Rawr.

[Ivan]

Haha, hey guys.

Kevin here just popping in when he can. Although it's been quite a bit of time.

Just wondering if there are any cool people still sticking around on psobb.

I don't think I'll be getting Universe. I'm a bit iffy about it. And I'm lost in all the new posts page since my last visit and I can't seem to find the thread on it. So if anyone has a nice sumup of it that'd be rad...

Just gonna look around a bit more, but I'm starting to find more free time...and I've been toying around on bb a bit more recently.

Any familiar faces I know? Or are there quite a few members?

Show yourselves!! ^_^;;

[nomercy]

Well PSU is pretty good in all accounts, apart from lagging sometimes. Not many people like the main character, and the story is pretty cliche. Other than that, it's all good.

[Emperor]

The english voice dubbing for story mode is flawless (i mean... its crap)
Oh yeah the lagg i experience it quite a bit in Razorfen Meadows.

Still its a great game

[Beat X500]

Hey man, welcome back to these merry olde forums

If you're after a sum up of all things PSU, Lee did a nice review on the game for the website here

[Junon]

Hey Ivan, Long time no see. Hope you're well.

I've bought PSU on the PC and have already amassed 20+ hours of online play time.

At this moment in time, I am dissapointed with PSU.

- Dodgy Graphics. Although Sega say they are aware of the problem and working on a fix, there is often alot of slowdown. I got a new computer literally like 2 weeks ago - Dual Core Pentium, 2GB RAM, 512MB Graphics card... you get the idea. And Im still experiencing slow down, even with this hefty specced PC.

- Dodgy Graphics Part 2. The game doesnt feel as polished and tidy as other quality Sega games I've played, let alone Sonic Team. The game appears to me as if it was designed and built originally for the PS2, then ported over to XBOX 360, and the PC... Poorly - But apparently they're looking in to fixing this. The graphics arent especially bad, but they're nothing new, and the areas I havent found to be particually impressive either - They haven't wow'ed me like the first time I visited the Central Control Area in Episode II.

- Poor Controls. I know you could always get a control pad, but even so - the controls for PSU are very clumsy, why the hell isn't there any mouse support!? Also when typing text on PSU, the keyboard is very slow to respond, which is also hugely annoying. I'm not sure if I like the quick weapon/item select drop menu, it's a bit too fiddly - I'm sure it just takes some getting used to.

- Feel & Sound. I dunno if I'm stuck on the nostalgia of PSO, but PSU doesn't feel as polished as PSO - as if it was rushed. Some of the musical scores are nice, such as when you are selecting which planet to visit, but the music simply does not compare to PSO's awesome score. Even the menus feel as if they have had little attention.

- Personalisation. Upon first loading the game and creating my Character, I was actually impressed with how much you could change about your character, the colour palletes you could choose from etc. But after playing the game for a while, I've realised there isn't a huge amount of differentiation between the races - for example you can make Humans, Newmans and Beasts almost look identical, choosing the same haircut and build, and they all have access to the same outfits... seems kinda sucky. I know PSO didn't exactly have loads of personalisation either, but the levels of personalisation offered between PSO and PSU are few and far between.

- Photon Arts. Why only 1 per weapon? I was expecting to be able to learn multiple skills and be able to string them together as combos. Basically you get the good old 1,2,3 combo then plus an extra attack with some prettier graphics. Not a huge leap over the PSO 1,2,3 + Special Weapon attack system, which is actually more satisfying to use.

I know theres a patch coming soon which is aimed to address a few of the above issues, which I will probably give a go. But I dunno, it seems to lack the Sonic Team magic which made the original PSO so special.

I'm not alone in my dissapointment either... IGN have rated the game 5.5/10. Very average.

Also on the official PSO:BB Boards, I've seen loads of threads titled "PSU - Huge dissapointment, I'm coming back to PSO:BB" or similar.

I have also since done the same, I have now got a Level 22 FOnewm, and I'm having more fun than I did playing PSU.

I'd say try PSU for yourself, and you will see. In it's current state, it's definitely no PSO beater. But perhaps time will tell, with future updates and the like they may be able to build on PSU...

