Phantasy Star Online

Phantasy Star Online
Phantasy Star Online Dreamcast boxart
Developer(s)	Sonic Team
Publisher(s)	Sega
Designer(s)	Yuji Naka (Producer) Takao Miyoshi (Director)
Artist(s)	Satoshi Sakai (Art Director) Akikazu Mizuno (Chartacter Illustration)
Composer(s)	Fumitaka Shibata (Sound Director) Hideaki Kobayashi Fumie Kumatani Kenichi Tokoi Tomonori Sawada (Sound Designer)
Platform(s)	Dreamcast, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo GameCube (PSO Ep I&II), Xbox (PSO Ep I&II)
Genre(s)	Action-RPG
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer

Phantasy Star Online (PSO) is an online RPG title, originally released for Dreamcast in 2000, bundled with a demo of Sonic Adventure 2. Another edition, entitled Phantasy Star Online ver.2, was released for the Dreamcast the following year. This version was also ported later on to Microsoft Windows, but was only released in Asia.

Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II was later released for Nintendo GameCube and Xbox in 2002, featuring some added content. Consequently, Phantasy Star Online Episode III C.A.R.D. Revolution was released for Nintendo GameCube in 2003 with a different gameplay formula. And in turn, Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst, a port of the Xbox version, was released for Microsoft Windows in 2004 through digital distribution, featuring both Episode I and Episode II, and adding a new Episode IV, NPCs, quests, team system and server-side saving system.

The Phantasy Star Online titles are a sub-series of Sega's Phantasy Star series of games that began in 1987. With the exception of Episode III, the PSO games themselves are simple hack and slash type role-playing games where the player slays monsters, levels up, buys new equipment, etc. The online Phantasy Stars differ from the previous games of the series by offering a real-time – rather than turn-based – approach to combat, seamlessly integrating this with exploration and plot developments.

Phantasy Star Online

Communication system

File:Pso cover.jpg

Phantasy Star Online PC boxart

Communication between players is achieved via a combination of direct 2-line text entry, Symbol Chat and Word Select. As PSO servers support international co-operative play, the Symbol Chat and Word Select features encouraged players to attempt communication with others, regardless of language.

Symbol Chat allows the player to define a collection of symbols within a speech bubble, in order to convey an emotion or simple instruction. These symbols could then be invoked via a player-defined shortcut, or accessed via an in-game menu.

Word Select acts as a limited phrasebook, allowing sentences to be constructed through a hierarchy of menus. Once complete, a sentence is automatically translated into the configured language of other nearby players, thus bridging the language gap encountered in cross-cultural multiplayer games. (Word Select was removed in Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst)

Keyboard users can also trigger a number of gestures anywhere in the game by holding down the Alt key and pressing any letter, number or function key. Holding down the Shift key at the same time allows players to perform the gestures of the opposite sex, but only while they are in the Online Lobby.

The Xbox version (Episodes I & II) also allows voice communication via Xbox Live headset.

Playable Characters

Phantasy Star online consists of 3 Jobs: Hunter, Ranger, and Force. Hunters are adept with close range weapons such as sabers, two handed swords, dual daggers, halberds, etc... and are more suited to up close and personal fights. Rangers are best with ranged combat and excel with weapons such as pistols, rifles, shotguns, and machine guns, etc... Forces are the magic class of the game and their skills range from everything from attacking and buffing to de-buffing and healing.

There are also 3 races in Phantasy Star Online, Human, Newman, and Android. Humans are balanced overall, decent attack power and technique usage. Newmans do exceptionally well with magic and are weaker physically. Androids do the most physical damage of all the races, they are also able to see hidden traps without using items and they are able to lay their own traps, however they cannot use magic at all.

Every job consists of 4 classes, they are as follows:

HUmar: A human hunter, can use some techniques. Balanced stats, no overall strengths or weaknesses.
HUnewearl: A newman hunter, most powerful techniques outside of forces. Relatively poor HP for a hunter, makes up for it with very high evasion.
HUcast: An android hunter, highest attack power in game. Very high defense and HP. Cannot use techniques, but can use traps.
HUcaseal: An android hunter, has very high evasion and good accuracy. Cannot use techniques, but can use traps.

