| Author | Review |
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Tachikoma Shell
339,011
TA Score for this game: 1,700
Posted on 12 May 11 at 15:53, Edited on 23 September 12 at 20:53 |
This review has 13 positive votes and 7 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
Phantasy Star Universe is a RPG created by Sonic Team and is also available on Playstation 2 and PC. It was released in 2006 so the graphics and gameplay aren't the best but the story is the main highlight.
Story: The game takes place in a far away galaxy on three planets, Moatoob, Neudaiz and Parum and also a nearby space station called The Guardians Colony. The Guardians protect the galaxy and have kept peace for many years until an unexpected attack on a nearby fleet. You play as Ethan Waber, a human who has been living on The Guardians Colony with his sister Lumia. Their father was a Guardian and had died on a mission when Ethan was very young. For this reason he dislikes Guardians. The game begins shortly before the attack took place.
The story is set in 12 chapters. It begins shortly before chapter 1. After each chapter is completed there will be a short cutscene to show what's going to happen in the next chapter and this is followed by the game's main intro and the theme 'Save this World'. There are some good and bad moments in the story, sometimes it can be predictable and sometimes surprising. A lot of the characters you will like and others will probably annoy you. The Vol brothers for instance got on my nerves from the beginning. Most allies you meet give you a playercard which you can use at anytime to invite them to a party to go on a mission. As long as they are available they will join you. Your party consists of 4 players including yourself. You can have a break from the game's story if you like and play free missions or just explore each planet, it's entirely up to you.
Gameplay: When you begin the game, you are free to explore around the Guardians Colony. Here you can visit shops which have: items, armour, weapons and many more. As you progress through the game, more accessories become available so it's important to check back and keep your character upgraded.
Movement is very simple as well as the camera controls. There is one primary attack button which is X and if you purchase a special attack for your weapon from a shop, you can use it as Y. Y is a more powerful attack than X, it uses up energy which is displayed at the bottom right corner of the screen. This can be refilled during battle using a Photon Charger which can be found while doing missions or purchased. Your health bar and your allies are located at the bottom left corner of the screen. I found this pretty annoying since while you're fighting, you're not going to be looking at the bottom of the screen so you can easily get killed in battle if you don't keep a constant eye on your health. I think a small health bar above your character's head would have been better. It is also essential that you make sure you always stock up on health items as the enemies get much harder each chapter and you'll find yourself taking heavy hits.
One thing that really frustrated me so much was the AI. The AI has to be one of the worst I have ever seen in a game. For instance when you're in a battle, most of the time your allies won't attack, they just stand there staring into space! Unless you actually get right next to the enemies then they may just start attacking. I noticed this a lot on the final chapter of the game when I ran out of ammo and was trying to let my ally take care of the enemies but they wouldn't attack! Another problem with the AI which cannot be avoided in the later chapters is they can get stuck in corridors! If you go around a corner, sometimes one or two allies will get stuck on that corner and will keep running into it saying, "Where are you? Where did you go?" The only way to fix this is to go back to them so they 'detach' themselves from the wall and start following you again or you can just continue the game and wait for them to appear next to you.
Other than a few issues with the AI the rest of the gameplay is fine, pretty simple controls really. Each chapter involves you waking up, finding out your mission, recruit a few friends, do a few battles (which could last a few hours in the later chapters) and then fight a boss. Towards the end of the game, it can feel pretty repetitive but the game's story and cutscenes keep you playing. Some scenes include voices, others are just in-game which are just speech bubbles coming out of people's mouths.
Online: Unfortunately the online servers were shut down September 7th 2012 but I thought I'll leave this part in the review still in case anyone was wondering what it was like...
To start off you have to pay a monthly fee for the online service. You can begin this by selecting the option at the Xbox Dashboard or in the game. You will need a card (bank etc) in order to pay for the service, you cannot use Microsoft Points or a Gold account. The awkward part is, you can't cancel it unless you phone Microsoft. Why can't you cancel it in the game? I do not know but it only took me 5 minutes to cancel mine and I also got a refund so it's not too bad. I only had it online for 3 days I think so I will explain what it was like as much as I can.
Firstly I've never played an online game quite like it. There are so many players on one server most nights. The most active servers are the top 2 or 3. Usually when you come online you will be put on a low server like somewhere over 10 but it allows you to change servers at anytime. You can communicate with any players by typing in a sentence, entering it and it will turn into a speech bubble for all other nearby players to read. I would highly recommend you get a keypad of some sort though or you'll have to use the Xbox controller to type which is very slow as a lot of players can type really fast and it's hard to keep up. I don't own one myself but I've read the Xbox 360 chatpad doesn't work for this.
You can also do expressions online like angry, upset, surprised or you can sit down, kick, wave and much more. Basically you can do whatever you like at your own pace. Getting together with a random player to do a mission is fun and also just joking around with a group of people is fun too. The online is very enjoyable but probably not worth the price unless your really love it.
Like in Single Player you can give players you meet your playercard so you can invite them to a party or they can invite you to one. You can also see the players current location and join them. The highest level online is Lv.180 which will take a very long time to get to but if you really enjoy it then the days will just flyby. I would recommend you try it, I found it much more enjoyable than the Single Player. Even if it's just for a few days, you can have a great deal of fun.
Graphics: Well since this game has been out since 2006 you would expect the graphics to not be great, unfortunately they are very poor, mostly the character's faces. The environments aren't too bad, some are very nice and look extraordinary but the characters, monsters, cutscences, space ships etc are seriously lacking in detail. I wonder what the difference would be if this was compared to the Playstation 2 version. I doubt it would be hardly any different.
Sound: From the in-game battles to the adventurous cutscenes and to the game's main intro to the main menu, the themes are fantastic and really suits what's going on in the game. When you're walking through some woods or dark hallways the background theme fits very well. Other sounds such as weapons, space ships and explosions are fairly good. Some are pretty quiet, especially the space ships and some are loud. The characters voices are great and fit the characters. Sometimes they can be a bit annoying but mostly it's nice hearing them and better than just speech bubbles.
Achievements: The whole 1000 gamerscore is just for defeating bosses in Single Player. They are all very easy to achieve if you stock up on items and keep an eye on your health. They can all be defeated mostly using your powerful attack which is Y. As long as you make sure you buy new armour and weapons at the start of each new chapter then you should be just fine. My final time when I completed the game was 24 hours. I would rate the difficulty 4/10. The only parts I had a little trouble on were the last two chapters.
The additional 250G for the game's DLC: Ambition of the Illuminus, was for the online only and is no longer obtainable because of the servers closure (as mentioned above). So from now on, only the original 1000G is the max you'll be able to get from this game.
Overall: I will give this a rating of 3/5. Probably back in 2006, I may have given this a 4/5 but I feel this game is pretty outdated now by many other games and I can't seem to enjoy it like I would like to but if you don't mind the graphics and focus on the story you will more than likely enjoy this. There is no extra level grinding or hidden collectibles so you can just play through the game without worrying that you might miss something. If however you love games because of the graphics, look elsewhere 
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