[Namillus]

- Personalisation. Upon first loading the game and creating my Character, I was actually impressed with how much you could change about your character, the colour palletes you could choose from etc. But after playing the game for a while, I've realised there isn't a huge amount of differentiation between the races - for example you can make Humans, Newmans and Beasts almost look identical, choosing the same haircut and build, and they all have access to the same outfits... seems kinda sucky. I know PSO didn't exactly have loads of personalisation either, but the levels of personalisation offered between PSO and PSU are few and far between.

- Photon Arts. Why only 1 per weapon? I was expecting to be able to learn multiple skills and be able to string them together as combos. Basically you get the good old 1,2,3 combo then plus an extra attack with some prettier graphics. Not a huge leap over the PSO 1,2,3 + Special Weapon attack system, which is actually more satisfying to use.

- "Yes, let's discriminate against Newmans and Beasts by forcing them to wear different sets of clothing!"

I mean, seriously. Beasts actually have unique faces, thanks to their racial attributes, and the ears on Newmans and Beasts are uniqueness enough, methinks. Why restrict the clothing and hairstyles available to them just because they're a different race?

- PA's improve with use. Bladeskill-type PA's can be combo'd into from the standard 3-hit. As they level, they gain up to two additional parts to their own combo, so it's actually: 1-2-3-PA1-PA2-PA3, not 1-2-3 or PA. Also, PA's often deal multple hits (Rising Strike, Buten-Shuryen Zan) for each button press. (Rising Strike's two-string maximum deals two enemies two hits with the first button press, the second of which knocks them into the air, and then a jumping slash for the second press which deals roughly three hits in quick succession to each while they're in the air, for a grand total of an 8-hit combo.)

[Junon]

- "Yes, let's discriminate against Newmans and Beasts by forcing them to wear different sets of clothing!"

I mean, seriously. Beasts actually have unique faces, thanks to their racial attributes, and the ears on Newmans and Beasts are uniqueness enough, methinks. Why restrict the clothing and hairstyles available to them just because they're a different race?

- PA's improve with use. Bladeskill-type PA's can be combo'd into from the standard 3-hit. As they level, they gain up to two additional parts to their own combo, so it's actually: 1-2-3-PA1-PA2-PA3, not 1-2-3 or PA. Also, PA's often deal multple hits (Rising Strike, Buten-Shuryen Zan) for each button press. (Rising Strike's two-string maximum deals two enemies two hits with the first button press, the second of which knocks them into the air, and then a jumping slash for the second press which deals roughly three hits in quick succession to each while they're in the air, for a grand total of an 8-hit combo.)

I think each race should have their own set of individual appearances. Eg, clothing, hairstyles etc.

It just gives me the feeling that they had designed Humans, then just used them as a template to work on in order to create Newmans and Beasts - then just changing some of their facial attributes. Giving the impression of the games creation being rushed. Appart from Ears, theres no other real visible attribute that greatly sets those 3 races apart. And it does literally look like a they used a template for all 3 to me.

I know you can use Photon Arts in the middle of any combo, and that they change in levels, but it's not any real advancement over PSO's system - which is fine and enjoyable in itself, but it feels outdated when used in PSU.

I was just expecting the fighting to be a little bit more complex, such as learning multiple combos and using/stringing together whichever ones you liked and found most effective. Not being limited to 1 Photon Art per weapon basically.

I wouldn't class PSU as an MMORPG, just an ORPG Hack 'n' Slash. Which means 90% of the time you are going to spend whacking things. And for a game where the emphasis is mostly on combat, I feel that the battle system (for hunters anyway) is a little weak.

I was just hoping for something a little more imaginative and exciting in terms of battle mechanics from PSU.

[pink]

I cuncur with the above poster when it comes to the customization and photon arts. Really... the game's story even refers to inner harmony between the races (for the most part), so adding in race-dependant clothing and such would be pretty stupid considering the story itself.

