Current Events > Did you play Phantasy Star Online?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Oh yes, easily my most-played game of all time starting from the Dreamcast original. I still play Blue Burst sometimes, but have little interest in PSO2. The brilliant simplicity is just gone.

One thing the sequels got wrong was the mission structure. In PSO, you load into a world and can hang-out in the city, shop, and go do battle on the planets whenever you please irrespective of the other players, who can join you at any time via telepipes. In PSU, you all have to wait and travel to the planet together. It's much more restrictive.

Kaiser1one posted...

I remember when Episode 2 got announced and many of us thought the idea of paying for PSO was ridiculous because there was nothing to warrant doing so.

I remember this being the case for Version 2 on Dreamcast (before Episode 2 came out on GC and Xbox). Even though it wasn't expensive - $15 for 3 months IIRC - the game was barely different from the original so it didn't feel right. Episode 1 and 2 later cost more, but at least there was a lot of new content.

I started from PSO Version.2 when my older bro handed me down his Dreamcast back in the day but never played online. Then we both played Episode 1&2 multiplayer and I occasionally went online on his Gamecube to grind Towards the Future for EXP. Had a lot of fun memories, and I loved teaming up with my bro and his friend with my Fonewearl to blast through stages but my bro majorly regrets spending as much time as he did on the game. After that, we spent a little time on Universe and then stopped playing the franchise altogether. PSO2 looked cool, but we didn't bother with it and from what I've been reading, we're not really missing out on anything IMO.

The memories that stick out the most to me are as follows:

-Struggling to get to Stage 3 of Ultimate Ruins on Version 2 offline.

-The absolutely abysmal drop rates of rare weapons other than Red Gun/Saber in Version 2. Rares weren't just rare, they were straight mythical. Thank fuck they eased up on it slightly in Episode 1&2 but the rates were still pretty bad.

-My bro's stories about how fucked online was in Version 2 (hacking, how the Japanese avoided American players and how he only managed to team up with Japanese players because he was from the UK, etc.). He was able to complete the online quests to get S-Rank Needle and Cutter so that was something.

-Watching my bro quickly blast through Jungle to kill a Mericarol every day before work for Monkey King Bar (he never got it).

-My bro's co-worker taking the red box from my bro's kill in Ep.1&2, which my bro thought was either Partisan of Lightning or Monkey King Bar (can't recall) but it was a Photon Drop instead. I think my bro would've killed him if it was a rare weapon lol.

-My bro, his friend and I grinding for Baranz Parts in offline multiplayer on Ep.1&2, and finally getting it.

-Me encountering a Hildetorr in Ep.1&2, then getting one shot with one punch and no scape dolls.

Yes, my first exp was way back during the Dreamcast era where I deleted my older brothers save file before I knew what those were. He was beyond pissed to say the least.

He had maybe thousand hours on the game if I recall? I really should apologize again to him sometime for that.

Goldenguy posted...

I never did play PSO.

I played the ever loving holy fuck out of the first four (I still do need to be at PS2) however.

Sounds like I may need to check out PSO at some point.

They may technically be the same series, but PSO and PS1-4 are very different games.

I was part of the PC open bata way back in the day.

Kaiser1one posted...

I played the original PSO on Dreamcast; yes. I remember when Episode 2 got announced and many of us thought the idea of paying for PSO was ridiculous because there was nothing to warrant doing so. So many stuck to the original before we got bored and moved on.

Not going to lie, if it wasn't for my big bro having his own debit card at that point I would have been screwed, lol. Used to just give him the money to use his for the game.

By the time episode 1 and 2 on the cube came around I finally managed to have my own crappy debit card.

Yes. I wish Sega would be smart to rerelease the GC versions

creativerealms posted...

I was part of the PC open bata way back in the day.

Yeah I played the beta myself. I didn't put as many hours into it as I liked though. I remember getting really sick around this time (first time I had pneumonia+some other issues that was kicking my ass) and so was laid out at the hospital for like 2 weeks. I forgot what it was, but my best friend used to log onto my account for me to do something or another. It was something about that guild future. My memory was a haze for that period of time.

