2011 seems to be the year of Phantasy Star, apparently. I'm still playing cube-flavored Phantasy Star Online - Odin Taros is now level 43, and I've reached the Ruins on Hard - and I recently picked up Phantasy Star Portable for the PSP. (As an aside - why do publishers insist on making games with the same acronyms as the systems they are on? Phantasy Star Portable, Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow, Resident Evil Deadly Silence, etc. etc. etc. It's such a weird thing to do...)
But! Before I give you my initial impressions of PSPortable, I must tell you about Lost in Blue, an old (2005 vintage, actually!) DS game I picked up recently on the cheap. I can see why it was $7.99 - Konami didn't give too much of the budget over to graphics or sound, so what you have is a somewhat ugly, janky-looking game that sounds pretty bad.
The premise of the game is simple. Much like their 1999 Game Boy Color title Survival Kids, you are a young boy who has washed ashore on what appears to be a deserted island (I just started playing, so I have no idea if it's completely deserted or not) and you must gather items and kill wildlife and survive the wilderness. You do so by combining items together, and playing little minigames to use them. For example, once you've acquired a twig and some tree bark, you play a little minigame in which you alternately press L and R and blow into the microphone to start a fire. I find this pretty neat, although I imagine it will get incredibly tedious after a while if I have to light a fire every in game day, though.
So after finding a cave to sleep in for the night, I woke up and was able to cross the now calmed river to find a girl, washed ashore, passed out on the beach. I woke her up, gave her a coconut, and brought her to my warm, dry cave and nursed her back to health as best I could with my raw clams, seaweed, and fire. Okay, so neither one of us is in good shape. But I suspect as the game goes on I'll become more and more capable of surviving.
I think the game is aggressively mediocre so far, but that is likely because the concept is so great to me, and I had heard the execution was pretty subpar. I will try to play more of it, but of course, the timesink juggernaut Phantasy Star looms.
As far as I can tell, PSPortable is a portable rendition of Phantasy Star Universe. I have not played PSU, so I cannot verify this claim. But what I've played of PSPortable is quite interesting... The game is like a mix of Phantasy Star Zero and Phantasy Star Online. The graphics are quite good, actually - much better than PSZero - but the controls are very weird. You have the ability to switch between weapons on the fly by holding O and then using the D pad to select your weapon. You then use the square button to use the weapon (I can't tell if there are Regular and Strong attacks, like in PSO and PSZero - perhaps I'm dumb and didn't find the button? Who knows). You also can lock on to enemies, but you don't stay pointed at them - your character will strafe around the guy, but stay pointed straight ahead rather than focus on whatever you targeted. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong, though. It can't be good when something as basic as locking on is obtuse right off the bat, though. There also seems to be a little number in the corner that ticks down as you use your weapon, but slowly ticks back up when you don't. I'm not really sure what that does - is it weapon degradation? Is it the weapon temporarily getting weaker? I cannot tell.
Like Phantasy Star Zero, you go on Story missions with some CPU-controlled partners. So far, I think the CPU in PSPortable is much smarter than PSZero, because your guys actually alternate between attacking and healing pretty regularly and don't seem to walk into obvious enemy attacks. Granted, I haven't faced a boss yet, and that's the real test.
What story I've encountered so far is mind-numbingly boring, not that I expected any different (and really, who cares - you don't play these games for the stories anyway). I made a RAcast named Odin Taros, just like in Cube PSO, and he recently graduated Hunter School or some crap and is now going out on his first few missions. Like in PSZero, I pick between a few dialogue choices on the occasion when someone asks me a question, and just like in the DS game, my responses don't seem to matter very much.
Regardless, though - I dropped 2000 meseta (been playing too much Phantasy Star, I suppose - $20) on this game, so I'm going to put more time into it, as well as Lost in Blue if I can.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
The Differences Between 0's and O's: Phantasy Star
So I have beaten Phantasy Star Zero, as of yesterday. The game was incredibly easy, and honestly? By the end of it I was pretty bored. It wasn't necessarily because of the difficulty (or lack thereof) - it was mostly because there was so little variety to it. Even compared to Phantasy Star Online (which I have recently started up again, thanks to the Sylverant servers)!