- Dodgy Graphics. Although Sega say they are aware of the problem and working on a fix, there is often alot of slowdown. I got a new computer literally like 2 weeks ago - Dual Core Pentium, 2GB RAM, 512MB Graphics card... you get the idea. And Im still experiencing slow down, even with this hefty specced PC.

Just turn the Frame Skip down to 1 if you have it set to 0, and don't use 1024x768, use 800x600. Those two issues I find have the biggest effect on how smoothly the game runs... increasing my resolution causes the game to crawl on my Lappy, and setting the frame skip to 0 causes it to crawl a fair bit too. Resolution has by far the biggest impact on how smoothly the game runs, and frame skip is the second most demanding. I can barely see the difference between resolutions anyways, so do yourself a favour and turn it down a little bit. The graphics are fine, you just need to not run it at the absolute maximum.

- Dodgy Graphics Part 2. The game doesnt feel as polished and tidy as other quality Sega games I've played, let alone Sonic Team. The game appears to me as if it was designed and built originally for the PS2, then ported over to XBOX 360, and the PC... Poorly - But apparently they're looking in to fixing this. The graphics arent especially bad, but they're nothing new, and the areas I havent found to be particually impressive either - They haven't wow'ed me like the first time I visited the Central Control Area in Episode II.

Who cares? PSO has significantly worse graphics yet you still enjoy it. Games aren't about flashy graphics as long as the gameplay is fun. If graphics is all one cares about, why go for a game designed for the PS2? You saw how long it took for PSU to come out, did you honestly want to wait an extra year or two just so they could revamp all the graphical coding and textues and models just to give you more eye-candy? I know I wouldn't want to.

As for the CCA comment... the only area I could consider under-detailed was the Raffon Meadows... but it's the first area, so it doesn't really matter too much. The areas are gorgeous in their own right and realistic (that's important. ). Also... you've been playing PSO how long? A bias is bound to develop from that causing you to immediately turn your nose down at anything trying to upstage your old favourite... it's human nature.

- Poor Controls. I know you could always get a control pad, but even so - the controls for PSU are very clumsy, why the hell isn't there any mouse support!? Also when typing text on PSU, the keyboard is very slow to respond, which is also hugely annoying. I'm not sure if I like the quick weapon/item select drop menu, it's a bit too fiddly - I'm sure it just takes some getting used to.

The new menu for weapons and items is actually very very good... IF you have a gamepad... it's a bit of a nuicense since a keyboard only allows you to hold so many buttons at once. PSU cannot be fully experienced with a keyboard, it's just not meant to be. I don't like mouse controls anyways for a game like this, they're more clumsy than the keyboard. XD

One further comment about the menu... I find 6 slots to be too few for items, if there were 10 or so, I'd be satisfied... but other than that, I highly prefer the new menu over the old one since I'm much less likely to activate something I didn't want to, and when I bring up the menu I KNOW what's going to be there... on PSO it was kinda ify due to having to mess around in the menu while getting pummeled, and it was still a bit slow.

- Feel & Sound. I dunno if I'm stuck on the nostalgia of PSO, but PSU doesn't feel as polished as PSO - as if it was rushed. Some of the musical scores are nice, such as when you are selecting which planet to visit, but the music simply does not compare to PSO's awesome score. Even the menus feel as if they have had little attention.

Definitely stuck on the "nostalgia". What your probably not used to hearing is beautiful, real, orchestrated music within a Phantasy Star soundtrack, instead of the synthesized stuff you're used to from PSO. The music itself is beautiful in every right, with each planet having a "personality" of sorts for its type of musical scores. The soundtrack shows obvious effort and is one of the best soundtracks I've heard in a long, long time. It's impressed me with every area I've gone into, and quite frankly, I find it miles better than the old PSO soundtrack.

As for the menus... Sega might've went just a wee bit too far with trying to compress all the in-game menu sizes. They're slightly clumsy, but are easy to get used to after a bit of playing. If I had one more button on my gamepad it'd be perfect though. It's just that sub-menu within the Character Data menu that I don't like very much.

