Phantasy Star Online – Ep. I & II (Xbox)

Goodbye african country

Phantasy Star Online (PSO) has been available for GameCube for a while, but now Xbox owners get the opportunity to experience the classic fantasy role-playing game as well.

Let’s begin by emphasizing that you have to have an Xbox Live kit, if you want to enjoy PSO. Having said that, you still have the opportunity to play through the entire story being offline, but you have to have your Xbox Live code to get access to these missions. This may seem a little odd, as it cuts off players without Xbox Live, but sends out the message from the developer, that PSO mainly is for online play.

Hard to gain control

Clearing some beach space

The game is in a third person perspective and the controls haven’t been changed since the GameCube version. This is a shame as it brings a large problem along to the Xbox version. You can’t rotate the camera around your character but only snap it back in place behind him. On top of that you can’t lock on to enemies, which normally is a great feature in games with this perspective.

This makes the battles somewhat hectic and frustrating, because you have to be very accurate not to miss your opponent. The first couple of enemies come directly towards you, minimizing the problem, but soon you’ll encounter monsters that move around you. When this happens it’ll really start to get on your nerves that you have to have an aim more precisely than a surgeon making his first incision in a heart operation.

It was a detail criticized in the GameCube version, which only makes the fact that nothing has been done about it even more annoying, because the damage it does to the otherwise well constructed gameplay could have been avoided.

Massive Multiplayer

How come dragons always have bad breath

Because of the sloppy controls and the fact that you need Xbox Live access no matter what, this game is not meant to be played by yourself. Rarely have we seen a console game that has been so well constructed when it comes to multiplayer.

You can have two to four players playing on splitscreen, but we recommend that you narrow this down to only two, as your line of sight onscreen otherwise gets very limited. The best thing however is to go online, especially because there are so many people to play with. You’ll find players right away, and if you start your own game, others will usually join you within a few minutes.

Everything is supported by an advanced chat-system, where you have lots of opportunities to make your own adjustments. But why chat when Xbox Live has a built-in voice-chat, which is fully supported in PSO, making you able to talk to any of the players you meet around the world. This is not only fun, but also a great advantage when you’re coordinating your attacks, and goes some way towards compensating for the bad control scheme.

No catering for the eye

Nice coco size

Where PSO takes great advantage of Xbox Live, there are other components in Microsoft’s green wonder that doesn’t get overheated. The graphical part of the game doesn’t even come close to the machine's potential. In fact there doesn’t really seem to be any improvements from the GameCube version, and even back then the graphics obviously weren’t the greatest selling point of the game.

Your space station as well as the rest of the universe in PSO is made of flat and boring textures with very little detail. So even here the developers have just converted old material, without taking into consideration the new possibilities the Xbox brings into account.

The sound is ok, but doesn’t impress in any way. Cult seeking individuals and the proprietor of your local sushi joint will probably yank up the amp to the Japanese pop music in PSO. Yours truly does however not read Manga and has only eaten dead raw fish once in his life, so I quickly chose to turn down the musical volume.

The RPG of the online community people

You don't want this bird ti s... on your head

PSO delivers an impressive online RPG experience on the Xbox. Maybe even the best online RPG experience you can get your hands on for a console at the moment. There are probably some who will be scared off by the monthly payment of around £6, but without reason as the first two months comes free with the game. So you’ll have the opportunity to see a lot of this fantasy world, before you have to pay the monthly fee.

PSO is for everyone who wants to be a part of an RPG community, that already is one of the largest available in the world. You will quickly find other fans of the special world of PSO, as you log on the first time, and this is no doubt the strength of the game. If you are on the other hand more into the traditional RPG, Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance is a more recommendable buy to start out with.

Translated by Jonas Rasmussen.