I know I said the game has a variety of level design, and for the most part, that holds up throughout. The problem as I see it is a lack of variety in gameplay - sure, you're killing tons of enemies throughout, but they don't really offer any challenge. The levels don't really offer any, either, and having replayed a lot of Phantasy Star Online recently, the bosses leave a lot to be desired as well. They have ridiculously easy patterns (except maybe the first time you fight the Octopus boss, but even then I never died against him) and go down fairly quickly.
Compare that to Phantasy Star Online, where the bosses are dangerous as hell. If you aren't overleveled, you have to be very careful when you go up against any boss in PSO - from the first boss all the way to the last. I grant, though, that all the bosses are not created equal - the bastard Cave boss, for example, is really badly designed. He isn't even damageable except for a small window, and frankly even then he its too difficult to hit him without getting hit by his stupid antennae. This makes the battle take forever.
Regardless, though, Phantasy Star Online is the better game. Sure, Phantasy Star 0 has some neat ideas - I love the reward system (think Achievements, only instead of points, you get items), the ability to recruit NPCs for offline missions (who I wish would never, ever talk, but it's still a neat idea), and the camera controls are a little better. But Phantasy Star Online just has more going for it - a more balanced game (with, you know, CHALLENGE), better character designs, better music, better atmosphere, better reasons to keep playing, and better items. It's kind of intangible, actually, why else Phantasy Star Online is better - you get the impression that 0 was made on a shoestring budget and didn't get quite the care it should have to make it a better game.
So I'm now way to far into PS0 for my own good, probably. I'm playing more of this than any other game I have, at the moment - I still haven't finished Fallout: New Vegas (although I fully intend to). I must get back to Odin Taros, my level 24 RAcast, and grind him up.
I am addicted to PSO again, and it feels so, so good.
I know I said the game has a variety of level design, and for the most part, that holds up throughout. The problem as I see it is a lack of variety in gameplay - sure, you're killing tons of enemies throughout, but they don't really offer any challenge. The levels don't really offer any, either, and having replayed a lot of Phantasy Star Online recently, the bosses leave a lot to be desired as well. They have ridiculously easy patterns (except maybe the first time you fight the Octopus boss, but even then I never died against him) and go down fairly quickly.
Compare that to Phantasy Star Online, where the bosses are dangerous as hell. If you aren't overleveled, you have to be very careful when you go up against any boss in PSO - from the first boss all the way to the last. I grant, though, that all the bosses are not created equal - the bastard Cave boss, for example, is really badly designed. He isn't even damageable except for a small window, and frankly even then he its too difficult to hit him without getting hit by his stupid antennae. This makes the battle take forever.
Regardless, though, Phantasy Star Online is the better game. Sure, Phantasy Star 0 has some neat ideas - I love the reward system (think Achievements, only instead of points, you get items), the ability to recruit NPCs for offline missions (who I wish would never, ever talk, but it's still a neat idea), and the camera controls are a little better. But Phantasy Star Online just has more going for it - a more balanced game (with, you know, CHALLENGE), better character designs, better music, better atmosphere, better reasons to keep playing, and better items. It's kind of intangible, actually, why else Phantasy Star Online is better - you get the impression that 0 was made on a shoestring budget and didn't get quite the care it should have to make it a better game.
So I'm now way to far into PS0 for my own good, probably. I'm playing more of this than any other game I have, at the moment - I still haven't finished Fallout: New Vegas (although I fully intend to). I must get back to Odin Taros, my level 24 RAcast, and grind him up.
I am addicted to PSO again, and it feels so, so good.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Phantasy Star Online: Anniversary Edition
On a whim, I recently purchased Phantasy Star 0 for DS. I bought it new, at full price, for $34.99 from Gamestop (something I very, very rarely do for games that haven't come out in the past year or so) because I was itching for some Phantasy Star Online. I had heard a recent podcast about the entire series of Phantasy Star Online, from the original Dreamcast release all the way up to the recent DS and PSP games. One of the people on it, who said he played mostly offline PSO on the Gamecube (which is pretty much what I did the most of) said he really liked Phantasy Star 0, so I bit.