In summary... try and push your PSO bias aside when picking up PSU... the game's different for a reason, and it is very enjoyable if you can toss aside your old preferences and biases. I may not have experienced online play yet, but my personal opinion on it is wait a bit. Online's rather far behind offline mode, so it'll be more fun when there's more to do.

The main cons of the game... the need for a constant internet connection even to play offline, that's just stupid, and it's not going to do any good other than making people angry... second, there's not enough offline play value. I had pretty well done everything after around 50 hours of offline play... that's not good, at all... the basic story of a lot of RPGs nowadays takes 50+ hours to finish without doing very many side-quests... Sega focused a bit too much on network mode and should've added a lot more on to the story and extra modes.

EDIT:

I know you can use Photon Arts in the middle of any combo, and that they change in levels, but it's not any real advancement over PSO's system - which is fine and enjoyable in itself, but it feels outdated when used in PSU.

I was just expecting the fighting to be a little bit more complex, such as learning multiple combos and using/stringing together whichever ones you liked and found most effective. Not being limited to 1 Photon Art per weapon basically.

I wouldn't class PSU as an MMORPG, just an ORPG Hack 'n' Slash. Which means 90% of the time you are going to spend whacking things. And for a game where the emphasis is mostly on combat, I feel that the battle system (for hunters anyway) is a little weak.

I was just hoping for something a little more imaginative and exciting in terms of battle mechanics from PSU.

I don't know about you... but I'd rather not learn ridiculous button combinations just so I can dance and prance around like a lunatic waving a weapon in obscene combos. This is a Phantasy Star game... not Street Fighter with shiny weapons.

[Beat X500]

I'm not going to quote your lengthy post Junon, but all of those points I agree with. I haven't got the chance to play PSU alot online but it doesn't have the same feel that PSO had, I'm probably suffering from a hefty dose of nostalgia myself, but it just doesn't feel as fun.

The levels, are pretty bland - (Then again, the RELICS levels are pretty) Parum being the major offender in that department.

I'm kinda disappointed with both the game and the reception the games getting in wider circles.

[Junon]

I cuncur with the above poster when it comes to the customization and photon arts. Really... the game's story even refers to inner harmony between the races (for the most part), so adding in race-dependant clothing and such would be pretty stupid considering the story itself.

Just turn the Frame Skip down to 1 if you have it set to 0, and don't use 1024x768, use 800x600. Those two issues I find have the biggest effect on how smoothly the game runs... increasing my resolution causes the game to crawl on my Lappy, and setting the frame skip to 0 causes it to crawl a fair bit too. Resolution has by far the biggest impact on how smoothly the game runs, and frame skip is the second most demanding. I can barely see the difference between resolutions anyways, so do yourself a favour and turn it down a little bit. The graphics are fine, you just need to not run it at the absolute maximum.

Why shouldnt I be able to run it in maximum? I have a PC that should be able to run it in full mode - thats why I spent alot of money purchasing a powerful PC afterall. Poor programming/Port of the game is no excuse. Although I have seen the post on the official PSU Boards that they will be looking to fix this issue, so for now disregard this comment.

Who cares? PSO has significantly worse graphics yet you still enjoy it. Games aren't about flashy graphics as long as the gameplay is fun. If graphics is all one cares about, why go for a game designed for the PS2? You saw how long it took for PSU to come out, did you honestly want to wait an extra year or two just so they could revamp all the graphical coding and textues and models just to give you more eye-candy? I know I wouldn't want to.

As for the CCA comment... the only area I could consider under-detailed was the Raffon Meadows... but it's the first area, so it doesn't really matter too much. The areas are gorgeous in their own right and realistic (that's important. ). Also... you've been playing PSO how long? A bias is bound to develop from that causing you to immediately turn your nose down at anything trying to upstage your old favourite... it's human nature.

Apolgies, I have perhaps not explained my point correctly. The graphics aren't bad, infact some of it is rather nice. But I mean I was a little dissapointed with the design of the levels. In my mention of CCA in Episode II, its the amount of detail that went into it that I loved, such as the water effects, how you went from inside the jungle to the top of the huge waterfall, the lush huge open beach and the view from the mountains etc... I have yet to see something as vissualy impressive on the whole as this in PSU. But mostly so far, I havent found the gameplay to be particularly "Fun" either.

