd go with the 360 version simply for ease of use (I forgot how ridiculously time/resource consuming it is to install a PC game), but it's a shame I won't get to keep my character...also a shame that you can't play with the PS2/PC users on the 360...each is its own entity. Final Fantasy XI did it, but not PSU. Only worry is the lack of a keyboard (not sure if it supports regular USB keyboards or not), because typing to folks while playing was quite fun.
Should still be fun though. Don't know how much time I'd have to put into online quests, but I could already see the fun of an MMC questing group. Lemme know if you want to know more...
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"Re(4):X360 Deal made for UndeadFred" , posted Tue 10 Oct 05:12
"Re(1):X360 Deal made for UndeadFred" , posted Thu 12 Oct 07:03