or many people Phantasy Star Online was their first online game experience. With an engrossing story, addictive adventuring, and four-player online cooperative gameplay, many hours have melted away questing with friends regardless of which system you played it on. Even though Sega regurgitated Episodes I & II on many different platforms, gamers flocked back to the world every time to do the same quests over and over. Years have passed, and while Sega may have hiccupped with Phantasy Star Online Episode III C.A.R.D. Revolution, the company is returning to the fold with an incredibly ambitious sequel, Phantasy Star Universe. We recently spent some time with some of the Sonic Team members in Japan to get an update on this highly anticipated sequel.
We came, we saw, we jumped this fence
Phantasy Star Universe will take place both online and offline. While the storylines between the online and offline games will have crossover moments, they are separate stories. The storyline of Phantasy Star Universe is all new, and has nothing to do with previous Phantasy Star games of the past. We were promised a much larger world than previous titles, and to create it, the core team members from Phantasy Star Online are still on board, but the Phantasy Star Universe team has more than doubled.
The single player offline mode, or story mode, takes place in the Graal Solar System. The main hero, and your character is a 17-year-old boy named Ethan Waber. The Graal Solar System is comprised of three planets, and each planet has different inhabitants and cultures. In the past the three planets were involved in a huge war, but after the peace treaty was drawn 100 years ago, the solar system has been at peace.
Satoshi Sakai Section Manager G.E. R&D Dept. #3 demonstrates PSU
As story mode begins, a ceremony commemorating the 100th anniversary of the peace treaty is underway. And Ethan along with his sister, Lumia, are enjoying the festivities. All is well until a horrific meteor shower destroys a fleet of Guardian ships. The meteor shower is actually a disguised attack from a new adversary known as the SEED. In the attack Lumia is trapped in the rubble, and Ethan with the help of the Guardians set out to rescue Lumia. After his sister is safe and secure, Ethan joins the Guardians and travels to the three different planets to rid the solar system from SEED. Unfortunately, this is all Sonic Team would reveal about the story so far, which isn’t much different than what we learned at E3.
We did learn that there would be over 10 different main characters that will travel alongside Ethan. Each of those characters will possess different strengths and weaknesses. Fortunately, these AI characters will not need to be babysat, and they will heal themselves when necessary. Your party at the most will only hold four players, and you will not be able to swap characters in and out of your party at will. Your party will always be predetermined. Leveling up is done by killing enemies and finishing quests. Apparently there will be other ways for Ethan to level up, but Sonic Team is keeping that a secret.
The gameplay in Phantasy Star Universe is much like its action role playing game predecessor, but the fighting in the build we saw seemed to be slightly faster paced than in previous versions of the game. There will be a huge arsenal of weaponry in Phantasy Star Universe which will include things like one and two-handed swords, daggers, rods, handguns, sniper rifles, sabers and double sabers. There will be more than 20 different weapon types available, and with different variations of weapon types over 100 total weapons are expected.
This guy apparently loves the Nintendo DS
I got a chance to see a number of different enemy types, and from the looks of it, Sonic Team have tweaked some old favorites, and the first enemy we encountered looked like a remixed booma from the forest area from Episode I. From what we were told, however, we should expect a ton of new enemy types. For those of you with fond memories of destroying bosses, Sonic Team is promising over 20 of them.
One new addition to the series both in the online and offline modes are vehicles. Characters will be able to use vehicles to traverse long stretches of landscape, and to get from Zone to Zone. When asked if the vehicles will be also used in battles, we got a smile, a laugh, and “it’s a secret” as an answer so we’re betting that somehow vehicles will be intertwined in battle.
Fans of the series have grown accustomed to the orchestral score that Phantasy Star has offered, and while there will be orchestrated music in the game, that is only a small portion of the music that will be found in Phantasy Star Universe. Each of the three planets will have a different musical style altogether. Overall, Phantasy Star Universe is said to have more musical tracks than any other Phantasy Star title. There was so much music to record that they used two different orchestras. You can also expect plenty of voiceover use in the game, and in total there will be over three hours of recorded voice.
The online portion of Phantasy Star Universe is still tightly held under wraps. What we do know is that the online part will take place in the same world after the single player story mode, and after Ethan has become the uber-hero of the game. Gameplay will be much like Phantasy Star Online where you’ll get quests from NPCs that you and your party will have to complete. While the stories will be completely different, as you’re playing through the online portion of the game, you can run into characters like Ethan and others from the story mode. This is where elements of both stories will have some crossover plotlines. One of the main reasons Sonic Team wanted to make such large online and offline components was to increase and deepen the story, and these crossover moments are one of the ways they plan on doing so.
This can't be good.
The original Phantasy Star Online was a little short on character creation options, Phantasy Star Universe is set to raise the bar completely. When creating your guardian you’ll be able to finely tweak different elements like eye spacing, jaw structure, skin color, and more. As with Phantasy Star Online, when you create your character, you’ll first need to choose a race. Races available are Hunter, Ranger, Humans, Newmans, and Casts (androids). Sonic Team has added one new race for Phantasy Star Universe – beasts – which have the special ability to transform into a beast-man. Each race will have different strengths and weaknesses. Some sort of MAG pet will also be in the game, but what it will be called, and what exactly its role will be isn’t determined. We do know, however, that it will level up just like MAGs did in PSO, but its actual role in the game will be different than it was Phantasy Star Online.
How many people you’ll be able to have in your party is still up in the air at this point. The goal for Sonic Team is to have larger parties than Phantasy Star Online, which would be four. The total party member count is still a secret. Will there be the ability to have guilds? What about player versus player combat? “It’s a secret,” is all they would say.
Phantasy Star Universe will have some sort of Hunters License needed to play online, but it will be somewhat different than the current Hunters License. While we’re assuming this is to separate the people playing Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst, we were told that subtle or complete name changes were to differentiate and separate Phantasy Star Universe from the other Phantasy Star Online titles. Pricing still hasn’t been determined, but if history is any indication, the monthly fee for Phantasy Star Universe will fall into the $10 - $20 realm. Regularly released downloadable content is planned for the game, but how PS2 players will be able to store that content, whether it’s a memory card or on the PS2 hard drive is also not known at this time.
USB keyboards will be supported for PlayStation 2 players, and Sonic Team is trying to also get headset support in, but at this time they’re not guaranteeing anything. Also Sega is trying to allow PC players to play alongside PS2 players, but that is also not determined. One other word of bad news, Phantasy Star Universe will not support widescreen or progressive scan displays, so if you’re looking for a high resolution experience, you may want to pick up the PC version instead.
After the same game with a few minor additions has been on all the different platforms through out the years, it’s about time fans get what they’ve been asking for – a new game. With a 40 – 50 hour single player element, and an enormous multiplayer game, Phantasy Star Online fans should be more than satisfied when Phantasy Star Universe is released. Unfortunately, the game isn’t hitting until early 2006. Until then, at least you’ve got Episode IV of Blue Burst to help tide you over…