RAmar: A human ranger, has the highest accuracy in the game. Can use some techniques.
RAmarl: RA human ranger, has the highest evasion in the game. Most powerful techniques of Ranger class.
RAcast: An android ranger, has the highest attack power out of the ranger class and highest HP in the game. Cannot use techniques, but can use traps.
RAcaseal: An android ranger, has the highest defense in the game. Cannot use techniques, but can use traps.

FOmar: A human force. Highest attack and high evasion among forces. Low accuracy and HP. Good melee force.
FOmarl: A human force, highest defense and high attack among forces. Lower mana but high HP. Excels in support techniques. Good support or melee force.
FOnewm: A newman force, strong area of effect attack techniques but poor support. High TP. Low defense and HP. Best as a "nuking" class.
FOnewearl: A newman force, highest damage potential and good support among forces. Strongest techniques and most TP. Lowest physical attack and low defense, but very high evasion. Good for both "nuking" and support.

Modes of play

The first two episodes of PSO (excluding the original Dreamcast version prior to the Ver. 2 revision disc) offered the following game modes:

• Offline Mode

This is the plot-driven part of the game, in which a player or group of players fight through a number of levels spread over four distinct areas. Each area has a boss at the end. The four areas are (in this order) the forest, the caves, the mines, and the ruins. Upon defeating the final boss (whose name is Dark Falz), the credits roll and in some cases, an extra feature will be unlocked (eg. The next difficulty mode).

In addition to the main story, players can also take Hunter's Guild sidequests, which explores the lives of Pioneer 2's citizens, and further delve into the backstory behind the game. The rewards for these sidequests include a payment of Meseta for the job, the chance to explore the stories behind Pioneer 2's NPC residents, the opportunity to obtain special weapons that can't be found anywhere else (such as the Soul Eater or God Hand), and of course, whatever weapons, experience, and Meseta you can get while fighting on these missions.

In Phantasy Star Online, normal mode is available to play at four different difficulty levels. Normal is available from the start, while Hard, Very Hard and Ultimate become available once the final boss of the ruins has been defeated on the previous difficulty. Ultimate mode however was not included in the Version 1 release of PSO on the Dreamcast.

• Online Mode

For Online play, instead of having the final boss be defeated in order to select a higher difficulty, there is a specific minimum experience level required to join or create a game. (eg. Players may not join or create an Ultimate game unless they have already attained Level 80) For Blue Burst, level requirements are set not only by difficulty, but by episode as well.

In Blue Burst, the games main story is broken down into separate missions, accessed via a special desk in The Principals Office or Lab. Each area of the game is divided into 3 or 4 missions that must be completed to progress the story. Items such as weapons and techniques are awarded after certain missions are completed. Other players are able to join the mission at any time, even if the mission is in progress or finished. (Though there are some cases where this is not possible.) The final mission in each area is a standard run through the area's levels to the boss battle, essentially 'clearing' the area and unlocking the next one (in the same style as previous incarnations of PSO).

• Challenge Mode

Challenge mode sets all participants to a set level with set equipment at the beginning of each mission (lasting only until the end of the mission), and requires the team to reach a predefined goal in a series of specially-designed levels that are modified versions of areas seen in Normal mode. The aim is to complete the missions in the shortest time possible. New level objects can include laser barriers, buttons, and so on, and sometimes strategically placed enemies/types of enemies. If anyone on the team dies, then the challenge is immediately terminated and the team is returned to the Hunter's Guild, so teamwork is essential if the levels are to be completed successfully. Everyone starts with a 'Scape Doll' revival item in their inventory, enabling them to die once without consequence (the harder the stage, the more scape dolls you get). Once all stages have been completed, players are given a rank based on their total time, with "S rank" being the best. If they achieve this in online mode, players are awarded rare weapons which can be customized with an 8-letter name which precedes the weapon's type ("*CHOSEN NAME*SABER", "*CHOSEN NAME*CLAW", et cetera). In offline Challenge Mode, unique rare weapons are awarded instead that have a pre-determined name just like regular rare items. Challenge Mode is available for Episodes 1 and 2.

