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Post by Xeogred on May 6, 2024 14:44:18 GMT -5
Crazy thing is I put like 90 hours into it purely offline on the GC. That said probably over half of that was co-op split screen with a buddy. So I was somewhat playing it the more intended way. The game led to some heated arguments at times, due to the loot/drops... especially from bosses. Kids nowadays with modern games have it easy with loot games dropping unique sets of drops pure player, so it's "fair" to all. In PSO if that boss dropped ONE cool Darth Maul styled double sided lightsaber... who gets it? lol.
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Post by toei on May 6, 2024 19:59:11 GMT -5
I was thinking the best thing would be to split duties, have a mostly dedicated gunner and a sword user, a big magic user, etc. so it's easier to split the loot. That works great in the missions when a gun user accompanies you - they soften the enemies up before you make contact, then you slaughter them quickly. In single-player, I found that regular swords were only useful against bosses, because in the later dungeons enemies would swarm you and beating them would take forever. The only thing that made sense was the long weapons that hit groups of enemies at once, like the Partisans and Halberds, plus some attack magic. I always like to imagine how efficient you could be in co-op games with a bit of strategy, but in practice everyone ends up doing whatever they want and it's pretty chaotic.
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Post by Ex on May 6, 2024 20:20:33 GMT -5
So I went back and finished my offline playthrough of Phantasy Star Online because I wanted something mindless. Mindless is a good way to describe that game. I've tried to get into three times, never sticks. Once was solo on the Xbox version, then co-op GameCube version, then solo GameCube version. The game design is extremely repetitive, with tedious retreading of previously explored areas over and over, grinding the same enemies ad nauseam, barely any plot, boring NPCs. I understand how that works for an online game (of its time) but offline solo I need more meat than that. I can see how it'd be a good game if you were watching a TV show at the same time, or listening to audio streaming stuff. I guess this type of game design can be meditative to some players too. I'm not entirely shitting all over the Online branch of Phantasy Star, because I did beat Phantasy Star Ø back in 2020. That took about 12 hours offline solo, I rated it a 6/10. Anyway many people love the original PSO, but I think there are better "mindless hack and slash" grinders out there for sure.
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Post by toei on May 6, 2024 20:34:52 GMT -5
I'm going to try Phantasy Star Portable on the PSP, which was created as an offline game from the start (had limited multiplayer but no full-on online mode) and is praised by some fans as "what Phantasy Star Universe should have been". Universe being the most widely disliked of the bunch. Apparently the best of the non-OG PS series might be PSP 2 Infinity, which has a fan-translation, and also a more elaborate single-player story mode than PSO.
From what I've seen so far (just one introductory mission), it does improve the gameplay a bit. You can wield a one-handed sword and a gun at the same time, which makes the action more versatile. There's a quick menu to switch weapons too (if you need to go to a big two-handed weapon or something). And I'm guessing/hoping it won't be as repetitive in terms of the locations (that was a big problem with PSO as you mentioned, retreading the same four dungeons again and again). The story does seem more involved, but it's going to be PSP RPG pap, I'm fairly sure.
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Post by Sarge on May 6, 2024 21:54:04 GMT -5
PSO is basically Diablo in a sci-fi/console setting. For folks that love that kind of grind, it's great.
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Post by Ex on May 7, 2024 9:48:09 GMT -5
Agreed that PSO is reminiscent of Diablo, yet PSO manages to be even more tedious and repetitive. Also, I realized this morning, I've given PSO FOUR tries, the fourth was via the PC version of Blue Burst not long ago. That iteration didn't hook me either. Well toei you may be onto something with Phantasy Star Portable as better for solo gaming, considering it was designed for offline play first and foremost. If it ends up being a winner, I'd be willing to give it a chance. The game in this series I'm most interested in however, is Phantasy Star Online Episode III: C.A.R.D. Revolution. I still have my GameCube copy of it, never booted to this day yet, though.
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Post by toei on May 7, 2024 9:54:19 GMT -5
That's the one I'd never play, personally. Being a card battle game and all.
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Post by Sarge on May 15, 2024 17:40:11 GMT -5
I beat The Peace Keepers. Failed my first run, but picked it back up last night again and ripped through without much issue. You learn a lot of tricks along the way, and I also stuck with the girl, Echo, because, well, she's the fastest character and doing heavy damage in this game primarily comes down to throws. There's a lot of beat-'em-ups that are like that, of course, but with the wonky hit detection for basic combos and how easily you can get knocked out of said combos, it's safer to engage with grabs. Three hits while holding then toss. Unless you grab from behind, then all you can do is throw.
There are aspects that I like here - the game actually looks quite nice, and I really like the idea of branching paths. It's something not enough brawlers do. And while I wouldn't call the combat all that competent, it's not the absolute bottom of the barrel...
...at least if you're sticking to said throws. There's a lot of other moves you can pull of varying utility, and it really does depend on who you're using. Echo has a very good dashing attack as well that hits multiple times for decent-ish damage, and can be good for finishing/crowd control. I don't actually know how to break out of some throws, though, which is unfortunate. Also, the last boss will force you to use your defend button, something you might not even touch through your playthrough until then, ha. But the bread-and-butter combos feel bad. It's really, really unfortunate.