Although I will admit, there are some areas which I have not visited, but from what I have seen so far, there hasn't been a particular place which has made me go "Wow!".

Also I will admit to perhaps suffering from nostalgia, having played PSO from the Dreamcast days, I still hold PSO in high regard as an online video game. I haven't thrown in the towel for PSU yet, I am just awaiting the patch, which should hopefully address some of my concerns.

The new menu for weapons and items is actually very very good... IF you have a gamepad... it's a bit of a nuicense since a keyboard only allows you to hold so many buttons at once. PSU cannot be fully experienced with a keyboard, it's just not meant to be. I don't like mouse controls anyways for a game like this, they're more clumsy than the keyboard. XD

One further comment about the menu... I find 6 slots to be too few for items, if there were 10 or so, I'd be satisfied... but other than that, I highly prefer the new menu over the old one since I'm much less likely to activate something I didn't want to, and when I bring up the menu I KNOW what's going to be there... on PSO it was kinda ify due to having to mess around in the menu while getting pummeled, and it was still a bit slow.

After I had first played PSU for about 5 minutes, I thought "Damn, I need a Gamepad". But why release a game on PC and not take full advantage of the peripherals that are available on it, namely; the mouse! I wish you could set Mates/Moon Atomizers to number 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 etc, as with PSO:BB. I'm sure I can get used to it with time. However, I still feel that it is very un-user-friendly. I think people coming into this game will have a much harder time getting to grips with the controls, than that of people who have played PSO in the past - They should have taken this into consideration when designing the game.

Definitely stuck on the "nostalgia". What your probably not used to hearing is beautiful, real, orchestrated music within a Phantasy Star soundtrack, instead of the synthesized stuff you're used to from PSO. The music itself is beautiful in every right, with each planet having a "personality" of sorts for its type of musical scores. The soundtrack shows obvious effort and is one of the best soundtracks I've heard in a long, long time. It's impressed me with every area I've gone into, and quite frankly, I find it miles better than the old PSO soundtrack.

As for the menus... Sega might've went just a wee bit too far with trying to compress all the in-game menu sizes. They're slightly clumsy, but are easy to get used to after a bit of playing. If I had one more button on my gamepad it'd be perfect though. It's just that sub-menu within the Character Data menu that I don't like very much.

In summary... try and push your PSO bias aside when picking up PSU... the game's different for a reason, and it is very enjoyable if you can toss aside your old preferences and biases. I may not have experienced online play yet, but my personal opinion on it is wait a bit. Online's rather far behind offline mode, so it'll be more fun when there's more to do.

The main cons of the game... the need for a constant internet connection even to play offline, that's just stupid, and it's not going to do any good other than making people angry... second, there's not enough offline play value. I had pretty well done everything after around 50 hours of offline play... that's not good, at all... the basic story of a lot of RPGs nowadays takes 50+ hours to finish without doing very many side-quests... Sega focused a bit too much on network mode and should've added a lot more on to the story and extra modes.

EDIT:

I don't know about you... but I'd rather not learn ridiculous button combinations just so I can dance and prance around like a lunatic waving a weapon in obscene combos. This is a Phantasy Star game... not Street Fighter with shiny weapons.

Not as such ridiculous combinations, and something as complex as Street Fighter. But perhaps, a happy medium. Such as being able to use 3 Photon Arts Per weapon and stringing those together in succession?

I dunno, perhaps I was hoping for too much from this game...? The issues I have with the game are mostly negligible, and can most likely be fixed through patching and updates. E.G; Graphics fix, more Photon Arts and more Clothes. But why should I have to wait for it to be fixed? The game should come ready, 100% completed - not to be worked on after release.

Also, without causing offense, I dont think you are able to fully comment on the playability of the game entirely, as you have not experienced online play - the main aspect of the game.

But, as I said earlier, I will be coming back again to PSU after the patch and try to experience the game in it's absolute entirety before I decide if I am going to play it long term or not.