Console MMORPG Review: Phantasy Star Universe

A second look at the Phantasy Star Universe Console MMORPG

If you're looking for the next World of Warcraft breaker game, this definately wont be it. What Phantasy Star Universe DOES give you though is a decent offline story, but a grind-fest for online play.

Offline mode is where most people who are starving for another RPG besides Oblivion for the 360 will want to look. I personally didn't finish the story but got about 30 hours into it. The characters in the story are paper thin, but give you an accurate portrayal of how the online mode universe will be when you head into it. The combat system is exactly the same offline as it is online. Attack move, attack again till death, clear the area of mobs, get the key for the door, move to the next area. Your teammates AI is pretty decent, and provides adequate cover in areas. Sometimes they get swamped and killed really quickly, but this can be taken care of with a raise spell. The mobs are dreadfully slow and are easy to run from, so don't fret about being overwhelmed unless you back yourself into a corner.

Online mode is exactly like Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst. You pick a mission to do, you go into an instance to fight the mobs, and when you're done, you collect your money and sell your items. What do you do after that? You go right back in and do another one. Rinse and repeat until your at the max level of 200.

In online mode, you will run into single instance over and over to finish a different objective. You CANNOT go in and finish multiple objectives, only the ones on the conditions set. This got really boring, as I would walk into an area I just cleared just to clear it again, and maybe go to the second or third level of the map, which looks exactly the same as the first level, only with more mobs to kill. After doing this repetitive motion for 30+ hours in offline mode, I wasn't willing to build up another character online in the same way.

Whats worse is in order to play online, you have to pay 10 dollars up front. You don't get a 30 day trial period to see if you like it. Thankfully Microsoft has a demo version of the online mode you can play for free, and I tried my online mode that way.

The community I saw in the online version was very limited. You had a few characters that were high level but weren't responding to tells for help, and those around my level had a serious issue with not using their xbox communicator to speak. I don't know what it is with people playing online MMOs and not wanting to use mics to talk, but would rather type.

This game is rapidly dropping in price, so if you feel you need an offline RPG to tide you over till Fable or another Oblivion expansion, this may be worth picking up for 30 bucks. If you're looking for an online game that will knock your socks off and replace online giants like World of Warcraft or Guild Wars, I encourage you to play the free online demo version of this game on xbox live before you buy. This is a change of pace though if you're used to playing other MMOs, and I can say I semi-enjoyed the experience and simplicity of gameplay. It never held my attention though beyond a few weeks though.
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Source / Author / Credit: Anonymous