Patrick's Web Site- Phantasy Star Online for Sega Dreamcast

Phantasy Star Online, or PSO, starts out with a graphically impressive intro that gives you a look into the basic plot. Your planet is quickly became unlivable, so the government sent probes for replacements. Ragol was found to be pleasant, so a refugee ship, Pioneer 1, was sent. Years later, Pioneer 2 was sent, and this is the ship you are on. Just before landing/docking (whatever), communications were lost as an enormous explosion took place. Your mission: find out what happened. After choosing a character, the Principal recaps and reluctantly tells you his daughter, Red Ring Rico, was a Pioneer 1 refugee. So go find her!

PSO, in terms of gameplay, is very similar to the excellent PC game Diablo 2. In both games, you rack up experience points and cash, while engaging in real time battles. In PSO, money (hereafter referred to as "meseta") is almost plentiful, since items are very common. You have 90 slots, 30 on your person and 60 in the bank. It may seem like plenty, but it fills up quickly. Each slot can hold a maximum of 10 copies of a single item, like healers called Mates, the TP (magic, or technique points) relpenishers called Fluids, and others. These are very useful in all parts of the game.

Your Mag is basically your pet that can eventually fight back. Kind of like a Pokemon, it starts out weak and becomes stronger. Levels increase in your chosen area, either mind, power, dexterity, or defense, according to what items you feed it. Intelligence and synchronization are also raised, and are both Mag stats that affect Photon Blasts, charged by getting clobbered by monsters. As a result, usefulness suffers as you get more exp. Various PBs help you in various ways, including killing any monster near you.

Combat in PSO is incredibly addictive and entertaining. All weapons have both normal and hard attacks. The latter takes twice the time to charge and unleashes twice the damage. Certain weapons (you'll know 'em when you see 'em) have a third attack, an element. This element either launches a fire or lightning attack, tries to kill instantly, or just drains health or exp.

Playing online is especially fun. With the right teammates, you can have more fun with PSO than any other game. However, the level of online hackers, cheaters, and thieves is rising. Quests, supplied by the Hunter's Guild, are completely optional. They are, however, a very good way to earn meseta and make the plot more interesting. Once you complete all 21, you can select whichever you want. There are also 3 modes to PSO: normal (default), hard, and v. hard. To get to the next, you have to defeat the final boss offline in the previous mode.

The graphics are incredible, like most DC games, though PSO is probably one of the best looking games out there. If you show me a better looking console RPG, I'll show you Shenmue. The music is also stellar, with an incredible soundtrack easily accesed in Options. Or make your own via Napster. PSO is easily the best real time RPG out there, worthy of the name Phantasy Star, though the basic plot doesn't quite fit in...

Graphics: 10 It's not reasonable to expect anything better.

Gameplay: 8.5 A good RPG without a good plot is merely...a good RPG.

Replay Value: 10 Forget crack, PSO is much more addictive! I've logged over 80 hours, and I'm not barely 1/3 finished!

Sound/Music: 9.5 Also incredible, with a great original soundtrack, and at least one sound per weapon, of which there are hundreds. Not to mention the usual number of background sounds. Though there are no voices, the 5-way translation is superb.

Overall: 9.5 Another classic from Sonic Team!