In a positive (or negative, or both?), the game is just weird. Something with biological experiments, and there's this sort of discordant art style with character portraits using basically digitized human faces, the main antagonist Iago constantly spouting Shakespeare at you... I don't know how the Japanese version handled it, but man, the game is odd. And so is the music at times - sometimes it sounds pretty decent, others are just... what.
Seriously, why did they do this? This is apparently just one track in the Japanese version, and they use it a lot in the US version. And it's terrible. (I don't think the time stamps worked, it's the "High Tech Lab" song.)
Anyway, I'm gonna wrap this up with a score - I'd say this is a 5.5/10. I'm giving it slightly more than I would just because it looks nice and it's not completely broken. But I wouldn't really much recommend it over much better games on the system.
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Post by Xeogred on May 15, 2024 17:49:40 GMT -5
Yes, that High Tech Lab sucks and is used so much.
You ought to give the Japanese version a run like I did a week or two back. Did you not unlock Norton? He's Guy levels fast and trumps Echo in that way, but I can't remember if he's a given unlock in the USA original or not. After a few levels in the JP one though he joins the party... or perhaps I just got lucky going through a certain path. As a kid I would always put in the menu password to unlock him at the start. He's my favorite by far.
My favorite route is the one that leads to a long stretch of caves and some feudal Japan-like areas with the ninjas. Finally some more enemy variety. Sakura Garden and Yamaoka's Dojo tracks play a lot in those areas and are in the USA version, I'm almost inclined to believe the localization dumbos who ordered so much to be changed, maybe never discovered those routes. So they were safe. LOL. Who knows. The JP version is a breeze to blast through, worth a run if you want a little more and can maybe change up the route you take. The full JP OST is pretty dang solid honestly.
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Post by toei on May 15, 2024 18:05:15 GMT -5
After Phantasy Star Portable, I was curious about Phantasy Star Universe, but was wary of how poorly-received it was. I thought the expansion, Ambition of the Illuminus, would be a good point of entry, being that its offline story mode is said to be less than half the length. Because it was released as a stand-alone on PS2 and PC, I looked at it as a real, full-fledged game. Maybe I was wrong. As it appeared very similar to PSP at first, I expected 10 more hours of that good stuff or so. Not so. Here's why:
-This game is all talk. In PSP, conversations take place before Story Missions, and right after; once the action starts, it rarely gets interrupted. In Ambition is never stops yapping, and it always seems to be about nothing. Endless variations of the same two conversations, etc. Just atrocious repetitive filler writing, stretching what little happens incredibly thin. And then it turns out that it doesn't tell a complete story at all. At the end you just have 5 minutes to beat the same weak boss three times, and he's just a robot clone of the real guy. Bad dramatic scene, dogshit vocal song in English, the end. No wonder nothing happens; they were saving it for some future episode. There's an online-only Episode 3. I wonder if it resolves anything? And if so, why even have half the story available as the offline story mode rather than the whole thing? I guess they were planning to continue releasing new episodes online through the years, maybe?
-Fighting is only about half the action now. This game has "trials", many of which revolve around these special googles that let you see hidden traps. So for example, there'll be a timer going on, and you have 15 minutes to rescue 6 people from among the rubble. So you run around, then put on the goggles to examine the each pile of rubble. If a little light appear, you have to target it manually (which is finickier than it should be), then you remove the goggles, and trigger the trap by shooting at it or whatever, then maybe you found one of the 6 trapped people. All those parts suck. Just when that stuff calms down and you start to see more action later on - there's a mission where you have to beat 300 monsters, and it's a blast - you get the absolute worst thing I've put up with in a video game in years, an atrocious maze of switches and one-way doors in which I had to chase some dumb little boy in endless loops for a full hour until I found the solution against all logic. Fuck that part sucked.
-The enemies are too easy. Most of them die in two hits, even though the basic combo is 3 hits. Proper bosses are too rare, and go down extremely fast anyway.
-I ended up getting used to it, but load times. PSP had none, this game has to stop and load all the time for seemingly nothing.
About the only thing the game has going for it is that the combat engine is still fun. There are two missions I really enjoyed, where it just lets you fight a lot. Those are genuinely good. But everything else is so trash. And man is the writing hot garbage. There's nothing worse to me than this kind of filler. I prefer clichés, incoherent nonsense, all of it. It's also full of "emergency" situations where people make sure to stop and talk about events for no reason instead of actually doing something. "Who do you think is behind this terrorist attack? Is it the Illuminus?" is a question that is asked dozens of times in the game, even though it's them 100% of the time. Literally who else could it be? There are no other terrorists in the game. The fuck? Why are we standing around discussing this again when we have 5 minutes before the explosion or whatever? Just atrocious scripting and event direction.
I'm giving this a 4/10. It seemed to be picking up later on, but then it completely fumbled the endgame. There is no reason to play this, just go straight to Portable.
Also that time on HLTB is BS, it took me 13 hours and not 10.
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