Going with the flow
On the gameplay side of things you get the action/RPG elements that we have all come to love. You can run in on enemies, hit them and run back out. I don’t mind this at all, and have always felt like this isn’t the worst transition from turn-based RPGs. Much like every Zelda ever made, action/RPG elements give you a chance with several enemies. It might take you longer to bring an enemy down and it might be less organized, but it certainly works as a brother to turn-based. This is easy to execute, though at times you’ll find yourself in a combo and the enemy has already strayed away a bit (so you’re swinging at air). This has always been the case with Phantasy Star since the re-conception of it on the Dreamcast. Of course, other games suffer from this combo issue, so you have to give Phantasy Star Portable a break on that end. I do like it to an extent, but again it wouldn’t hurt to go back to turn-based fighting once in a while. With that said, I do understand that gamers today don’t have the patience for a turn-based RPG. Games tend to fall on the ‘instant-gratification’ side of things, and I get that. I just wished it felt a bit more organied and connected.
As for the powering-up system, it’s incredibly easy. Much like Ys strangely enough, as you beat the tar out of enemies you have a small yellow bar, underneath your health meter (in the lower left) that will continue to rise. Once you achieve a level, it resets the bar and your health is restored to the new level’s limit (I like this option, gives you hope when you’re fighting and are close to leveling and you need energy). There isn’t anything magical about it, but it works well. One thing I do like about the leveling and overall menu system is how to access items. Call me crazy and old-fashion, but I really like how you can hold down a button and scroll through a menu instantly, and select something like a monomate (that will instantly affect you during battle). That is an actual improvement over the entire series and something I pray they keep and move on with.
Onto to the story…
The story picks up where Phantasy Star Universe ends. You play a guardian who is fresh out of the academy (so much so that that your boss tags along for some missions). You are assigned a CAST, which is like a android, that partners with you to go and fight missions to keep the peace against a rival faction. Not too bad.
Okay, so I don’t mind a good story. I certainly don’t mind seeing dialogue. What I do mind is watching idiot anime characters spurting off stupid dialogue that makes the game less serious. This series has always been known for a compelling storyline. It has always affected people in one way or another, and while there is a tiny bit of humor here and there, it certainly doesn’t contain nonsense. It’s a serious story for the most part. The biggest issue I have with this story is that it has ridiculous characters, who might be important, that seem to spout just the worst dialogue. The old-doctor robot for example (his name slips my mind) is a pervert. He’s important to the story and essential to get mission details, but they (Sega) have assigned him to be a grab-ass old man. Why? No idea. He doesn’t fit into the story with that type of humor and it serves no true purpose. It’s little things like this that have to cleaned up in order to bring this series back to where it was again.
You might think I’m being a smidge harsh about this, but for role-playing games the story is the heart of it all. If you can’t connect with the story or its characters, then the game will more than likely fail. If you want an example of how people get emotionally involved with RPGs, look no further than Final Fantasy 7. Anyone who has played that has been emotionally torn-up inside one way or another. If you heard about the 2005 Sony Press Conference at E3, when the Playstation 3 was unveiled, Square had mocked up a trailer for FF7 using the chipset of the Playstation 3. Square had so many questions about if they had plans of remaking that game (because it was so epic) for the new system. Sadly, they didn’t.
Anyway, you get the picture. Story drives it all and Phantasy Star Portable is just going through the motions.
Fantastic visuals
The visuals in this game are amazing. What you would expect from the Playstation 2, please expect from this game. The environments, while linear, are enormous in range. You have a lot of detail, especially when you are in an open-air environment, that makes this game more than visually appealing. The enemies, while repetitous, are modeled intricately and show how much love was put into making the player feel immersed in the world. For example, the first boss is plant-like creature that stems from the floor. It has at least three-to-four waving arms (that move independently) and other types of vicious animation that make it look unapproachable. It has some fantastic shading to it that give it a bit more depth. It’s an extremely large boss (not the largest) and amazingly it doesn’t slow down and it doesn’t clip like typical games of this magnitude would do. Simply amazing.
Now, I have to compliment Sega on their detailed art in the cutscenes. They have done some still images for most of their cutscenes, which look really gorgeous. The still images move frame-by-frame and once in a while you’ll get a full-motion sequence during a cutscene. It’s a good mixture to keep the size of the game in check and allow for them to do full-voice overs (which they have). I just wanted to mention this just in case someone else came down on them. It’s well-done and a fantastic decision.
Is it fun?
I have been critical of this title and I have basically ripped it apart, but at the end of the day the game is still fun. It’s nothing new, nothing riveting, but it’s still fun. You still get to play a decent RPG, discover new places and have a few twists in the story. The real seller of the game is getting friends together to play it. You get a multiplayer adhoc Wi-Fi mode. This allows you to go on the adventure with actual friends who aren’t bots. That is a very nice way to play it. Much like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (which wouldn’t be nearly as fun on its own), the idea of getting friends to sit around and play a single adventure is exciting. This is where you’ll find the most fun. So, you can band together in a party and go off to kick some major ass. Compared to the story mode, this one dominates the game and makes it worth the price of admission. For a PSP game, it’s not a bad price, coming in at around $39.99. Having the portability of an RPG that has the capabilities for playing with friends is worth the cost.
More to come…
There is little doubt that RPGs have changed over the last decade or so. Most RPGs have moved away from the ‘turn-based’ system and have delved into the action/RPG category. I’m all for hacking and slashing and running away and around, etc. Here’s the deal, Sega had a remarkably successful series on their hands from 1987 through 1994. They produced would could be described as four epic RPGs in gaming history. The Phantasy Star series had always carried a lot of weight compared to other series. It brought an emotional story that continued from the first to the fourth game of the series. It introduced you to characters, forced you to build up your status, visit different planets and brought a large variety of enemies to the screen. It also brought an even balance of gameplay and some fantastic turn-based strategy. This is what it use to be.
What Phantasy Star has become is a watered down series. It is a recent series that has had a few elements (such as object names and the game’s title) that were carried over from the original. I have been extremely disappointed since the first Phantasy Star Online cropped up on the Dreamcast back in 1999. Sega seems to have severely hurt their star franchise through lackluster gameplay and hokey storylines. I feel like the true fans of the series have been begging Sega to go back to what they had before prior to this new series in the Phantasy Star universe. It’s like ordering a sub that you didn’t ask for, but you’re going to eat anyway because you’re hungry. I’m not saying scrap the action/RPG and go back to turn-based, I’m talking about scraping the hokey anime characters, the stagnant enemies, the giant Final Fantasy-esque swords, the lackluster stages, the gobs and gobs of not-so-great dialogue and return us back to the magic you put together nearly two decades ago. What Sega is producing right now is not good enough, plain and simple. It’s a hollow version of the original series that doesn’t bring any memorable characters, storylines or gameplay back to the gamer. It’s as if Sega is going through the motions of producing another Phantasy Star that is practically the same as it was in 1999 on the Dreamcast.
If you have never experienced the first four titles, spend the $29 to get the Genesis Collection and see for yourself what you have been missing. You will find stories that are out of this world, gameplay that is about as old-school as it gets (in a good way) and memorable events that will have you pawing for more game time.