• Battle Mode

This is a deathmatch mode. In this mode, players are permitted to attack each other. A team may play while being able to attack allies (as well as monsters) to create their rules, or they may play one of several predefined sets of battle rules.

• 1 Player Mode

Exclusive to Blue Burst, this mode essentially allows Blue Burst players to play the offline mode online, complete with Episode I & II's side story quests (Blue Burst lacks a true offline mode). As of July 27, 2006 there are two official 1-player quests available for the Blue Burst-exclusive Episode 4; "Black Paper's Deal" (requires the 'Photon Crystal' item to complete) and "Pioneer Spirit".

Offline vs. Online play

Some versions of Phantasy Star Online can only be played online (such as the Blue Burst version). Other versions can be played offline also (Gamecube, PC, and Dreamcast). The X-Box version can only be played via X-Box live.

Cheating

Unlike many online RPG games, all versions of PSO before PSO Blue Burst store the player's character, inventory and other information locally on a memory card or similar storage device instead of on a server controlled by the game studio. This method of saving was required in the Dreamcast release of the game, due to the limitations of data transfer with 33.6 and 56k modems available for the console, and to allow off-line play. This makes the player data more easily accessible to hackers, and as a result, cheating is much easier in PSO than it is in many other forms of online RPGs, such as MMORPGs.

Phantasy Star Online ver.2

File:Phantasy Star Online Ver.2.PNG

Phantasy Star Online ver.2 Dreamcast boxart

Phantasy Star Online ver.2 is a video game that was released for the Sega Dreamcast and PC on 6 July 2001 in Japan, on 24 September 2001 in North America and on 1 March 2002 in Europe. This game was intended to be released as a patch for the initial Sega Dreamcast release, Phantasy Star Online.

Online capability

Phantasy Star Online ver.2 allowed users to connect to the internet via SegaNet and on either an OEM 56k modem or the BBA (Broadband Adapter). When the SegaNet servers were terminated in June 2003, all SegaNet subscribers/PSO users were stripped of their medium to Phantasy Star Online, however within the game itself (via the WEBSITE menu) was the ability to setup a separate method of connecting to the servers. This allowed PSO players to continue playing in spite of SegaNet's closure.

Contrast

The second version of Phantasy Star Online functions as either an expansion, or a stand-alone game for the Sega Dreamcast.

In contrast to the first release, ver.2 offers many new features:

• The maximum character level was increased from 100 to 200.
• An online battle mode with several different rule variations was added.
• A challenge mode was added, requiring players to work together as a team to solve each area. If the player finished all nine stages under a certain time limit, they were given the opportunity to choose a weapon and name it.
• An "Ultimate" difficulty was added with considerably stronger monsters than the previous three.
• The addition of many new weapons with considerably higher stats in contrast to their Ver.1 counterparts. It was very difficult to do substantial damage to Ultimate level monsters with the older weapons online.

Server Termination

The US servers were terminated in 2003 while the European and Japanese servers continued. Later, SoJ told existing users that the game would soon be free to play. In order to play for free however, you needed to change the default DNS information with the game's built in web browser. However, after a few months after this announcement, SoJ announced that they would be terminating their servers for all consoles on April 1 2007. However, the termination didn't go as planned, as the server switched from offline then back online a few times before finally being taken offline permanently.

Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II

Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II is a video game released for the Nintendo GameCube and Xbox in 2002. An online hack and slash RPG, its focus is online gameplay rather than storyline. Offline mode is also available, for single player and multiplayer. Multiplayer split-screen mode can be played with up to 4-players, though the framerate and visibility range is much lower than offline single-player and online modes. Playing online on Xbox requires an active Xbox Live Silver account. Check Phantasy Star Online on "See also" for more details.

As of April 1, 2007, the online servers for the GameCube release of Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II have officially been shut down.

As of April 22, 2008, the online servers for the Xbox release of Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II have officially been shut down.

Changes

Aside from the new areas, there were many changes made from this game's Dreamcast iterations.

