Phantasy Star Online is what many would call “an oldie, but a goodie.” While I played the GameCube version, PSO was originally released in 2000 for the Dreamcast, and was later made available to the Xbox and PC. Developed by Sonic Team at SEGA and coupled with poor advertising, it became known as one of those stellar games that did not receive nearly as much recognition as it deserves.

You begin the game on the colony Pioneer 2, and as part of the Hunter’s Guild, you are given a mission to investigate an explosion on the planet Ragol. Your goal then is to follow the footsteps of a mysterious Rico Tyrell and exterminate any hostile native creatures — only to realize once you’ve landed that everything wants to taste your blood. And that’s OK. It’s time to grab your trusty lightsaber and call up your friends as you plow through the depths of the planet.

Hit the jump to find out more.

Phantasy Star Online has a confusing name. The truth of the matter is you don’t have to play it online. Primarily, it is a fantasy and science fiction-styled role-playing game. As you gain experience through fighting enemies you will raise your level, increasing your hit points, tech points, and your character’s proficiency. Depending on your class, you can also learn spells called techniques and help yourself to many unique types of weapons and armor. If you hunt long enough, you might even find rare equipment like the coveted chainsaw, a head on a stick or even a bazooka.

However, this is not your traditional RPG. It plays in real-time, much like an MMORPG, meaning that you won’t have time to stand around and wait while enemies are trying to attack you. Instead, it’s up to you to run and dodge your opponents’ attacks, retaliating as you see fit. While PSO utilizes an RPG formula, its gameplay is similar to many 3D action-adventure titles such as Ratchet and Clank and The Legend of Zelda.

One of the most interesting points of Phantasy Star Online is the customization. For a game that was released almost a decade ago, it allows for a wide range of attribute changes for your character, including unique costumes and facial features. You begin your custom avatar by choosing between three professions and their accompanying races. The three basic classes are hunter, ranger and force.

Hunters are the melee fighters of PSO. They come in a variety of flavors. You can be a HUmar, a male human hunter, who has an above average hit point and attack ratio but no special ability. You can also be a HUcast or HUcaseal, who are ‘male’ and ‘female’ robotic hunters. These androids are the strongest in terms of raw attack power, but they cannot use magic. However, they do possess the ability to set up traps and heal hit points while standing. The last option is my personal favorite, the HUnewearl — a female newman hunter. In the PSO universe, newmans are akin to elves in their magic-casting abilities. While newmans have fewer hit points and poor accuracy, they make up for this weakness with a high tech point boost, allowing them to hit hard with spells.

As the name suggests, rangers are your sniping characters. What better way to clear a room than to use a spread and eliminate everything before you’re even spotted? Rangers as a class are blessed with higher accuracy, enabling them to snipe from afar. Combined with a wide variety of guns to choose from, a ranger is bound to be a happy camper. Aspiring players can choose to be a RAcast or RAcaseal, android rangers with a high attack and accuracy ratio, at the sacrifice of being unable to use spell techs. RAmars and RAmarls, being human, are a little less proficient than their mechanized counterparts, but what they lose in raw ability they gain in learning how to buff and heal themselves.

Finally, for those who like to cause a scene, the force class has a place for you. In the GameCube version of PSO at least, forces are the only ones who can use powerful attack techs like megid and grants, which specialize in making your enemies explode in blazing glory. Of course, being mind-focused has its drawbacks: your defense and hit points will always be lesser than those of similar races from other classes. Only humans and newmans can choose to be forces. Humans, as FOmars and FOmarls, are physically tougher than their newman counterparts, FOnewms and FOnewearls. On the other hand, newmans are an innately magical race and will make for the strongest tech-casters. Combined with the ability to regenerate tech points, they make for formidable foes.

Which class or race is right for you? Since you can take items to increase different stat points and train a companion (called a “MAG”) who will also help your attributes, each and every character is likely to be different. A GameCube memory card can save up to four character slots, so feel free to jump right in and experiment!

Phantasy Star Online has a way of immersing you in the game with its lush environments. Of course, being a dated game it’s hard to have the same amount of appreciation for polygons today as I did back then. I’ve been playing PSO on and off for years, but with the advent of SEGA’s newer Phantasy Star Universe, the older game was pushed aside with hopes of greater and better things.

While I do know people who have played and enjoyed Phantasy Star Universe, that wasn’t the case with me.

I played the game for two months before switching back to PSO. Maybe it was a case of nostalgia. I missed the MAGs. I missed finding rare red boxes containing items you can actually use, instead of ingredients to make those items. I missed having offline gameplay with your customized character, and I especially missed the offline multiplayer that Sonic Team saw fit to scrap. There was so much potential in making PSU an amazing game — and in some respects, it is, only it feels like a step down in gameplay from its graphically inferior predecessor.

Luckily, I found that Amazon was still selling the GameCube broadband adapter for a little over $30, and picked up two. Come to think of it, did any non-Phantasy Star Online game use the adapter? Although the official SEGA servers have been down for years, you can still play PSO online thanks to dedicated fans.

While it’s a great game, Phantasy Star Online is by no means perfect. A couple of key criticisms include the repetitive levels and ungodly amounts of grinding. There are only four base areas to choose from in Episode I, and only a few more in Episode II. What’s worse is the fact that you’re forced to redo the quests to reach latter zones in Episode II each and every time you turn off your GameCube. There are also four modes to choose from: Normal, Hard, Very Hard and Ultimate, with each additional difficulty varying in slight changes to both enemies and maps.

Its key redeeming point is the sheer amount of unadulterated fun you can get by collecting original items, exploring dungeons with friends, and if you’re really lucky, coming across that incredibly rare enemy for a chance at gaining a special piece of equipment.

Phantasy Star Online is without a doubt one of the best action-RPGs I have ever played. If you happen to come across this gem, give it a try. You might like what you find.

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