| Platform | OVERALL |
|---|---|
| Nintendo DS | 6.80 |
| Overall | 6.80 |
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Phantasy Star Zero is the closest Sega has come to recreating the magic they had with PS0. In terms of design its better than PSU. PSU had this horrible mix of MMO elements like crafting your weapons rather than finding them and the need to replay levels over and over. Thankfuly the structure is more like PSO, you find all the items by killing enemies, rares included. That said the levels are no where near as interesting as the ones in PSO, maybe its because of the DS limitations, I don't know. The levels are randomly generated, each have a few paths, it has the laser fences that you need to shut down and stuff like that. All I know is that these levels felt too simple compared to the memorable levels in PSO. The combat is taken from PSU which is nice cause it adds an evade button and a few extra power attacks. The problem is that it has been 10 years since PSO and many years since PSU as well, neither had a great combat system to begin with, there is no improvement here. The lock on system doesn't work that well on the DS, which results in it feeling more clunky than ever before. The game has all the elements that made PSO work but it's missing that magic most probably cause I played it alone. Here is the worst part of this game, you probably won't find anyone to play with. I went online a few times and found no one to play with. For some reason you can't play the main quest with friends so even if I did play with others it would only be those levels I had unlocked before with no real progress being made. The single player is at least fleshed out with a decent story. Of course it takes you through all the levels, each ending in a big old boss fight. You level up, you find better weapons, you feed your mag, it's so much like PSO yet it's no where near as good. This game made me sad. Is that formula done. Will it never work again. Maybe its the handheld, maybe this kind of experience is meant for consoles where you are bound to find more players online. All I know is that I didn't feel anything remotely close to the love I have for PSO. |
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Posted by Dvader Sat, 07 Aug 2010 01:15:12
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robio (2m)
I think WoW owns the market for this kind of thing these days. MMOs other than WoW can't make it, how can one survive on the DS. I guess you could argue that the Japanese market could support Monster Hunter -- but that's THEIR WoW.
I think the DC PSO worked because it came at the highest point of the dial-up internet. It just had perfect timing, before evryone moved to DSL, and online gaming seemed like it had arrived from fifty years in the future.
My wish for Phantasy Star is that it would return to the JRPG roots from which it came and become SEGA's version of FF.
I think MMOs can survive pretty well with WoW. For a start WoW isn't very hardcore, and hardcore MMOs won't lose that many people flocking to WoW. There's also a great deal of types of MMOs that are not RPGs, which aren't really competing with WoW either.