• Three new character classes were added.
• Several aspects of the game such as weapons, armor, and enemy stats were significantly re-balanced.
• The amount of experience points needed from levels 1 to 200 was significantly reduced.
• Classes outside Force cannot use Reverser, Grants, and Megid unlike the Dreamcast version.
• Hunters and Rangers technique disk capacity was ranged from LV 1 - 15. This was modified to LV 1 - 20 in the gamecube version.
• Several "Special Weapon" items had a remarkably low chance of appearing in the the Dreamcast edition. Drop Rates have now been significantly lowered.

Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Plus

Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Plus is a video game released for the Nintendo GameCube on November 27 2003 in Japan and on September 15 2004 in North America. An online hack and slash RPG, its focus is online gameplay rather than storyline. Offline mode is also available, for single player and multiplayer. Multiplayer split-screen mode can be played with up to 4-players, though the framerate and visibility range is much lower than offline single-player and online modes. Check Phantasy Star Online on "See also" for more details.

Improvements and additions not in the Dreamcast and PC versions of Phantasy Star Online

This installment of PSO features an entirely new episode that includes 5 new regions to explore: Temple, Spaceship, Central Control Area (consisting of the Control Area, Jungle, Seaside and Mountain), Seabed, and Control Tower (Control Tower is available in Online mode and in the offline Episode II Plus version quests). This installment also adds 3 new character class/race combinations, many new items, many new creatures, and some added cheat protection (however, cheats and glitches were still found and exploited, rarely being addressed by Sonic Team). You can also play online with the Gamecube if you have a broadband adapter or modem adapter. Data between the previous Gamecube version and the Plus version is completely (and instantly) transferable.

Differences Between Phantasy Star Online I & II and the Plus Version

Early in the effort to run unsigned code on the GameCube, people found that when playing PSO and connecting to a server using the GameCube Broadband Adapter, a regular PC could emulate a server, thus fooling the game. After making the connection, data could be streamed back to the GameCube. Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Plus was released to fix this problem. The other incentive to getting this version was the inclusion of exclusive content in the disc, while beforehand this data was only in a downloadable form. Also, the East Tower and West Tower quests for Episode II were added in the Plus version with offline capability. In the previous version, these quests were only available online.

• Additions to Phantasy Star Online Episode 1 and 2 Plus

1. 'Central Dome Fire Swirl' is available offline in Episode 1

2. The GBA downloads in 'The Fake in Yellow' in Episode 1 are now available offline

3. 'Seat of the Heart', 'East Tower' and 'West Tower' are available offline in Episode 2.

4. The Episode 2 Challenge Mode is now available offline. Users who have the original release of Episode 1 and 2 can only play Episode 2 Challenge Mode while online.

Plot Synopsis

• Backstory

Endless warring on the homeworld of Coral is so devastating to the environment, it becomes uninhabitable. The Alliance of Nations bands together to plan a mass exodus to another planet, eventually deciding on Ragol. They then construct and launch the first of the colonization vessels, Pioneer 1. Hearing favorable results, they follow it with a second vessel, Pioneer 2. When Pioneer 2 arrives, however, they see an enormous explosion on Ragol's surface and find that the colony's entire population has apparently vanished.

• Episode 1

When the citizens on Pioneer 2 observes the explosion on Ragol, the Principle sends down a team of Hunters - the player characters - to the surface to investigate what happened. The investigation takes them through a forest, a cave, an automated mining complex, and the ruins of an ancient, living spaceship. Along the way, the hunters encounter increasingly mutated animals, seemingly possessed machines, and other various enemies while following the story of Red Ring Rico, a hunter from Pioneer 1 that had followed the same path previously and left various messages of advice. Rico had found the source of the monsters that had destroyed the colony on Ragol, only to be devoured by Dark Falz, a godlike entity which the players defeat in the final battle of the episode, which was the end of the game's single-player mode in the original Dreamcast version.

• Episode 2

Episode 2 takes place after the ancient spaceship is discovered. The Chief of the Government Lab of Pioneer 2 asks the hunters to go down to Ragol and investigate a secret Laboratory that had recently been discovered on Gal Da Val island. Before leaving on the mission, however, the player characters are required to complete a pair of training simulations. The first simulates a maze of ruins, the second a space station, and both stages feature enemies based on those seen in episode 1.

