Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4213 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Sega
• Released on: 2006-11-24
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platform: Xbox 360
• Dimensions: 7.48" h x .79" w x 5.51" l,

Manufacturer's Description
The long awaited new title in the beloved Phantasy Star series is here. Phantasy Star Universe delivers a rich, ever evolving world and will provide hours of entertainment to both online and offline RPG enthusiasts. Single-player fans will embark on an offline quest as Ethan Waber, a 17-year old cadet intent on saving his sister from an invasion of mysterious life forces called THE SEED. While online players will create their own characters from a range of races, and then set off to explore all three planets in the Gurhal solar system. Fans will travel with a squad of other adventurers, enter urban sprawls teeming with hundreds of other players, and build their avatars into powerful warriors.

Customer Reviews

Don't expect PSO!!
I been hooked on Phantasy Star Online since Dreamcast and Gamecube days. Well finally a sequel has arrived!

Well there's offline mode, extra mode and online mode.. Since most of the meat is at online.. you best bet is to spend some time with the offline mode.. thats where you get to know about the storyline controlling Ethan Waber a young boy who ends up becomming a member of the Guardians, a sort of military force that sends out help for the planets; Parum, Neudaiz and Moatoob while operating from the Guardians colony floating in space. An alien force called 'Seed' has begun to attack the solar system.

What Sonic Team has done here in the offline mode is impletment training of the new battle and menu system for you be familiarized and be ready when you go online as things are a lot different from PSO!

Online mode; This is where you (hopefully gonna be spending most of your time at(while playing this game).. Oh the character you level offline won't be the same level/character that you bring online.. while offline you control and level up Ethan Waber and (other non playable characters that join you), Online you must create your own character and start from level 1...

You will probably be underwhelmed at first because there are only a few missions which you can start off with.. but what makes this different from PSO is once you complete part of a mission you will exit to a guardian's temporary base camp. From here (depending on which exit you take) you should have a choice to take 2 different routes (some will lead you to other areas for you to complete your mission) and face different bosses!

In the original PSO you have normal, Hard, Very Hard and ultimate difficulties.. In PSU they rank as C missions (normal difficulty), B Missions (hard) to A missions (Very Hard difficulty), S and S2 mission (ultimate difficulty) and depending on what routes you take will also affect the difficulty of the mission even more! At the end of completing each mission you will get a ranking and 'S' rank is what you should aim for (killing all the monsters and have no party deaths) will result in getting maximum meseta and exp!

Most people will end up mostly levelling up at the Guardian's Colony or Parum (which leaves some people thinking "that's all there is to the missions"???? SO if you want a challenge then head out to Neudaiz and Maotoob as they can be extremely challenging and hard!!! Also There is Hive which is similar to the old PSO Ruins level.

and as for finding rares... well they really are Rare this time so good luck!! and getting meseta is pretty hard now too..

What is different is that you have your own room to decorate and (later on can open up a shop to sell your rares while you are either offline/playing missions or chilling out and chatting to people while in game). (while this is only speculation decorating your room might affect your luck finding rares) but I stress its only speculation at this time...

Gone are raising mags.. instead you have a Partner Machinery (which similar to mags) and depending on what you feed it will also attribute to its final form.. most of the early P.machinery's life is spent in your room. Here your P.Machine will help in synthesising stuff.. Yes you can create weapons, armour, food items to help you in your online quests (and some of these have very low chance of success to be created) hence what you feed it will determine its success for creation. Once your p.machinery reaches its final form you should be able to take it out with you into missions to help you and your team mates in battle.

This time you dont need to wait for the load screen when people enter battles, Battles are much faster and action orientated, tech spells and other techniques all start at level 1 and you need to purchase them and level them up. Up to 6 people can join in battle and if you are party leader and you dont like certain players you can now boot them out!! (remember having to leave your own party in PSO from annoying players) ??

Overall I really love this game! its got depth but it will take a while for you to appreciate it! If you want the same PSO stuff then you will be dissappointed.

Unfortunately the xbox 360 version you can only play alongside other 360 players from USA to Europe and Japan (pc and ps2 versions have their own independant servers). It also runs at 60 frames per second (but expect the frame rate to drop while action get intense)!!

EDIT:

I'm actually still playing this since this review was submitted. Alot has changed since then and Sega have been uploading events which have come and gone and there are still lots of people playing this.. infact there is also an expansion for PSU to upgrade and prolong things even further!

How PSO was meant to be...
For anyone reading these reviews who HASN'T played Phantasy Star Online for Gamecube/Xbox/Dreamcast, let me explain what this game is all about...
You use a weapon to kill some enemy creatures. You do it again. You level up and become more powerful. You get a bigger, better weapon. You kill some harder creatures. Repeat.
If you HAVE played PSO, and enjoyed it, then buy this immediately - this is how PSO was meant to be, dual-wielding weapons, player shops, and photon skills.

If you are looking for a deep offline single-player experience, then this is not the game for you. The offline story serves only as an introduction to the game, which you should play online to really appreciate.
The online game is what really shines. I have lost countless hours to this game, and I don't regret it at all.

Where has my life gone??
This is the first game I've bought for the 360 specifically for the online function and it hasn't let me down at all. The story is a bit kooky but you have to be impressed by the scale and the flexibility of the game. I've spent far to many evenings and nights "levelling up" my character and finding my feet with the missions. Granted its got a lot of novelty value for me at the moment but its easy to have a quick go turn into a all-nighter and getting up for work at 07:00 isn't that nice after that!.

So far I've found a mixture of age ranges playing the game (£6.99 p/m might rule out some of the youngest players) so there are always people to find to have a "run" with.

Buy it and try it.