The Darkness Has Returned
- JP release: 12th September 2002
- NA release: 30th October 2002
- EU release: 7th March 2003
- Developer: Sonic Team
- Publisher: Sega
- NGC Magazine Score: 90%
- Mods Used: Widescreen Code
Phantasy Star Online is a difficult game to look back on. It was a big deal at the time, being an online RPG for home consoles, providing a way for non-PC gamers to socialise with others online for the first time in a video game. With online gaming being a new thing for consoles, and requiring additional purchases of modems, Phantasy Star Online came with online and offline modes, so you can still play the whole game (with a properly adapted difficulty) without connecting to the internet. The GameCube version of Episode 1 & 2 took this an extra step further with 4 player split screen.
For this playthrough, I played the “Plus” version, which added online-exclusive content to the offline mode.
In Phantasy Star Online, you’re a ship taking refugees from Earth to a new habitable planet, arriving after the first ship sets up the start of a colony. An explosion happens and you lose contact with the colony, and you’re sent to investigate. The main story is intriguing, but it never really goes into much detail, and could have been done with some tutorials and more dialogue. I beat the final boss of Episode 1 and it just cuts to credits, saves then sends you to the title screen.
The combat in Phantasy Star Online is fine. It works in a very similar way to modern console MMOs, with a hotbar that lets you place your abilities, and holding down a button to access some extra ones. That said, it takes a long time to gain new abilities, so you’ll be stuck with a few basic attacks to begin with. There are a lot of weapons and items you can find, although a lot of what you can find will be locked to other classes.
There’s also surprisingly few levels in the game, and they’re all made up of smaller rooms connected by corridors. That said, there are some really nice looking areas and some nice detail in these areas. It’s typically a case of killing all the enemies, finding buttons and moving on, sometimes encountering a dead end (usually with loot) and trying a different direction. There are lots of extra quests you can go on, but these use the same few maps.
In Episode 2, the graphics get significantly better, with far nicer and more natural looking environments. The final area of the game – an underwater lab – even has lovely reflections of yourself, but also enemies. Some enemies now turn invisible, yet their reflections still show for you to be able to react to them. It’s a shame that graphical effects only apply to certain areas.
Even in singleplayer mode, there’s something oddly charming about the whole thing. In a way it’s a fairly simple hack n slash game with repetitive levels, but there’s a really interesting world and the enemies all feel unique, acting in different ways and requiring different tactics to beat, which helps to keep you on your toes as you need to adjust your strategy on the fly.
It all feels like a remarkable time capsule as well. It was the early days of online gaming on consoles, yet as it had to provide singleplayer functionality, it’s all easy to play right now, without having to faff with unofficial servers and the like (although you can do that if you want to play it online).
Fun
Ordinarily, we’d deride a game that, structurally, was as dull as what we’ve just described. With Phantasy Star Online, however, it’s simply not justified. It’s an entirely different breed of game from just about anything else out there. It’s not so much an RPG, more a beautifully realised version of Gauntlet.
Geraint Evans, NGC Magazine #78
Remake or remaster?
A remastered version would be great, with the additional stuff form the PC version (Blue Burst). It’s still an interesting game..
Official Ways to get the game
There is no official way to get Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II.
Europe
Japan
North America
Japan Modem Bundle
North America Plus
Japan Plus
GameCube Games by Date
2002: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2003: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2004: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2005: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2006: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
It’s shocking that SEGA haven’t remastered this game yet. It would be stupid popular if released on modern consoles, especially in an era where Old School Runescape has usurped the more modern version, and where WOW Classic is the most popular version of the game.
There’s a market for a retro MMO game on consoles, and SEGA are just sitting on an untapped mine of gold (then again, you could say the same for most of their non MD back catelogue in general :heh:)
@S.C.G get in here and start gushing about this game! :hehe:
Phantasy Star Online really was something special at the time.
The sheer ability of being able to play a video game with other people over the internet was such an amazing thing and SEGA really did pull it off flawlessly. It felt incredible that they managed to get 4 players, with each player possibly from different countries, all teaming up in an online game on 56k modems.
Aside from the ability to play online, the game looked interesting. It has a very unique style and the general look of it had something that just grabbed people, and I think that worked in tandem with the online nature of the game to make seem worth buying.
The soundtrack was fantastic too, and what was especially novel at the time was how the music would change from calm to chaotic when enemies appeared.
I had played a lot of PSO on Dreamcast, both Version 1 and 2, but as amazing as it seemed, it was pretty clear there wasn’t enough to do. With just 4 stages to explore and 100 rare weapons to find, most players reached the max level 100 in no time at all.
When the Gamecube version was announced, it was my most anticipated game of that year as I felt this could be the version that does everything right. And I feel for the most part, it does. With more weapons, more stages, better drop rates etc and more quests.
Once the game hit the UK in March 2003, was playing it for several hours every night for about a year and a half. The UK population for the game was pretty low but the US shops/Servers and had a healthy number of players so I tended to play on there, which meant playing later in the day.
And it’s crazy to look back at how much it took to get it online, as the Gamecube modem had to be brought separately, you have to pay a monthly fee to SEGA called a Guide License to get online (I think it was £10 a month?) and if you wanted to use a keyboard, rather then use the in-game software keyboard to talk, you had to buy a little adapter. Or you could buy this:
I played PSO on GameCube a lot and it never got boring, I was always enjoying being online and playing games with my friends. I even managed to get my character to level 200 before everyone I knew on there moved on to the new MMO’s at the time, World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XI in late 2004.
And as a result of playing it so much, I made several online friends on there too, what is amazing is that I still talk them online this very day, pretty much on daily basis, 20 years since we all “met”.
From just general chitchat to playing other games with each other, we all seem to have grown up talking to each other over the course of nearly a quarter of a century, all thanks to PSO!
A few times over the years I have played on the private servers out there which lets you run the PC version and I still enjoy it. I do hope SEGA somehow remake this game and bring it up to date at some point
Phantasy Star Online was such a fascinating game. It’s not the type of game I would play (I never really vibed with online multiplayer gaming like that), but it is no doubt a hell of an achievement and a milestone for that console generation. It looks well-crafted, too.