Once the training is complete, the hunters are sent to the planet's surface with the task of finding the security terminals that grant access to the facility. The search is broken up into three stages: a seaside region, a mountain region, and a jungle region, in no particular order. Along the way, the hunters come across a number of data terminals, which contain details about the new enemy creatures that they are fighting as well as several entries by Heathcliff Flowen. A military commander from the Pioneer 1 colony, Heathcliff was injured while fighting alongside Rico and had apparently become infected by the life form that had turned the local wildlife into monsters. Believing himself to be dying, he admitted his body to the custody of one Dr. Osto for research purposes.

Having deactivated the security terminals, the hunters finally manage to get inside and begin investigating the facility, which is home to its own automated security system as well as a new set of monsters. The investigation turns up more of Heathcliff's entries, including more details on the events that led to the colony's destruction. Rather than warning anybody about the hazard the life form posed, Dr. Osto used samples from Heathcliff's wound to create mutant creatures and other biological weapons, eventually merging Heathcliff's body with an artificial intelligence and allowing it to be consumed by the wound. The result became Olga Flow, the final monster encountered in the game.

Phantasy Star Online Episode III

Main article: Phantasy Star Online Episode III C.A.R.D. Revolution

Phantasy Star Online Episode IV

Episode IV was exclusively designed for PSO: Blue Burst, only available on the Windows operating system. Episode IV features brand new enemies, maps, and items, in addition to those included with previous episodes. The new maps include Crater Routes, Crater Interior, and Subterranean Desert. Like other Blue Burst episodes, the normal mode has a series of plot-driven missions to work through, as well as some exclusive Hunter's Guild quests.

Episode IV is notable for being slightly less difficult than the other chapters of Phantasy Star Online. This is due to the addition of new, easily obtainable weapons and items that drastically boost the player's performance. However the new monster AI and attack patterns made the game more difficult for those who were new to Episode IV.

Version list

Version	Platform	Release Date
Phantasy Star Online Network Trial Edition	Sega Dreamcast	Q3 2000 (Japan)
Phantasy Star Online	Sega Dreamcast	21 November 2000 (Japan) 29 January 2001 (North America) 23 February 2001 (Europe)
Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2	Sega Dreamcast	6 June 2001 (Japan) 24 September 2001 (North America) 1 March 2002 (Europe)
Phantasy Star Online Beta	Microsoft Windows	Q4 2001 (Japan)
Phantasy Star Online	Microsoft Windows	20 December 2001 (Japan) 2002 (Asia)
Phantasy Star Online Demo	Microsoft Windows	20 December 2001 (Japan) January 2002 (UK)1
Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Trial Edition	Nintendo GameCube	May 2002 (Japan)
Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II (ver 1.0)	Nintendo GameCube	12 September 2002 (Japan)2
Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II (ver 1.1)	Nintendo GameCube	29 October 2002 (North America) November 2002 (Japan)2 7 March 2003 (Europe) 14 March 2003 (Sweden)
Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II	Microsoft Xbox	Q1 2003 (Japan) 15 April 2003 (North America) 23 May 2003 (Europe)
Phantasy Star Online Episode III C.A.R.D. Revolution Trial Edition	Nintendo GameCube	June 24 2003 (Japan)
Phantasy Star Online Episode III C.A.R.D. Revolution	Nintendo GameCube	27 November 2003 (Japan) 2 March 2004 (North America) 18 June 2004 (Europe) 3
Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Plus	Nintendo GameCube	27 November 2003 (Japan) 15 September 2004 (North America)
Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst Beta	Microsoft Windows	21 May 2003 (Japan) 10 May 2004 (North America/Europe)
Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst	Microsoft Windows	15 July 2004 (Japan) 23 June 2005 (North America/Europe)
Phantasy Star Online: Episode IV Beta 4	Microsoft Windows	November 2004 (Japan)
Phantasy Star Online: Episode IV 4	Microsoft Windows	Q1 2005 (Japan)

¹ Demo included on January Issue of PC Gamer (UK)

² Contained a serious item duplication bug, fixed in ver 1.1 in Japan, and discovered before the North American and European versions were mastered. Owners of the older version have been able to ask Sonic Team to send them the updated version since 2002-11-25. [1]

³ The GAME retail group had an exclusive deal, allowing them to distribute the game starting June 11, 2004 in the United Kingdom. In other European countries it was released on a different date, and eventually worldwide.

