'The Phantasy begins on your 360 ... or not ?'
 Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: SEGA
Category: :
Official Site
Platform: X-Box 360
Might look like: /
Date posted: 5 March 2007
Written By: Ian
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Final Phantasy ?
When Phantasy Star Online was released all those years ago for SEGA's Dreamcast, it was the first popular MMO, and the first on a console.
It was fresh, moving away from the Final Fantasy turn-based style, and it set a standard for all other MMORPG's to follow, and was pretty much universally loved.
The second episode was also popular and well received, and after a foray into card battles, Phantasy Star has returned with a traditional offering now called "Phantasy Star Universe", but does it live up to the predecessors?
Final Destination
Well, actually, there are two, because this is the first Phantasy Star game in many years to offer a single player portion to the game, and it tells the story of the young Ethan Weber, as he joins the Guardians and goes on to find love and save the galaxy from the evil rampaging SEED attack.
The game plays out essentially in the same way as the online aspect of the game, you go smash up the bad guys in real time, gain some levels and items, then learn more about the plot, go smash more stuff up, etc etc.
Unfortunately, a lot of the trails can be frustrating. Save points are sparse, and bosses can be very tough. Also, your team's AI is really poor. You are often accompanied by a character capable of healing you, but they almost never do. When they do actually heal you, chances are, you don't really need it.
Also, a lot of the time, your party will sit there without attacking, and as there is no order system, there isn't anything you can do about it, which adds to the frustration.
  
What is really cheap, is despite the fact that there are only twelve chapters to the single player, several of the bosses repeat, and appear just with different names and skins, and a few more HP than before. In fact, there are only about four distinct bosses in the entire game, which further serves how repetitive the gameplay can get.
There are also not many different creatures; again they repeat, only with different skins, it is easy to see through them because the models are just HD versions of the PS2 models.
Frankly, this is one of the worst looking 360 games, despite the graphics not having been polished at all from the PS2 version, you will frequently when casting spells or running near fire/smoke suffer the ignobility of having the game slow down (a lot, often to a sub 10FPS rate), which is frankly unacceptably poor coding.
What about Multiplayer ?
But is the multiplayer any better?
Well, the answer is yes, but not by much. The hardest thing to stomach is the monthly fee (or guardian's licence, as Sega like to call it). This costs £6.99 per month, a fairly standard fee, but Phantasy Star is not a proper MMO.
The planets and buildings may play host to hundreds of players, but all the trials are instanced, like in the PC title "Guild Wars". Yet Guild Wars is free to play online, so this fee is frankly extortionate, especially considering there is no free trial included in the retail box.
The 'content' you pay for has so far been limited to some new high level missions and a Christmas theme in the Guardians colony, hardly worth the £20 odd you would have paid by now if you had paid every month since launch, and especially not considering the demo servers are still online and is free to play.
There are some nice features, like voice chat, but the game is still plagued by problems logging into the servers and terrible lag, and apart from the first couple of universes, the game is basically dead online.
Whilst battling online with your friends can be fun and means there are no problems with bad AI, the repetitive nature of the gameplay means that you will probably grow bored fairly soon unless you really love your MMO's.
  
Final Straw
Its such a shame that the single player gameplay has so little variety.
The repetitive gameplay is understandable online, and to be honest, in relatively short bursts, it can fairly entertaining, although multi-button combos would really help to liven it up.
But the poor team AI, bland creatures and lack of planets draws the game back.
The plot is also actually pretty good, and is worth seeing through, even if it is a bit clichéd in its boy-grows-up-and-goes-on-to-save-the-galaxy style.
The voice acting (when Sega bother with it) is well implemented, even if the lip-synching is terrible.
Extra mode is pretty much worthless, and I cannot really see anyone spending any time with it unless you decide you REALLY love the game, but then you get more of the same environments, and more poor AI.
Conclusion
The fact that there are only nine achievements, and that all of them are tied to the single player show just how lazily the game has been developed. Perhaps Sega felt bad (it should feel bad that there is not even a one month trial included in the box) about making people pay to gain achievements, but even then the single player achievements could hardly be less inspired.
I'm not saying the game is worthless, but it is a sore letdown, and could have been so much more. Substandard graphics and AI will no longer cut it in a world where MMOs are no longer a novelty. And considering you can play the Beta for free and get just as much as you can out of the game as if you pay, that aspect of the game really cannot be recommended.
So then back to the single player, which tells a good story, but is so repetitive you might not bother seeing through the twenty hour quest. If you must play an MMO on your 360, this is probably a better option than Final Fantasy XI, but you might as well just keep playing the demo online.
Thus, it is pretty hard to recommend Phantasy Star Universe to you all.
-Ian
Ratings
Manual:
55 % |
Graphics:
61% |
Music & Sfx:
72% |
GamePlay:
64% |
|
This game scores
 
on our 5-point Rating System
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