To this day I still think it was pretty screwed up that sega decided to segregate the regions starting with this game. They made it where japan is it's own servers whereas NA and EU was just tossed in with one-another. Made getting updates awful since japan was always the priority, and then stayed this way all throughout phantasy star universe and then PSO2.

I think the mentality among the japanese player base at the time was that they blamed overseas players for all the cheating, =/

vycebrand2 posted...

Yes. I wish Sega would be smart to rerelease the GC versions

why would they ever do that when blue burst exists

i don't even think the gc version has any actual advantage beyond splitscreen and i guess piping rares. i doubt sega will ever rebalance things so i kinda just want more of the same but with more quests. new areas would be cool but anything beyond new quests is a pipe dream. i just don't want pso2-isms to be added

anttttt posted...

why would they ever do that when blue burst exists

i don't even think the gc version has any actual advantage beyond splitscreen and i guess piping rares. i doubt sega will ever rebalance things so i kinda just want more of the same but with more quests. new areas would be cool but anything beyond new quests is a pipe dream. i just don't want pso2-isms to be added

Split screen is a worthwhile enough advantage for some to prefer that version.

There's also the matter of characters available. You had an effectively unlimited number for Gamecube, since you could just pop in other memory cards for another 4 slots. Blue Burst is 4 per account forever.

And speaking of accounts, it's more advantageous for the companies doing it because Blue Burst doesn't have an offline mode and is reliant on servers running a lot of stuff and feeding the game data.

But Blue Burst definitely has more content for the players.

I played it quite a bit on DC. The first time I finally played online someone walked up to me and somehow wiped my gamesave or reset my character. I don't remember it well being almost 25 years ago, but I know I couldn't play as the character I was using offline anymore.

omgbsdude posted...

I played it quite a bit on DC. The first time I finally played online someone walked up to me and somehow wiped my gamesave or reset my character. I don't remember it well being almost 25 years ago, but I know I couldn't play as the character I was using offline anymore.

You probably got NOL'd. There was a hack that went around where you could force someone's game to turn them into a quest NPC, which would wipe their inventory and set their character to that NPC's level and appearance. There were different NPCs that would happen but Nol was the most common.

Yes but always pirated or trials or private servers. Looking back, I actually think parents shouldn't play for their early teen or younger kids' subsections in 2004 (or whenever). Seems a bit much.

omgbsdude posted...

I played it quite a bit on DC. The first time I finally played online someone walked up to me and somehow wiped my gamesave or reset my character. I don't remember it well being almost 25 years ago, but I know I couldn't play as the character I was using offline anymore.

You more than likely got NOL'd. Its when someone using a gameshark or code breaker would use a save to make the 2nd party member's character one of the NPCs from the single player story quests. Nol was the common one that people used.

Yeah, dreamcast PSO and version 2 got real screwy quick when it came to cheating. The prime time to play both of these games was in the first like, 4 months of each game's respective release before it went to shit. Personally my most hated cheat code was one where they could bypass a locked room's password.......this is what truly killed those games since you couldn't even lock yourself away on some random ship without some cheater combing through ships looking for random locked rooms.

Gamecube PSO was pretty good for a nice while before cheating started ramping up.

The reason why my friends and I jumped ship to the xbox version of PSO episode 1 and 2 back then was because the average person couldn't easily cheat on the xbox in general. (It was definitely possible though. In return to castle wolfenstein you'd run into those cheaters flying around like a ghost with a flamethrower, lol). You also had to tie your gamertag to your PSO episode 1 and 2 save file and so this version of the game pretty much stayed clean when it came to blatant cheating all the way up to it's server shut-down.

Other than Super Smash Bros. Melee, I'm pretty sure I have put more hours into PSO than any other game I've ever played, and I still go back and play it every once in a while.

Still hunting Guld and the Sealed J Sword.

Frosted_Midna posted...

Hell yeah, you play on Fodra right?

Yup

@Frosted_Midna

Super_Slash posted...

Yup

@Frosted_Midna

I should get on and play this weekend then. I usually am on my Fomar (200) to help people out!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/88e18f7e.jpg

Fought Gal Gryphon just now.

i played pso2 during the very first jp open beta, and for a while i was having a ton of fun
ended up i only liked it because it felt cool to be in a beta and for the series to continue. after the allure of a new game wore off i kinda started to hate it tbh

i worry the series will never be like the original or infinity ever again

I played blue burst offline on a really crappy pc that could barely run it. still was one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had.