I'm glad I did! This game really seems like a remake of Phantasy Star Online, honestly. There are some new story bits, but they aren't too intrusive (something I've heard Phantasy Star Universe has big problems with) and has all new levels and character designs and enemies and such. In fact, the graphics are some of the best 3D I've seen on the DS, to be honest - much better than the Final Fantasy IV remake a few years back and better even than the recent Final Fantasy: 4 Heroes of Light (which made some stylistic choices regarding its graphics, but I don't think they look too great, to be honest). One of my favorite things about this game is the varied levels; each place I've been to so far (four places) have been outside, and the game has random dungeon design so each time you go through the dungeon is different, thankfully. I suppose the only thing I miss compared to Phantasy Star Online is the player character design and detail. For my gunner, I picked the only option I had to [i]not[/i] wear a goofy cowboy hat. That's fine in Fallout: New Vegas, but not my futuristic pseudo-MMO, dammit!
The controls are pretty good, as well; the game plays very much like Phantasy Star Online, with a few minor tweaks. First, you have the ability to lock on to an enemy and strafe at the same time, by holding L and then moving left or right. This makes you a bit slower, but allows you to attack while moving a bit, dodging many enemy attacks in the process. Also, since I chose a gunner as my character, this makes combat almost damage free because I hang back from the enemy and shoot. There is also a dodge ability, which causes your character to roll in the direction of your choice - they are invincible during the roll, too, so far as I can tell. There is a cooldown period for this, of course, of about a half second - which means you better be out of harms way wherever your character stands up or you'll take damage.
I rather enjoy the music, too, although admittedly when I've been grinding recently I've been listening to my iPod.
I just find it interesting how retro this game is, in terms of its gameplay - this really is Phantasy Star Online Again Round 2. It's like Sega realized the past few have kind of sucked and they started over - perhaps that's why they called it Phantasy Star Zero? Although that probably has to do with some goofy storyline.
Anyway, I highly recommend the game. My buddy recently picked it up and as soon as he gets back to his apartment at the end of the week we should be playing some games online, which I'm really looking forward to. Apparently he is a human mage, so he plays quite a bit differently than my gunner. Which works!
In other news, I was able to get my Gamecube copy of Phantasy Star Online connected to a private server a few days ago, which means we can play that online now too, if Phantasy Star 0 isn't to our liking or we get sick of it or something. I guess we'll see.
I'm glad I did! This game really seems like a remake of Phantasy Star Online, honestly. There are some new story bits, but they aren't too intrusive (something I've heard Phantasy Star Universe has big problems with) and has all new levels and character designs and enemies and such. In fact, the graphics are some of the best 3D I've seen on the DS, to be honest - much better than the Final Fantasy IV remake a few years back and better even than the recent Final Fantasy: 4 Heroes of Light (which made some stylistic choices regarding its graphics, but I don't think they look too great, to be honest). One of my favorite things about this game is the varied levels; each place I've been to so far (four places) have been outside, and the game has random dungeon design so each time you go through the dungeon is different, thankfully. I suppose the only thing I miss compared to Phantasy Star Online is the player character design and detail. For my gunner, I picked the only option I had to [i]not[/i] wear a goofy cowboy hat. That's fine in Fallout: New Vegas, but not my futuristic pseudo-MMO, dammit!
The controls are pretty good, as well; the game plays very much like Phantasy Star Online, with a few minor tweaks. First, you have the ability to lock on to an enemy and strafe at the same time, by holding L and then moving left or right. This makes you a bit slower, but allows you to attack while moving a bit, dodging many enemy attacks in the process. Also, since I chose a gunner as my character, this makes combat almost damage free because I hang back from the enemy and shoot. There is also a dodge ability, which causes your character to roll in the direction of your choice - they are invincible during the roll, too, so far as I can tell. There is a cooldown period for this, of course, of about a half second - which means you better be out of harms way wherever your character stands up or you'll take damage.
I rather enjoy the music, too, although admittedly when I've been grinding recently I've been listening to my iPod.
I just find it interesting how retro this game is, in terms of its gameplay - this really is Phantasy Star Online Again Round 2. It's like Sega realized the past few have kind of sucked and they started over - perhaps that's why they called it Phantasy Star Zero? Although that probably has to do with some goofy storyline.
Anyway, I highly recommend the game. My buddy recently picked it up and as soon as he gets back to his apartment at the end of the week we should be playing some games online, which I'm really looking forward to. Apparently he is a human mage, so he plays quite a bit differently than my gunner. Which works!
In other news, I was able to get my Gamecube copy of Phantasy Star Online connected to a private server a few days ago, which means we can play that online now too, if Phantasy Star 0 isn't to our liking or we get sick of it or something. I guess we'll see.
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