⁴ Episode IV expansion pack included with the North American and European versions of Blue Burst

Server shutdown dates

• Phantasy Star Online Ver. 1 and 2 (US) - 31 October 2003
• Phantasy Star Online Episode III C.A.R.D. Revolution Trial Edition - 15 September 2003
• Phantasy Star Online/Phantasy Star Online ver. 2 (North America) - 1 October 2003
• Phantasy Star Online (Microsoft Windows) - January 2004
• Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II ver. 1.0 - 26 March 2004 [2]
• Phantasy Star Online Ver. 1 and 2 (PAL & JP) - 2 April 2007[3][4]
• Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II (GC Ver. 1.1 and Plus Version) and Phantasy Star Online Episode III C.A.R.D. Revolution - 1 April 2007 [5][6][7]
• Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst (US) - 31 March 2008
• Phantasy Star Online (Xbox JP) - 31 January 2008
• Phantasy Star Online (Xbox US) - 22 April 2008 12am PST

• Presumably the official servers for the Dreamcast version of Phantasy Star Online were to be shut down when the servers were officially closed. However, the Dreamcast servers were still accepting connections, except the connections would be dropped after some period of inactivity. Those servers were shut down on April 1, 2007, no longer accepting any connection, the same time the servers for the Gamecube version was shut down.

• SEGA has terminated support for the Japanese Xbox version of Phantasy Star Online Episode I&II on January 31, 2008. This had no effect the European PAL or North American versions of the game, which were terminated on April 22, 2008. [8]

• Despite an announcement of an April 30 closure for the Xbox servers, Sega and Microsoft did not honor the date. The servers were not re-activated after Xbox Live maintenance on April 22. The result of this was that the Xbox players did not receive the promised last week of PSO online service.

Free Month

A couple of months before the Gamecube servers were shut down, Sega had announced that they will host a "free month," which would allow all users to log in, and play for free to enjoy the last month of activity.

The specifics involved that you would not be allowed to pay for, or create a new account on their servers after January 29. Paying on the 29th allowed one to play during the month of February.

Nearing the free month, users started to notice that the free month would be only available to those who had already paid for the month of February, requiring one to pay for one month in order to get the "free month" for free. In this frustration users found a method to crash anyone logging into the servers, which would potentially corrupt any saved data. Users were urged to not go online by many fan sites to lessen the hardware problems users would obtain when going online. The cause was resolved to be a "crash bot," which was patched later on in the free month, running on Sega of Japan's login server. The method was later leaked after the SEGA servers went down. It involves simply sending a piece of data, known to cause a crash, while logging in. For some unknown reason, the servers allowed communication of clients during the log-in phase, which resulted in all clients logging in to be affected by this piece of data. That reasoning behind the attack had caused a small uproar, leaving users wondering what kind of server allows unmonitored communication at a critical phase when logging in.

Server Rebirth

After the official servers were shut down by SEGA, some un-official servers were opened. Multiple versions of the game are supported as well as most platforms. Since private servers are centralized, every version of Phantasy Star Online can connect to the same lobby with some interoperability disabled. This is a joy to fans of the series and also allows people who never had a chance to play any of the version online to experience PSO the way it was meant.

As of late July 2008, Sega removed the Hunter's License (HL) server from the internet. As a result of this, it is not currently possible to play Dreamcast versions other than NTSC/U v1, PAL v1 and PAL v2 online other than by using Action Replay codes to bypass the Hunter's License check. The Gamecube, Xbox and PC versions are unaffected by the removal of the server.

External links

• Official Phantasy Star Online Homepage
• Official Phantasy Star Online Episode III Website
• Official Japanese Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst website
• Official Phantasy Star Universe Website
• Sonic Team Website
• SEGA of Japan Website
• Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II at MobyGames
• Phantasy Star Cave Complete Phantasy Star fan site with guides and a wide community.