I heard of it back then, but I didn't understand the concept of online games.

621 posted...

I played blue burst offline on a really crappy pc that could barely run it. still was one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had.

You can't play BB offline though, unless you mean one person mode.

Super_Slash posted...

You can't play BB offline though, unless you mean one person mode.

could be misremembering. I know I had a (cracked) PC version, maybe it wasn't blue burst.

PSO is a gap in my gaming background I really regret. It was pretty popular in my online circles when it came out, and I almost bought it when I saw it on store shelves, but my family was still running on dial-up then. I got the Xbox version as a Christmas present the year that came out, but I guess I didn't do my homework and didn't know there was a subscription fee to play online (on top of the Xbox Live subscription fee) so I ended up returning it.

I did play Phantasy Star Zero on the DS when that came out in 2009, but that was even more niche with an even smaller playerbase that didn't stick around so I only really beat the main story before shelving it.

621 posted...

could be misremembering. I know I had a (cracked) PC version, maybe it wasn't blue burst.

If it had Episode 4 it was Blue Burst. But it sounds like you might have gotten the really old PC version that was based off of Ver 2 for the Dreamcast

anttttt posted...

i don't even think the gc version has any actual advantage beyond splitscreen and i guess piping rares.

The GC version has better graphics than all others in two instances: a distortion effect on telepipes and much nicer, next-gen looking water in Episode 2.

Not a big deal, but in an old game that we've already experienced 100% of, we're playing after all this time for the dopamine hits and nicer graphics add to that.

I played it back on the Dreamcast. Great experience

Pow_Pow_Punishment posted...

The GC version has better graphics than all others in two instances: a distortion effect on telepipes and much nicer, next-gen looking water in Episode 2.

Not a big deal, but in an old game that we've already experienced 100% of, we're playing after all this time for the dopamine hits and nicer graphics add to that.

Yeah, I always did miss the gamecube's wavy effects on megid since I used to love tossin' it out on my fonewearl character. *Fonewearl's character built-in piercing megid is surprisingly good against a lot of episode 2 enemies, lol.*

Interesting fact, but the reason why the PSO blue burst on the PC also does not have those effects is because the blue burst port was created off of the xbox version of PSO episode 1 and 2.

You could also telipipe for rare enemy spawns in the xbox version since it has a offline mode+split screen just like the gamecube version.

The only differences between the gamecube episode 1 and 2 (and it's exclusive graphical effects for telepipes, foie techs, grants and megid) and the xbox episode 1 and 2 is that the xbox version does not use the serial key system. With the xbox you needed a gamertag to make your save file (which makes this version crappy to play in the modern day if a old gamertag isn't on that xbox). Game performance was a good deal better, with the xbox ep 1 and 2 split-screen not having nowhere near as much slowdown as the cube' version.

The xbox episode 1 and 2 also had a voice chat option where you can change the way your voice (like your actual real life voice via the xbox live headset) sounds. Original xbox had that goofy thing where you can make your voice sound like a robot, a girl preset, etc. It was pretty obvious though, lol.

Pow_Pow_Punishment posted...

The GC version has better graphics than all others in two instances: a distortion effect on telepipes and much nicer, next-gen looking water in Episode 2.

i've played gc way more than i have blue burst and i know that these exist because people say they exist but i don't really notice. it's definitely not something i'd play a much-worse version for, even if sega weirdly does this type of graphical nerf a lot with updated releases. also side note but the game looked pretty solid even as a dc game getting ported to gc. on dreamcast it was up there, and some of the ep2 places on gamecube look pretty strong

splitscreen is neat but idc anymore. my family would rather just play online or on their own devices. splitscreen had some ass-backwards decisions (tying progression to 1p's was so bad that i used a cheat to bypass it) and understandable audio/visual compromises to get working. i appreciate it but i'll probably never use it ever again

it's a shame we'll never get a new version of this game, or at least one that sega won't screw up somehow

anttttt posted...

i've played gc way more than i have blue burst and i know that these exist because people say they exist but i don't really notice.

