Not what it use to be but still satisfying

User Rating: 6.8 | Phantasy Star Universe PS2
By ant1218 | Review Date:
Let me start by saying I loved PSO on DC / GC, so I had high hopes for PSU but im pretty disappointed so far. Let me start by saying the control scheme is a pain in the azz. It took me about 2 hours to start feeling comfortable with the lockon system and me being a ranger didnt make things easier at all. The game also starts off very slow online. I became lost instantly after doing the mission tutorial. The tutorial does a pretty good job at introducing you to the new features and showing you where to go for missions, but all in such a short time. You'll end up asking yourself "So how do I? or where is that located again". Earning money is really a necessity on PSU. No longer will you find as many upgrades for your weapons off of your enemies like in PSO. You'll spend the majority of your time earning money to buy weapons, techniquies, disc, health items etc. The problem with this is that enemies do not drop as nearly as much money needed to acquire half of those skills or items, and the high price vendors could careless lol. If your in a group be ready to battle over maesta pickups . The mission rewards so don't pay well either early on. Your rewarded with a low amount of money even if you earn an S rank. It would help if Sega awarded players with weapons for completing missions as well, so you could focus on buying items or disc upgrades for weapons. The Graphics are pretty terrible. I guess Sega needed to tone down the graphics so it could accomodate the 6 player parties plus the multiple enemies on screen. Sega still didnt accomplished much by that because the game still suffers from some huge frame rate issues. As a ranger I usually have to stand back and view the whole screen to shoot at the enemies, which is a pain because now I get alot of slowdown because of it. The PSU NPCs used to populated the cities have a weird graphical affect as well. They are visible from far awhile but the moment you get close up on them they disappear. .emmmmmmm

My biggest disappointment is the lag online. Your player and enemies on screen will move about fine and fluent, but the other players will warp around the screen. Majority of the time it will look as if their attacking walls or invisible enemies. On the bright side, since your character will move fluent on your screen you really will not play any attention to other players, because you'll have your own enemies to dispatch. But seeing this in the lobby is very annoying or if your trying to follow someone. I really hope Sega fixes the lag issue.

Sound - Everyone knows about the PSO music which is pretty annoying after a while, but the voice acting is terrible. Sega really needs to find some better voice actors aSap. Character voices sound so animated and over dramatic you'll find yourself laughin at them when there not telling jokes. The sound quality is crap too. Some sound effects are on par with super nintendo or even nintendo quality at times. Alot of the same sound effects found in previous PSO's have been recycled such as the shooting rifles etc.

Well i've reached level 12 so far and the game has been someone entertaining even with the major issues. I think alot of newer players will be turned off by the learning curve on the gameplay or the lag online. Basically PSU starts off extremly slow but does pick pace as u learn and advance through levels. PSU does have alot content to keep a player busy for quite some time but you will stick around through the lag and steep curve to reach it? Personally I'll continue playing until my 45 day subscription is up but after that if the lag is still present I'll quit. I can only reccomend this game to the serious Pso veterans who know the true potential of these games. 49.99 PSU + 10.00 online pay + 10.00 usb keyboard = broke and disappointed. Blacc is my name online hit me up peace

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