It's most noticeable in the Jungle level. Compared to Xbox and PC, the water flowing through the vegetation on the ground looks a lot nicer in the Gamecube version. And the telepipes all have a distortion animation, again only in the GC version.

I'm not surprised you didn't notice, though, because it's definitely not a big deal and not worth missing Episode 4 for.

nantomaster posted...

-Me encountering a Hildetorr in Ep.1&2, then getting one shot with one punch and no scape dolls.

lmao.

Responding to this one mad late but damn this happened way too many times than I like to admit with the ultimate rare lilies. Their megid felt like it hit so much more often than the regular lilies' megid.

Mad-Dogg posted...

Responding to this one mad late but damn this happened way too many times than I like to admit with the ultimate rare lilies. Their megid felt like it hit so much more often than the regular lilies' megid.

It does, actually. Regular lilies spat Lv 14 or 15 Megid depending on Caves or Temple. Mil Lilies spat Lv 28 Megid. You needed almost 100 EDK to guarantee survival on them.

Mad-Dogg posted...

lmao.

Responding to this one mad late but damn this happened way too many times than I like to admit with the ultimate rare lilies. Their megid felt like it hit so much more often than the regular lilies' megid.

Thankfully I managed to avoid getting killed by the one Mil Lily I encountered, naturally didnt get Psycho Wand from them though. I also love how rare enemies revert themselves back to the common version upon stage exit, so yeah, that was my first and last encounter with a Hildetorr lol.

This thread and everyones posts brought back some really fun memories for me. PSO was an experience that Ill never forget.

I probably put at least 1000 hours into Phantasy Star Online games. I only stopped playing them when people started using cheats to break into locked games and erase your character, forcing you to start over with a new character.

The comic style chat bubbles forever spoiled me and I still vastly prefer them to either a chatbox shoved in the corner or voice chat. Has any other game or series done communication that way, besides the sequels?

i tried with my buddy back in the day. it was among the most boring things ive ever done in my life

Dalthine posted...

Mil Lilies spat Lv 28 Megid.

I thought the megid level of the Mils was randomized (at least on the GC version). I'm pretty sure they actually occasionally spat a weaker megid than the basic Obs, but oftentimes it was stronger.

The annoying part was that a Mil Lilly caused any Obs that spawned with it to have their megid changed to the same level, so if you ran into one unexpectedly and were kitted out with enough EDK to tank a standard Ob megid, you might get unexpectedly downed without even realizing you were in danger.

AvlButtslam posted...

lmk if anyone has a solution for this btw

I added the game to Steam and launched from there and that seems to have fixed the issue. Soooo I guess Ill be getting back into PSO

What I really wanna do tho is dig out my GameCube and continue my characters there. I got closeish but never hit 200 (highest was like 194, had a bunch of others in 100s).

The absolutely hilarious thing about getting to level 200 is that you're only half way there after you reach fucking 183.

Super_Slash posted...

The absolutely hilarious thing about getting to level 200 is that you're only half way there after you reach fucking 183.

That's insane, never knew that but explains why I made it to somewhere around 180 but never 200.

Crap. 25 years of playing and I've never had a level 200 character. That's some incentive for me to reach.

Yeah I've never done it without EXP boosters from Ephinea. It is completely crazy.

I played the Episode I&II and Episode III GC games with friends. No online stuff. We put a lot of hours in. I think my highest got to the 110s or 120s.

Super_Slash posted...

The absolutely hilarious thing about getting to level 200 is that you're only half way there after you reach fucking 183.

Lol, I do remember that from back in the day. The exp curve is ridiculous

I have some spare alone time and I'm bored; anyone want to go hop on Ephinea with me?

AvlButtslam posted...

Lol, I do remember that from back in the day. The exp curve is ridiculous

Shit I thought it was 193

MrResetti posted...

Shit I thought it was 193

https://www.pso-world.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=672

It's 183

I started playing the game at launch, playing mostly offline, and I only hit Level 200 on my main about five years ago. I also have a character at Level 168 and another at 140, but as has been observed neither of them is even halfway to hitting 200.

Grinded my RAcaseal up to 30ish. So weak starting fresh.

I need to rework my MAG, I missed the M&Y photon blast.

I am currently hunting for a Psycho Wand right now!

Have fun lol